Hahaha nice one but I have to question something. From what I can see on the site the X1950Pro is nearly £100 where the 3850Pro is only £23 dearer at £123. At that difference I would have taken the the 3850 without thought. That card is much better for your resolutions than the X1950. If the price was a bit different then fair enough and I agree on that advice given by OCUK sales rep.
(2900 stock is 600Mhz core and 800Mhz memory) I've had the X1900XT then moved to the 2900Pro and have played that card at stock and heavily overclocked (past 2900XT speeds) and the difference was quite impressive over the X1900 with the 2900 @ stock and took another great jump with the 2900 @ 850Mhz core and 1000Mhz memory overclocked. I reckon at stock the 2900Pro was even slower than the 3850 at stock so with a speed jump I could see it being a good bit faster than the X1950 you've been advised on. The £23 extra would provide more bang for buck I think at stock and then you can overclock them pretty well also.
I'm not trying to deflate your purchase m8. With having used the X1900 for a while and having a card which is a little bit lower than the 3850's performance at stock and having used it with a bump up in speed I have had first hand experience with these cards and know that the 3850 at £23 dearer is a much better buy. Especially for 1600x1200.
Hahaha Spie on Facebook
. He will be getting watched by the CIA then as they created it.
Edit:
I've just looked through a lot of reviews and it seems as if that 3850Pro would have been the better buy. There's no 3850 Vs 1950Pro but the 2600XT is practically the same speed although it is a little bit faster. Gareth had one and ran a good few tests and it was neck and neck with the 1950Pro in most cases if not all. Also note that these reviews are coming up 6 months old and there's been a few releases of drivers since then that have helped performances raise. If the 3850 card was only 23% dearer then he's not given you the best advice I feel.
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/sapphire_hd3850/6.htm
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2217141,00.asp
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/591/3/
http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/ATI_Radeon_HD_3870_and_3850_55nm_RV670/?page=6
May have been Spie - I'm sure somebody called him "Mark" - I'm probably way off the mark on that one!
This last one please note that this is a 6 month old review and the card in comparison is a X1950XTX which is a good deal quicker than a X1950Pro. Again on ancient drivers for the 3850.
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3151&p=9
Hmm, interesting stuff, ultimately, its was down to price and reluctance to fork out too much on two old & antiquated systems not to mention advice from the Shop itself!
#1 is an A64 3000+, Gigabyte Nforce3 939 Mobo & 2.5 GB DDR 400.
#2 An old P4 1.8 With a lowly 512MB DDR 400 and now my 6800LE (previously a knackered 7600GS)
The combined cost of the 3850 & 1GB RAM (to help #2 run BF2 better) was £158.60 inc VAT but, he - the O/C chap - felt that I would not get the best from the 3850 due to my old aged single core CPU, RAM etc.
Whilst being a bit surprised at this, it sounded right ,I suppose, so, I decided to go with his advice & save a bit of cash, given that I started off planning on spending about £40.
Having briefly scanned through some of the links, I wish with hindsight that I'd gone for it, but I was thinking whats the point of a high end card if my low end CPU is going to strangle it (from what chap said) so it seemed logical to me that the 1950 would be better suited to my CPU, thus far, it certainly seems so.
In a nutshell, would such a bottleneck exist to the point where I'd get no benefit from the extra "oomph" of the 3850?
Ultimately though, having spent the evening playing BF2 and getting a consistent 40+ FPS (4xAA 8xAF 1600x1200) regardless of what was going on around me in busy servers, which previously could reduce the game to a stuttering mess, I'm chuffed with the BF2 improvement & as its the main game I really spend any time on, all good there.
FS9 & FSX, my other two main pastimes, are also vastly improved.
In other words, disregarding the 3850's reviews, this card has blown me away, I was not expecting such a big jump from the 7600GS (when it worked!
) and thus far I am an extremely happy bunny with regard towards my new and first ATI card.
I have not got the first clue about setting it up mind you, overclocking etc - it has an auto overclock in the 8-3 drivers I've downloaded but I seem to get a flicker on my 2D desktop when I try to run @ whatever settings it deems good.
In the end, spent about £95 more than I initially planned to, but, I now have what I wanted, BF2 looking & running superbly on my main machine and the #2 machine is running BF2 better again (albeit @ lower settings) than it ever has before.
which fits my requirements perfectly.
I wonder if the old 1950's are no longer selling & OC wanted rid of them? I'd be interested to hear Gibbo's views on that one.
Well, its in my PC now & I'm happy with it, I doubt I'd be able to go back & change it for the 3850 (plus the difference) anyway - It works and does what he said it would.
It is a bit annoying though ,but, its still one big improvement on what went before.
Ho hum! - I should have listened to the Forum advice & ignored the shop's.!!!!
Anyway, Back to BF2.
