If you were forced to choose between the ATI 3850 Vs. Nvidia 8800 GT

The 8800GT is far better than the 3850 and costs a lot more, so you can't compare them.

The 8800GT only cost $30 more. I would spend it on that.

I would say the 256Mb 8800GT, because it's just the better card. However, I just bought a 3850 for my dad's B-day because I didn't want to go over $200. If it was my comp, I would pay the extra change.

I picked Nvidia for a few reasons:
A. better card
B. I like Nvidia better
C. It gives the AMD/ATi fanbois a hemorrage.

If going between those two 256MB cards, I'd take the $160 HD3850 from bestbuy. I don't like the way the 256MB GT gets destroyed by the 512MB version so far in what we have seen. I wouldn't spend over $200 on a 256MB card anymore.

And when is Tom going to put the 8800 gt 256 in their VGA charts?

the 8800 GT and 38x0 series are coming very soon!

As for driver problems, haven't seen anything of note in years except some vista stuff. Both Nvidia and Ati have their quirks but no show stoppers in XP.

As for which one I'd pick... if it was the same price, the 8800 GT of course. At the prices they are, either is fine...

What games at what settings? And what is the rest of your system?

Arrgh the VGA charts won't come up!

And I meant the 8800 gt 256

3870 if you're going for crossfire...8800gt if you want only a single GPU.

But Drivers DO drive cars... don't they?

Seriously... Ati drivers are fine. So are Nvidias. They both have a few quirks, but they're both pretty solid.

For even dollars and even performance, stick with nVidia. ATI is not worth the headache. ATI needs a minimum 50% performance value jump before it is even worth considering. Too much effort to beta test and stabilize their lousy stuff. For writing this I'm sure ATI is gonna punish me anytime now, my x1950 pro is gonna blue screen the system with another of those ATI2Vxx.dll blow ups. Damn $hit ATI and CCC (Can't Control Crap) that eats up all sort of memory.

Where exactly does everybody get all of their information these days? About the only review I can find showcasing the 256MB (because that is what the OP is talking about people) is the legitreview someone linked to above. The only game where the 3850 gets beaten squarely by the 256 8800GT is Bioshock. All other games, the 3850 wins more than it loses to the 256 8800GT.

The 3850 and the 256 8800GT trade blows but I still see the 3850 winning overall due to it's lower price/performance at this time.

Both ATI and nVidia have their share of driver issues.

I am going to be gaming at 1680x1050 with 4xAA and 8xAF. It looks like the 3850 is better than the 8800 gt 256 at higher res?

You ATi haters are funny! I have never had an issue with either company but I do prefer ATi cards... mainly because I love Ati Tray Tools, Riva Tuner is good, but not as good.

Thanks for the Firing Squad link. Looks like the 3850 is the better bang for buck card!

Even though your max refresh rate is 60, try to see if you can find a review with minimum fps, because if the average is 50fps but it's because one card is 200fps one moment and then 10fps the next you want to make sure the minimum fps is the highest on whichever one you get.

Well my price range is 150-200 bones max. So im having a nervous breakdown trying to choose between the 3850 n 8800 256.

3850 w/ 512mb is your perfect card! Unless you can find a great deal on a 8800GT of course.

The choice for me is the 8800. I have the 512MB version of the gt and i have been blown away. Replacing my 7800gtx 256mb, my 3dmark06 score went from 2600 to 11400 with just the addition of the 8800. The fps in every game I play AT LEAST doubled. Went from about 25-30 fps in DiRT to 45-60 fps on average on it with every thing maxed. UT3 went from dipping as low as 20 or so fps to literally being pegged at 60fps for most of the time. In warfare online, it may dip into the 40s briefly. Insane.

All i'm trying to say is: if we are talking about cards in the 170-200 dollar range. I have to strongly suggest sacrifice some extra cash and getting the 512mb card. I have never seen more bang for your buck than this.

And kudos to nvidia for actually focusing on making the cards more efficient before making them faster for once. Things were getting out of hand. The 2900xt pulls 374 watts according to the recent 8800 article. egad. The 8800gt pulls only 227 or (something like that), and bests the ati card. That's nice. I can probably go SLI soon and not break my PSU or wallet.

I have a 3870. It is closer to the 8800GT than the 3850. It is still slightly slower, but i love the image quality and i am still getting 60-80FPS on COD4 with high settings.

I replaced an older nvidia. The ATI drivers and CCC are a bit harder to get optimized, but as a whole ATI dirvers/CCC and the 3870 work great.

what is with all of this 512MB talk? the original post was on the 256MB version. all this babble of 'just spend more on the 512MB version, why spend money on the 256MB version' is retarded, that wasnt the original question.

and to contribute to the OP, I would get the 8800gt cause it has the 512MB version that pwns everything else so the 256MB is a bad choice anyway cause for 30$ you can just buy the 512MB version and have a card that is so much better than the 256MB version of either model.

/sarcasm

8800GT

To the OP

Aren't there any 3850 512mb cards avaialble. There is in the UK. The price difference translates to about $20 over the standard 256mb cards. Also all the 3850 512mb cards have overclocked cores and memory and better cooling. Infact there performance is just below that of a 3870.

Looking at the reviews one of those cards would easily beat a stock 8800gt 256mb.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews [...] me/20.html

The X3850 beats the 8800GT 256, according to Anandtech:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/sho [...] i=3175&p=8

The 8800GT 512 beats the X3870 overall, but not by all that much. The 8800GT 512's and X3870's have availability problems right now. If I were buying today, I'd go X3850 over a 256 meg 8800GT card. As is, I'll wait till February and try to snag a one gig X3870 for my next build.

If it turns out by February that I can't get any version of the X3870, then I'll go for a 512 meg version of the X3850. That's worth an extra $20 from Newegg. Can't wait to see the one gig version of the X3870 that's been promised.