Best Value For Money

[fraps]

nice logic TooNice (analysis )

the 8800gt at 145 looks tasty

what is the cheapest 3870 you have seen?

[Blitzen]

the performance gap between the GT and GTS is between 10-15%

I'm sorry bit that is far too much of a blanket statement and doesnt really tell the real story.

The gap between the GT and GTS is actually bigger than the gap between the GTS and GTX.

For the sake of £40ish the GTS is a way better buy than the GT. (and the GTS is a sight cooler aswell).

I still think the 3850, if not wanting things maxxed out, at £100 is excelllent value.

[grand_witch]

A friend has just offered me his old - Sapphire RADEON™ X1950 XT for £30. It looks good on paper and does favourable on tomshardware chart.

[TooNice]

^ That's an excellent deal!

I'm sorry bit that is far too much of a blanket statement and doesnt really tell the real story.

Please be more specific. What is the 'real' story? I did not make the numbers out, there are, quite honestly enough reviews out there to support those numbers (and the last time we went through this I calculated the performance gap between both cards from two reviews to come to my conclusion).

If you are saying that it is not the full story, and that there is more to the difference between the GT and GTS than the performance gap I've stated, fair enough, I am happy to discuss those. But if you are implying that the gap is greater, say, 20-25% on average, then I'll have to ask you to provide some numbers supporting that. Even if it's only at 2560x1600 with 4x/16AA - if it is semi consistent (and not say, only in Crysis), then it is useful information to have. I've got nothing to gain, and as a prospective buyer of either card, I am interested in the 'real story'.

Regarding to the issues you have raised though:

The gap between the GT and GTS is actually bigger than the gap between the GTS and GTX.

Yes it is. For most intent and purpose, the GTS is at least as good as the GTX (I'd argue better), whereas I have always said that the GT is slower (by 10-15%). The GTS is also cheaper than the GTX. That makes the GTS a better buy than a GTX. But it doesn't change the fact that the price gap between the GT and GTS as a percentage is greater than the performance gap between the GT and GTS as a percentage. Basically, it doesn't change that for each pound spent on the GT, you get more frames per second than for each pound spent on the GTS. I can't really think of a more objective way of calculating 'value for money'.

For the sake of £40ish the GTS is a way better buy than the GT. (and the GTS is a sight cooler aswell).

'Way better buy' in what sense? All I can say that it is a way better alternative to someone who absolutely must have GTX performance.

Way better in terms of performance for the buck? No it's not (see previous section).

Way quieter? Yes for the reference model - no once you look at all the option available.

A sight cooler? Common sense would suggest no. The GPU/memory uses less power, the process and architecture is the same, so there is no reason why a GT would inherently produce more heat than the GTS. What -is- true is that the single slot cooler used in many GT doesn't help the card's temperature and they will end up being hotter and noisier than the GTS (which in all likelihood wouldn't cope well with a single slot cooler). However, if you look at reviews of 8800GT that comes with a dual slot cooler (there are a few - and not all of them charge a premium), you'll see that they are not hotter than GTS cards.

I'd say that at £40 more, the GTS is only a 'way better buy' than the GT if you place a significant amount of weight on subjective variables in your decision making process. The problem with making recommendations based on that, is that people place different weight on those subjective variables (noise, heat, power consumption, even features like DX10.1 or HDMI and how close is the card in performance to the GTX). Even though you can measure noise and heat, it's hard to 'price them'. On the other hand, £ and frame per seconds are easy to work with: for value we want as much of the later for as little of the former as possible (within reason: obviously we most likely have little interest in a £5 card that is capable of doing 10fps, even though theoretically, that's a lot of bang for the buck - but that's hardly what we are dealing with here).

[Blitzen]

A friend has just offered me his old - Sapphire RADEON™ X1950 XT for £30. It looks good on paper and does favourable on tomshardware chart.

Cracking value that.
If you dont want it then tell your mate i will buy it

[Andaho]

I did a lot of research on graphics cards when I built my system 4 months ago... I decided on the 1950Pro for £90. Now it can be bought new for under £80. I decided on the pro rather than the XT because the cheapest XT I could find was around £130 at the time. I'm not a big gamer, but it plays C&C3 and Lara Croft Anniversary perfectly at 1680x1050 with maximum quality, so I’m very happy with it.

[McPhee]

A friend has just offered me his old - Sapphire RADEON™ X1950 XT for £30. It looks good on paper and does favourable on tomshardware chart.

£30!?!?! He's giving it away!

I bought a second hand XTX back in August for my machine because i couldn't stretch to an 8800GTS 320MB and the 8600GT/2600XT weren't fast enough. All i can say is the card flies! Partnered with an AMD BE-2300 i can run Orange Box maxed out at 1440x900 and Crysis at Medium-High at 1440x900

The XT is a bit slower than the XTX, but it should still give you some pretty good performance.

BTW, the cheapest price on the 512MB 3850 was £90 from (IIRC) eBuyer. They also had the 3870 at £130! They've bumped the price back up now though
My point? £55 between the lowest price for the 8800GT and 3850. The 3850 is better value for money, cooler, quieter, it has AVIVO and does a better job of HD Video decoding.