RADEON 3870

[estoroth]

I was wondering if any of you use this new card?? And how it holds up to say TF2?? I can't get the 8800gt due to an incompatibilty with my mobo... but looks like the 3870 is OK with the mobo... I know it's not as beastly as an 8800 but I'm sure it whoops an 8600...

Thanks

 

[RickJS]

Okay well I have an 8800 GT, but I know the 3870 is a bit better than my card. I can tell you with almost 100% certainty that it can max out TF2, CS:S, COD4 and probably more. Its a powerful card =D

 

[estoroth]

Yeah, I'm running TF2 at most med to high settings at 1024@768 I think... and it's ok.. though I get some artifacts here and there but at higher rez... it gets a bit choppy.. I know the 8800 would take care of my gaming needs (only tf2 mainly).. but won't work in my system. Read review on the 3870 and I can't tell if its supposed to be better than the 8800 or not? Seems to be better.. and not.. depending on some tests.. I figured though it maybe better than the 8600 I have now =)

 

[yellowbadger52]

i have it and paired up with my system i can get it all high w/o AA and i get 100+ fps at 1280 x 1024. it will dewfinately be an upgrade if you do upgrade!

 

[Cpt0bvi0u5]

m3h ATI needs to churn out something that competes and fast. Not saying that their 3 series is bad, its actually quite good but nvidia has a hold on the market right now

 

[Doobs]

m3h ATI needs to churn out something that competes and fast. Not saying that their 3 series is bad, its actually quite good but nvidia has a hold on the market right now

Yeah, the 9600GT killed the 3870 boom. The 9600GT is right in between the two HD 38xx cards in performance and price, but the price to performance ratio is better than both of the HD 38xx cards. Plus, nVidia has had a hold on the midrange market for the past few years and they're not going to give it up that easily.

I was wondering if any of you use this new card?? And how it holds up to say TF2?? I can't get the 8800gt due to an incompatibilty with my mobo... but looks like the 3870 is OK with the mobo... I know it's not as beastly as an 8800 but I'm sure it whoops an 8600...

Thanks

What is your motherboard? And, yes, the 3870 is 2x better than an 8600 at the least. Oh, and if your motherboard isn't PCI-e 2.0, then the 3870 will only run in PCI-e 1.1. In other words, to get the most out of the card you have to have a PCI-e 2.0 motherboard.

 

[estoroth]

I have an ASUS m2v which uses a VIA KTsomething or other chipset. It's supposed to be NOT PCIe2.0 compliant.. hence the problem with the 8800gt. I have read a review or two where someone with the same motherboard used a 3800 card and ran fine. I just want to boost up to 1280x1024 since it's the max my dual monitors will support.. but do it ULTRA SMOOTH... =)

 

[Doobs]

PCI-e 2.0 is completely backwards compatible, btw. You just won't get the full benefit of a PCI-e 2.0 card if you don't have a PCI-e 2.0 motherboard. I can guarantee that an 8800 will work if a 3870 will work. Oh, and the 3870 is supposed to drop in price very soon in the U.S. Just putting that out there.

 

[Thatguy]

Yeah, as long as you have a PCI-E motherboard, it doesn't matter if it is PCI-E 1.0 1.1 or 2.0

An 8800 or 3870 would be just fine for you and would get you running high fps on TF2 with max settings.

 

[imported_Hostile]

I have a 512mb version of the HD 3850, so it's practically the same card as a HD 3870. Its a very good card, runs TF2 great. The only thing is AA really kills your FPS, its a known thing with ATI cards. So I only run 2X AA because the extra performance hit isn't worth it.

 

[VoiDeD]

[quote1206018621=Hostile]
I have a 512mb version of the HD 3850, so it's practically the same card as a HD 3870. Its a very good card, runs TF2 great. The only thing is AA really kills your FPS, its a known thing with ATI cards. So I only run 2X AA because the extra performance hit isn't worth it.
[/quote1206018621]

My 3850 handles AA with no real performance hit. At least not one that I've noticed.

I normally play at 1280@1024 with highest setting and highest MSAA (Mind you I don't understand the technical details between MSAA and FSAA, so that might have something to do with my performance) and it still blazes along at around 50-60 FPS.

Also, Doobs is completely correct about the backwards and forwards compatibility; my mobo only supports PCIe 1.1 and the 3850 is PCIe 2.0, and it still works just great!

[quote1206018720=Doobs]
PCI-e 2.0 is completely backwards compatible, btw. You just won't get the full benefit of a PCI-e 2.0 card if you don't have a PCI-e 2.0 motherboard. I can guarantee that an 8800 will work if a 3870 will work.
[/quote1206018720]

 

[estoroth]

Thanks guys. My mobo WON'T work with the 8800gt.. I know I tried it... and checked with ASUS and there is only ONE fix.. you have to download a "GEN 1" bios to the 8800 card to allow it to run on the mobo. It's apparently tied to the VIA KT8800 or whatever # chipset she has. I selected this mobo since I knew it to be compatible with my audio hardware (for recording, not gaming)... and wanted to go AMD with the cpu. Other options ran the Nforce chipsets and those I needed to avoid like the PLAGUE due to conflicts and generally instability with my audio hardware. It would suck to be laying down tracks.. and cutting a killer solo.. when the computer just blue screens due to some odd conflict due to the chipset. Life would suck.

Thanks =)

 

[PSYCHoHoLiC]

I run a 2900XT at 820/2000, Pretty much the same core.. I love it. it coule be better in AA Performance though.

 

[Hidden_Question]

Hey, I don't know about you , but I'm using a 7600 gt 256mb, and I can run tf2 at 1280x1024 no problem with all settings on high, and 2x AA. I don't really notice graphics lag, and usually what kills me is server lag.

Are you using XP or vista? I'm on XP, and if you're on vista, I can see why you need much more powerful hardware

 

[estoroth]

No, running Xp 32bit Pro on my "gaming side" and my other dual boot config is XP x64 for my audio work.

 

[Hidden_Question]

I dunno then, do you clean stuff up regularly? like defrag, etc? last time I found reinstalling Xp gave a performance boost.

 

[MikeV]

The 3870 is a new dx10 card basically. It is slightly better than a 8800GT but i don't think that it is better than the 8800gtx.

 

[Hidden_Question]

I did a little research, and from the tigerdirect bench marks, the difference in performance between the 3870x2 and the 9800gx2 is negligible, however, the 9800gx2 is exorbitantly expensive (530 compared to 730 cdn)

 

[Doobs]

The 3870X2 has had three months to get their drivers perfect, and the 9800GX2 hasn't had that kind of time yet. Give it time and the performance difference will increase. I'm not slamming either card, they're both good cards just the 3870X2 has had more time to perfect the drivers.