Which grafix upgrade?

[Vaanish]

I dont really play with AF. I am actually moving towards this deal:

PowerColor HD 3850 256MB GDDR3 256bit Dual DVI PCI-E Graphics Card - Ebuyer

for a cheapskate like me, thats really good.

 

[gurusan]

I thought the GT 256mb had much better benchmarks then a 3850 at lower resolutions? Am I wrong in this assessment?

It depends on the game. For example it gets completely trounced in Crysis at 1280x1024.

Games are only going to get more and more texture heavy...I never recommended the 320mb 8800GTS either, and lo and behold about 6 months later it began falling rapidly in performance in DX10 titles

 

[Vaanish]

Im stuck on this one. Im really looking at the 8800GT 256 as i think that the sheer power of the GPU will take it away from the 3850s.

 

[gurusan]

if you're going to get a 256mb card then don't settle for anything less than the 8800GT

 

[Vaanish]

It must seem like im being a stubborn ******* but honestly im trying to take in your advice. Im probably settled on the 8800GT but i may go for the ebuyer 3850 one. Its just that having a 3850 with 512MB would feel a bit like i was wasting the vram because of the slower speed of the GPU and RAM limiting the extra RAM.

The 8800GTs name just sounds so powerful lol.

 

[gurusan]

The 3850 512mb at 750+mhz is pretty darn quick anyway...it's not going to seem slow in ANY game except for Crysis at that resolution.

I was making the same decision awhile ago...but gave it some thought, and came to the conclusion that you can always overclock the 3850 but you can't add vram to the 8800gt if it starts struggling.

the 3850 is more future proof while the 8800GT does indeed beat the 3850 in nearly all current games.

 

[Vaanish]

Yeah thats true but i also want to delay overclocking as long as i can as i have had some troubles with it (my P35 Plat broke) so i would prefer not to invalidate the warranty.

 

[gurusan]

How would they know if it was overclocked unless you solder the board or something