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About LinkBacksIm thinking of trying Linux, would it worth me getting a 8800gt 512 over a 3870?
Im thinking of trying Linux, would it worth me getting a 8800gt 512 over a 3870?
Never had any issues with my 9500 pro.An excellent card which served me well between 2004 to 2006. Now my mate has it in his machine and still seems OK.Nvidia does have better Linux support though.Originally Posted by directhex
if linux is even a remote possibility, you NEED nvidia.
simplest reason? ati don't support the 3xxx series in linux. at all. let's ignore the unstable, slow, hard-to-get-working driver for a moment
the 3870 is cheaper than 8800gt - just look at scan
Not cheaper than the 256MB XFX GT. It comes down on whether the user will run at resolutions and settings where 256MB is become a bottleneck.
The 512mb HD3850 is around the same price as the 256mb 8800gt though!!
If you are just looking at Linux you could always run it on a virtual machine.
Intel i5 2500k @ stock
Thermalright SI-128 (Bolt-through)
Asus P8Z68V/Gen3
2x8Gb DDR3
ASUS GTX 670 DirectCU II 2Gb
That's fair enough, but the only problem I've had with my ATi cards is that UltraVNC tried to take over as the primary adapter, and as such Media Centre wouldn't work (games would though). I say it's an ATi problem, but I've no idea, it could equally be an UltraVNC one - I just blamed ATi the first time I had the issue, as I'd no idea what was causing it. 2nd time I looked into things a bit more and found that by disabling the UltraVNC fake video device the problem went away. I genuinely can't think of another example of an ATI specific issue on Windows.
Regarding the issue of the 9500 using an older driver, what's the difference between that and the TNT(2)s and Geforce2s (and apparently GF4s now too) having to use older drivers? Support is dropped from drivers. It'll always be the case.
I'm not denying ATi are fault-free - their older drivers could be truly awful - I'm just saying I never experienced the issues. The only issue I do have is their older mobile chipset and video drivers (9500 Mobility being one of the ones we have, though last I used with this issue) never used unified drivers. They were all individual downloads specific to the hardware, and it annoyed the hell out of me, and it's no different with nV now. I wouldn't mind if the mobile drivers were updated even moderately regularly, but the most recent drivers for the 8x00M series that I'm aware of are from May (for XP anyway), and these aren't old chips. It was just as bad when ATi did the same. Thankfully with ATi's newer chips and chipsets they are unified and included in the standard desktop download, even the chipset ones.
I already stated in my initial post that the *nix ATi drivers were next to useless. I suppose they've taken a step in the right direction, but the fruits are still an infinite number of miles away.
For whatever reason since my Geforce 4 TI 4600 I've always bought ATi cards - that wasn't because I didn't like nV, it's just that at the time of purchases ATi were the fastest cards (9800Pro, X800XT and now my X1900XT (though there was an 8500 in there too, but that I acquired rather than bought)). Now I'd buy ATi hardware because I simply can't stand nV's support (on Windows. If I were a *nix user I would likely reconsider, but I'm not).
Nah, buy a second hard drive and dual boot. If you decide Linux is not for you, you can always fill it with pr0n
I would honestly say you have to be a Linux enthusiast to run Linux in a virtual machine. Am doing that right now, this is typed on a VMware installed Fedora 7 vm.
Problem is you get the lowest common denominator in any performance, so Linux becomes dependent on the ability of Windows to access files and take interrupts fast, and it fails at that. Then VMware abstracts away your graphics, so you lose the abilty to get useful 3d graphics under Linux. Result is no 3D and wonky benchmarks as the vmware client is constantly compensating for lost scheduler interrupts.
I'd say that it's even a little cheaper. But for as long as the 256MB is not a major bottleneck (e.g. at the OP's resolution), the 8800GT will tend to be faster. To be fair though, the 3870 is a better rounded card than the 256MB GT overall. The cheapest 3870 found on Scan available for pre-order is only slightly (~10%) more expensive than the cheapest 256MB 8800 GT. The GT has it's share of wins at lower resolution (somewhat impressive), but the 3870 can justify it's price premium by winning more often even at lower resolution.. and even more often with higher resolution/cranking up the eye candy.
