As the 8800GT is almost impossible to get hold of at the moment, what is the best alternative card for up to £250 if someone, like me, needs to buy now?
As the 8800GT is almost impossible to get hold of at the moment, what is the best alternative card for up to £250 if someone, like me, needs to buy now?
Wait until Thursday and have a look at the HD3870. Scan will be getting a nice order from work early next week if the leaks are accurate - pretty much identical performance to the 8800GT, DX10.1, quieter than a 8800GT, lower power than equivalent GPUs, twin slot design (doesn't bother me).
Maybe an AMD HD2900Pro? I dunno, at that price range it seems to be a good idea, the 8800GTS would be a braindead buy at this point and time. It's shocking how poor the availability of the 8800GT is atm, they're probably focusing on units for OEMs and American retail (where they're even more shockingly half the price as they want to charge us).
But I'm with this_is_gav, it would be worth the wait for AMD's new card to see what they have (and reviewer NDA's expire), it's a bit frustrating how close they keep the cards to their chests though.
*edit* Scratch that, it seems someone dropped the ball: IAX Tech -- Computer Hardware Reviews, Overclocking, Information
Dam you ATI!!! Why could you not just make a card that would beat the pants off the 8800GT instead of a little less quick but cheaper. Now I have a which card to buy conundrum! I dont know how important those few FPS will be in games like crysis maybe the difference between playable and unplayable. However I wonder how well it overclocks?
Last edited by rob4001; 13-11-2007 at 07:02 PM.
The vast majority of them, OpenGL has been a little stagnant of late (although I believe OpenGL 3.0 is in the pipe), however it's design can allow for that (vendor extensions) but Games devs have leaned towards D3D because it's a tad stricter and 'unified' so they don't have to bother with vendor specific code as much, especially where DX10.1 is concerned.
Honestly, for me it'll depend on how much 'cheaper'. Now, if I can pick up two of these things for the price (or a little more) than one overclocked 8800GT, it'd be real convincing. But based on the specs and limited benchmarks ive seen so far, I don't know if it's worth it. The 8800GT is pretty rock solid.
Shame it's not in stock anywhere.
I've vowed not to touch nV in the near future until they sort themselves out, software wise. I only use Windows (I know they're better for the Linux side), so frankly I sick of their constant issues. Vista was a battle between Creative and themselves over who could release the worse drivers. Creative won, but it was close. Their support of mobile GPUs is frankly shocking.
Anyway, back on topic. Why would it need 2 HD3870s for you to consider them? They're level pegging according to the info we have, are quieter, cooler, use less power and nV have been outed for fudging benchmarks in Crysis in the 169.04 drivers anyway (rename the Crysis .exe and by a wonderful quirk of fate the graphical glitches disappear and the performance drops 7-10fps). ATI are still much better value for anything other than games, miles and miles ahead when it comes to HD. And their drivers just work now. They've been guilty in the past of shoddy drivers, but for the past year or 2 they've been rock solid, while nV have just ebbed the other way.
Anyway, these are just the drop to 55nm and are used in the mid-high range sector. R680 (whenever it's out) will be the high-end product.
ATi hasn't had faster performance than NVIDIA at anything for over a year, and in DX10 they've been getting destroyed.
In any case, even AMDs own press slides show their new cards are slower then the 2900XT in gaming, and that was already getting beat by a good margin by the 8800GT, so I think there aren't any real alternatives to the 8800GT at this point.
Okay, as there don't appear to be any real alternatives to the 8800GT that are available immediately, what is the next card up that is more powerful than the 8800GT?
The new GTS will likely be at the same price point as the old GTS, I would think...if thats the case, the GT retains its value.
I mistyped what I meant above...I meant ot say I'd consider the HD3870 if I can get two of them for Crossfire for cheaper than I can get two GTs for SLI. But frankly, the early tests seem to show they don't quite have the extra oomph the GTs have. The dual-slot design is also a bit of a turn-off to me...trying to cram two of those things in my case would be a pain. My friend just bought two 8800 Ultras (!!), and he's already admitted that'll be a beast to fit in his new case. Personally, I like the single-slot design of the GT.
But I'll wait until the benchmarks come out...then I'll decide. Luckily, I haven't bought my mobo yet; does anyone know if the eVGA nForce 680i mobos can use a HD3870, or better yet, two of them in Crossfire? If not, whats a good alternative (in price, functionality, and overclocking-friendly) to the eVGA 122-CK-NF68-A1 mobo?![]()
Just keep an eye out in the shops, I ordered mine yesterday from CCL and it's sat on my desk in work today as we speak![]()
Computer geek, Honda VFR800 Rider
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