9600GT vs. HD3870: Which to get?

In many reviews, the 9600GT beats the HD3870 in most tests, so naturally the 9600GT is the better deal. With the price being so close, is there any reason to go with the HD3870?

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardwar [...] /page5.asp

I only see 2 games that the HD3870 significantly wins.

Dunno about the better HD-playback but according to [H], the 9600GT runs cooler than the HD3870 and the 8800GT thanks to the new bigger fan: http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/arti [...] VzaWFzdA==

The 9600GT also takes up less power, a tad less than the HD3850.

Can you show me a link containing info on the 3870 having better HD-playback?

http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/0 [...] age17.html

And I say whichever is cheaper get it.
AMD DID drop the costs of its 38xx series.

Also, the 38xx series does handle HDTV and video type work a lot better from what I've seen, especially dealing with overscan issues and scaling resolutions.

true, toms review of 9600GT shows that it is behind the 3875 without filters. n beats, or lose with small margin with AA.

n with the prices cut of 3870. it is the perfect thing to get. specially if u wanna go crossfire.

They are close, and we all know that the ATI produces better images then NVIDIA period. Nvidias drivers tweak a few extra fake frames for numbers. BIG DEAL. Seeing is believing.

Go for both Nah, joking. Get any that's avaialable on the market whichever cheaper That's it. True that AA filtering enabled the 9600GT has a slightly advantage, but without AA enabled it's otherwise. With this situation all come down to the price

Lets get the long and short of it, what do you want to use you card for? Video playback, editing, gaming? Knowing these things would go a long ways to helping you figure out whats best for you.

I expect you to like your opinion better.

Why don't you wait a little while so that the prices fall. That way, you get a card with the latest drives, detailed reviews, and the lowest price. Is there more to say?

Lol, for his price range, and what hes looking at there is no reason to wait, if you took everyones advice and waited, ie, new cards, new cpus, you would never build a computer, i hate it when people say wait, and what is he supposed to wait for? only new cards coming out are high end, since the 9600 has already came out.

Give me your address, I will donate the extra $40 and you can get the 8800GT.

What is $40? A tank of gas....at max, an extra day of work...$40 is easy to justify. Throw in the extra cash and get a better card than both of them. Get the EVGA, use the step up program when the 9800GT comes out and you got yourself a nice setup. Unless you are like 12 and have to do chores at home and it will take 2 mnths to collect $40.

On a serious note...do you want to bump up to xfire/SLI? What resolutions do you game at? What titles do you play? That all factors in to choosing 9600 vs 3870 since they are pretty close to the same thing.

So you def don't live in Europe. Where are you from?

Somewhat rhetorical thread since this had already been discussed a few times and in threads in which E participated.

Why buy a Ford over a GM?

Two words. Chrome 400

Man spoon i sure hope in the next year we dont see crysis like games as far as taxing cpu and gpu. Especially as i just bought my card, and definetly dont want to upgrade it in the next year or two. Although i hear crysis is reaal perty, id hate to have to spend even more money on my comp to get playable framerates.

Does anyone know if RV700s are supposed to xfirex with RV670s?

That would make me strongly consider going with the 3870 if you could throw in a "4000" series later down the road for a little extra kick. If that held true, you could keep leapfrogging your cards with a hybrid setup until ATI or PCIe goes out of biznaz.

I think the bottom line is that we all should all be happy that regardless of motherboard (NVidia, Intel, AMD), and regardless of whether it is Crossfire or SLI, there are now two roughly equivalent upgrade options. E.g., prior to 3850/3870, you were at a cost disadvantage if you had an Intel or AMD Crossfire board. And prior to the 9600GT, the same would go for those with NVidia boards. Now both camps have access to roughly the same performance at roughly the same price.

That said, if what SpinachEater said is right (can xfire RV670 and 700), the AMD fanboys will have more economical upgrade paths.

I would have to agree with you Husky, with amd taking over ati, amd fanboys will probably have much to look forward too in the future, cuz i dont see amd optimizing there products to work together better then with the nvidia options. The only downside here, is we could see another apple in the making, if they decide to not support nvidia anymore in favor of the ati cards. And you have to admit, it probably wouldnt hurt there bottom end for both companies if they decided to go that route.

Just making sure I'm not missing anything here. I read tons of reviews, with [H] showing some interesting results. I'm not going SLI/Crossfire so there's no need to address that.

Is there still an issue with the fan on the 3870?

You know it doesn't actually have 320, it has 64 which basically can do 5 things each.


If it had 320 nvidia type ones it would rocket. Didn't you ever wonder why 320 doesn't beat 64 by 5times lol.

So it all boils down to price. I seen the 8800GT dip under $200, making it a great deal. However, I have a very limited budget of around $170, and if by chance I can find an 3870 that can fit my budget, I was wondering if it would be worth it.

That's not very accurate, SE. Isn't the theoretical maximum performance gain for SLI 80%? Obviously 97.8% is much higher...unless you're pulling random numbers from the air.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Link_Interface

I wouldn't trust Nvidia's own numbers, but we know for sure it ain't 2.0x.