However an overclocked 512mb HD3850 is only slightly slower than a HD3870:
PowerColor HD 3850 Pro PCS 512MB GDDR3 256bit Dual DVI TVO PCI-E Graphics Card - Ebuyer
It is clocked at 720mhz which makes it only 55mhz slower than a HD3870 and costs £115 delivered. Even the 256mb HD3850 is under £100 delivered.
One thing to look at is the way crysis and world in conflict bith get better performance out of 512mb even at 1280x1024
I know they are extreme examples atm but they are also an indication to the way games will be heading.
256mb of memory has lasted us a long while but I can see it falling to 512mb as a basic amount.
I remember getting a card with 128mb as 256mb wasn't really needed (my old 6800LE) and I replaced that mainly because 128mb of memory was becoming a problem.
I would go with the 8800gt personally but try and save for the 512 version it will help later on if you upgrade your monitor and when you start using aa and af
Well after 3 nVidia cards in a row I've finally had enough of their drivers and support (?) and ordered one of these from Scan.
My 6800GT cost me over £300 and right from the word go had corruptions on my secondary screen. Periodically the picture would completely break up.
Temperatures were all fine and restarting got rid of the problem...until the next time.
My 7600GT was ok but the 7900GT I have now is truly awful. Corruptions in all sorts of games.
Tiger Woods 2008 will only display correctly if you disable a lot of the eye candy. I'm not talking about performance here but major graphical corruption.
Almost every 3d game I play has some sort of glitch. Usually torn textures, lines emanating from objects pointing in the direction the object is going and in extreme cases totally corrupted screens.
In MOH:Airborne it takes the form of a line of textrue coming from the end of the barrel of whatever gun I'm holding at the time that goes up into the sky. After a while it decides that this isn't sufficient inconvenience for me so the whole screen messes up and I have to quit the game.
I'm certain it's the drivers doing it because games react differently depending on the driver version I'm running at the time.
Again temperature isn't a problem. I have Samurize running on my secondary screen and the GPU temperature idles at 37 degrees and never goes above 42 degrees under full load. (The card is watercooled)
Added to that a lot of older games just plain won't run on nVidia cards. I used to be a big fan of Crimson Skies which hasn't run since the 6800 was introduced because nVidia made some changes to the driver.
Of course that couldn't possibly be their fault so they say that it's up to the software developers to produce a patch so it will work on their hardware.
That kind of arrogance can only come from someone in a dominant position in the market and has to be challenged.
Questions on the nVidia fanbois forum just results in the "usual nVidia is wonderful, how dare you say anything negative" kind of responses.
So in short. I've had enough. My last ATI card was an HIS 9800pro and boy do I miss it. That card lasted me ( and later my son ) over 3 years. It was overclocked till it screamed and never missed a beat.
My new 3870 arrives on Tuesday. The first thing I'm going to do is load up Crimson Skies. I can't wait.
It may not be quite as fast as the equivalent nVidia but I'm more than happy to trade a few FPS for reliability.
everybodys expeirences are different with graphics cards.
i myself have had a few.
first card i had was a 9700pro and it was awfull and didnt run properly with anything so i returned it for a gf4 4600ti (i think thats the right name) damn good card at the time.
then i bought a rad 9500 and softmodded to a 9700 and overclocked the t@ts off it.
i had a so called ultra geforce card 5*** something which turned out to be complete cack.
anyway my point is nothing is really bad about either of the brands and they are both equal in the reliabilty stakes, anyway a 3870 is a damn good card for the money.
Hopefully you will be happy with your new ATI card, they do look very good unless like me you want to use it under Linux.
My 7900GT got sent back to Scan with much the same problems as you are describing, 11 months into the warranty. I believe it was a memory fault on the card that developed over time, possibly as a result of Gainward only getting airflow to half the ram chips. The card isn't made any more, so I have no idea how long it will take to get a replacement back to me (I presume Scan will have to wait for something back from Gainward).
On the up-side, just in case this took ages to resolve I bought an 8600GT to tide me over and for such a cheap card I have been very impressed.
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