Which card for 1680x1050? 256mb or 512mb?

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michaelmcgo

New Member
I am building a gaming rig, and have about $150 left for the GPU. I am looking for a graphics card (PCI x16) to run the current games (not crysis) on 1680x1050 at decent settings. I am going to be running a Intel Core 2 Duo overclocked to somewhere around 3.2Ghz. I don't know if I am going to run XP or Vista yet.
My question is: what is more important at that resolution, speed or memory? Would I be better off buying a 256mb 3850 or a 512mb X1950Pro/8600GT? How much of a difference will the extra memory give me, and is it worth losing some processing power? Also, how much of a difference does DDR2 vs. DDR3 make? 8800 and 3870 are kinda out of my price range. Any recommendations are welcome, thanks.
 
You should get 256mb versions of any card short of the 8800gt and HD 3750. All the lower cards cannot utilize the extra memory.
 
you can get a radeon 3850 512mb for 200 dollars on newegg that comes with a REALLY nice cooler that will allow you to OC the card speed to 730mhz (668hz reg) just by moving a dial in catalyst control center, and this will make it perform near a radeon 3870 (core clock 775mhz)

or u can get the 3870 512mb gddr4 at BB here for 215, which is 25-30 dollars cheaper than you will find it anywhere else
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8636666&st=radeon+3850&type=product&id=1194053242087

even with less ram i think the radeon 256mb version would kick the crap out of the 8600gt and gts 512mb versions, even at that high of a resolution.
 
the sapphire is great. the 3850, along with many radeon cards, are not great for OC'ing simply because they run very warm.
 
Not trying to jack your thread michaelmcgo, but rather than start a new one I figure I might as well just ask in this one seeing as I am looking at getting 2 3870's to run in Crossfire.

My question is which company to go with?

ASUS
HIS
Sapphire
Visiontek
Diamond

I have used Sapphire in the past, although a lot of people are held up on their support right now. Visiontek has a lifetime warranty but it is very limited. I know that the retailer I plant to purchase from has the ASUS, Sapphire and HIS in stock (or so it says anyway).

Anyone has an opinion on one of these companies?
 
for 200 dollars the sapphire cannot stack up against the other 200 dollar radeon 3850's that have much better coolers, such as the powercolor and the visiontek that you posted

the visiontek blows the gpu heat out of the case, which is not bad at all, and the powercolor one has copper on the cooler, which is also a great thing

and heres the asus 3850 that i have
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121219

it idles at 46 degrees C and in the 60's under load in my piece of crap tiny hp case that only has one output fan and is crammed as anything (i have not tweaked the fan speed either)

of course if you are going to spend 200 dollars spending 15 more dollars and getting the radeon 3870 that has gddr4 memory and faster clock speeds may not be a bad idea. . .

and @ the guy that posted above me, what retailer do you plan to purchase from? the visiontek 3870s are 215 on best buy, ill see if i can dig up a review for them . .
 
For your budget, the 3850 (512mb) is a very good card for the money. Of course only if you could dig the money up, the 3870 is a gaming card, should play any game on max settings, and Crysis on high. I would say the 3850 would play crysis on medium mixed with some high settings.

i have the 3870 running all my games @ 1680x1050
 
thereckerdbraikr said:
for 200 dollars the sapphire cannot stack up against the other 200 dollar radeon 3850's that have much better coolers, such as the powercolor and the visiontek that you posted

the visiontek blows the gpu heat out of the case, which is not bad at all, and the powercolor one has copper on the cooler, which is also a great thing

and heres the asus 3850 that i have
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121219

it idles at 46 degrees C and in the 60's under load in my piece of crap tiny hp case that only has one output fan and is crammed as anything (i have not tweaked the fan speed either)

of course if you are going to spend 200 dollars spending 15 more dollars and getting the radeon 3870 that has gddr4 memory and faster clock speeds may not be a bad idea. . .

and @ the guy that posted above me, what retailer do you plan to purchase from? the visiontek 3870s are 215 on best buy, ill see if i can dig up a review for them . .
Click to expand...

Most likely NCIX (I am Canadian). The 3870's are $240 CAD and the manufacturers that charge more I can get price matched for the same as another online Canadian retailer sells them for $240 (those being the Sapphire and ASUS cards).
 
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