Radeon HD 3870 vs Nvidia Geforce 8800GT

There out of stock now apparently, I just heard about it on futuremark forums.

As for the 8800GT, if you can pick one up for $250, than its a very good deal and is about equal to the HD3870 price.performance wise, so if you got the extra money to spend, than I suppose spend it. Unfortunately for me, every dollar counts so I have to be careful of what I pick (I would be cheering if I walked down the street and some random guy sold me an 8800GT for under $200 , but we both know thats never gonna happen)

As for the 8800GT PCI-e 2.0. The HD3870 is also PCI-e 2, but that doesn't mean it won't fit in motherboards with only PCI-e 1.0 or 1.1. Apparently its backwards compatible, the only difference (If I remember correctly) is that you don't need to use the 6 pin connector when its in PCI-e 2.0 because the motherboard can already supply enough power, whereas with PCI-e 1.0 and 1.1, you need the 6 pin power connector to be able to power up the 8800GT or HD3870 etc.

I wonder how long the "you don't have to use a seperate power connecter" is going to last. Didn't they say that when PCI Express first came out? Seems to me graphics cards are getting faster, and use more power. Pretty soon we won't even have procs anymore we will just have graphics cards. The Ram will be one the graphics card and the hard drives will just plug straight into the card. It will be so simple. It will be called the ATI Vadeon Y5000 and the NuForce 8760 Super Ultra.

LOL, close but not close enough. Starting next year or the year after graphics cards will be build into the CPU not the other way around. (Although NVIDIA has already designed a graphics card "Tesla" which is designed to be used as a CPU when the GPU is not in use)

Since CPU's are becoming ever so smaller (die size) you are able to cram more crap into it. And as for HDD's, you can except to have cheap HDD's in a few years that have about 5TB of storage space, not that you need that much, cause I have 530GB and I barely use up 20% of it. I just can't wait for the next 5 years when Internet speed becomes over 100 times faster than todays connection (So I'm guessing if I'm on an 8MB/s connection, it will be boosted up to say 800MB/s?....Torrents anyone:haha: ) Apparently an Australian (Looks like a f***ing nerd) wrote a new equation which seperates the data that is sent across the lines increasing the transfer speed or some sh*t like that.

Anyways. I was planning on getting the 8800GT over the HD3870 when more came into stock and they dropped to $250 again. ($250 is my absolute limit), but I've been reading that some 8800GT's can cause problems. I might look into it a bit more later.

Glad to know you dont think much of us Australians..

I'm Australian myself. And you must agree with me when I say its very annoying when people complain about CPU's, graphics cards etc etc being very expensive over there, when we have it a whole lot worse and you rarely hear us complain.

Sorry for going offtopic. And sorry for the slight complain. But it does get annoying when people complain that the 8800GT is $300 over where they live yet its as cheap as $400 here or more. Goes with a lot of other stuff too. I for one can say I'm luckier than a lot of other Australians, because I live withing bus range of the computer fair which takes place every month where they sell computer upgrades etc for over seas price. Probably a little more expensive, but beats retail price.

WHAT????? Your telling me that $5,000 that I spent on a pre-order of a ATI Vadeon Y5000 was just a rip off????

I actually believed the guy who approched me with the offer while I was walking down the street.

Man, now I'm all bumbed out. That runnied my day:blackeye:

now I have to go donate blood to make up the loss.

I was thinking about getting an 8800 GT, now that I see this my mind is changing a little bit.

Unless prices for the 8800GT drop back down to the $250 range. The HD3870 is the btter deal. Even if the HD3870 drops back to $250 they are an equal deal, and if you have the money to spend than the 8800GT would do good. But for me every dollar counts so I have to be careful of which I choose. If I am unable to find an 8800GT under $300 here in Australia at the computer fair, and I find an HD3870 that is, I know what I'd be picking as I've said before $300 is my limit. I got car rego to save up for.

I do have to agree though that the Radeon does have the better price to performence ratio though, so if you want to save money the Radeon is the way to go. You can't exactly drive a graphics card to work.

Wouldn't it be cool if you could. Just walk down the street and see some random guy sitting on top of a GPU with 4 wheels, hehe. man I can even imagine it. yay for my imagination:haha:

It would use the fan exhast to propel it forward.
Hey its possible, the Oscar Meyer Weiner company has their hotdog-moble.
Why can't ATI or Nvidia have a GPU Car?

"...more importantly the 3870 falls behind the 8800 GT in all tests."

http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/3870-XXX/conclusion.php

I run mine at 740 / 2200 and get over 13,000 in 3DMark06.

Some people don't want to buy the video card that is the best value. Sometimes they have a budget limit and they want the most powerful card available in their price range. Therefore some people just buy the best card they can afford even if the priceerformance is bad (eg. 8800 Ultras).

People who think like that will buy an 8800GT instead of a 3870 because it's better and they can afford it. I don't know about you, but I don't think many gamers buy parts totally based on priceerformance or else everyone would have a HD3850 and a cheap Athlon 64 X2.

Or a 8800GT and a "cheap" Anthlon 64 X2.
I don't know what I was thinking.

The question was which is better. The 8800GT is clearly a better purchase. Both cards have had supply problems but at the moment the 8800GT even for the £15 difference (lol major money) is a better buy.

Even if this wern't the case the 256MB 8800GT is faster than than the 3870 as well, and cheaper.

Here it is in plain and simple words, They are both good cards. Some people like ATI, some people like Nvidia. Its not hard to tell who is ATI haters and who is Nvidia haters in this forum. Simply go with what you like, if you want to pay the price for that card go for it, if you want to save some money, go with the other one. This will always go back and forth which one is better.

For me, Performace is not everything. I look at the bigger picture.

for instance, the 3870 runs in 2D at around 50watts, (that cuts down on power consumption when you have to pay the electricity bill every month) And when in 3D enviroments I believe its at around 105 to 115watts. I'm 27 and the whole debate of how much power do I have I grew out of awhile ago. I just your average gamer. I keep my system up to date, but don't go for the SLI/Crossfire idea, and keep it simple.

I know someone is gonna bash me on this post, but I could really care less.

Good luck to all of you!!

No need to bash you mate, your post makes sense, even though its an old thead.

However, the OP wanted to know which is better, clearly at that time 8800GT was, and still is.

In terms of your power savings, based on 2 hours per day every day of the month you will save yourself less than 60 cents a month (@25c/kWh).

i own a 8800GT but it lags quite alot on older games like SWAT 4 during some intensive gunfights...and my system specs aint half bad!