Ready to pull the trigger, help me decide!

HIS Radeon HD 3870 ICEQ3 775MHZ 512MB

or

EVGA E-GEFORCE 8800GT 600MHZ 512MB


Here's the pros/cons of each as I see them:

HIS 3870 @ $227 + shipping

Pros: Lower power consumption (I generally leave my rig running 24/7) , way better cooling, good overclocking, better video encoding for HTPC applications, I prefer ATI drivers
Cons: Only 1 year warranty, no step-up possibility, slightly lower performance

eVGA 8800GT @ $235 + shipping

Pros: Slightly better performance, good overclocking, lifetime warranty (covers OC'ing, aftermarket cooling etc.), step-up possibility (would consider stepping up to 9800gt if it is released in time)
Cons: Poor cooling (appears not be the revised heatsink w/ larger fan), greater power consumption, I generally dislike nvidia drivers


I was originally leaning towards the 3870 as I tend to prefer ATI driver support and have heard that software volt mods (via atitool) will soon be available for the card. This seems like a good price for a vanilla 8800GT though, so I'm having second thoughts..... Any suggestions/thoughts? Which would you go for?

I chose the 8800GT myself and I am very happy with it. My highest priority was performance to cost ratio though.

@ overclocking the 8800GT. The stock fan works fine even for a somewhat high overclock, if you don't mind the noise of the stock fan that is.

@Nvidia drivers. I installed vista and XP and didn't have a driver problem on either OS.

Either way, I'd invest in an aftermarket cooler for either one you choose.

johnny* said:

better video encoding for HTPC applications

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Can you point me where you read this? I am also trying to make this decision and thought nVidia's PureVideo was king...

I'd go for the 8800GT, a tiny bit faster and that's a good price.

And nVidia's PureVideo($$) can't compete with ATi's AVIVO(free).
ATi has had the best HD decoding IQ for years, all of their video cards with UVD offer higher IQ and utilise less CPU.

8800gt!

I'm also on the market. I was looking at the HD2900XT as another option because it can be found cheap. I'm moving up from a 8600GTS which doesn't fair as well as I would like in games like UT3 and Crysis, for example. As more newer games come out I'll be playing with less and less eye candy. I just can't see suffering for a small investment.

Since it seems the votes in this scenerio are for the 8800GT, anyone have advice on the 2900XT as an upgrade path from the 8600GTS??

I would definitely go with the 8800 gt's I myself just purchased them and havent heard anything but good things from people about them. I've heard that the ATI's are REAL power hogs. Thats my 2 cents

The GT is cheaper... plus it's eVGA, of course get the GT.

nasvemos671 said:

I've heard that the ATI's are REAL power hogs.

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ATi's 3850/3870 is the highest performance-per-watt GPU there is.
The 2900XT was the power hog.

I would go for the 8800gt at that price differential. Also you can get the 512bit 512mb 2900pro for 170 from the egg but for your power usage you prob would end up spending more on the 2900 then either of the other cards over time.

Thanks for the input everyone, I went ahead and ordered the 8800gt after the price dropped a few more dollars and NCIX threw in Far Cry

BossBorot said:

Also you can get the 512bit 512mb 2900pro for 170 from the egg but for your power usage you prob would end up spending more on the 2900 then either of the other cards over time.

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Yeah, I looked into the 512mb 2900pro as it's definitely the best price/performance ratio card out there right now, but I just don't have the PSU for that beast atm and would likely hate myself every time I had to pay the power bill