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Did i make the wrong choice?
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Number crunch away and decide for yourself 
Caporegime
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The GT is the better card, the 3870 is just a renamed 2900, and with a smaller 256bit bus (so you've downgraded technically), still a decent card though.
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Caporegime
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Depends how much you paid really. The 8800GT would have been my choice.
Soldato
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i dont think you will actually tell the difference is fraps isnt on tbh
Associate
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3870 is a good card, dont think about it too much man, enjoy the games
DDR3 or DDR4? Will make a difference to the clocks you can get.
Associate
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the 8800GT is the better card, but it's nmot like you'll really notice it unless you're a constantly benchmarking person or you can't play on less than 6500 FPS...
I preferred my '70 to this 8800GT in so many more ways than one.
I preferred my '70 to this 8800GT in so many more ways than one.
It should run cooler and require less power draw than your previous card plus generally run quicker than the 2900XT.
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Soldato
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There's a DDR3 one???
Yes, the 8800GT would have offered you a good increase in basically everything and they overclock like mofos. The 3870 is at best a side step, some minor improvements in some titles but nothing worthwhile.
The main purpose of the 3800 series was to address the heat and power consumption and also the price, the price point being the only way AMD could compete.
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There's no doubt the 8800GT is the better card, but the 3870 is a great overclocker and if you clock it over 850 or so mhz it performs very well.
My 3850 512mb @ 864mhz plays CoD4 1680x1050 2xAA max details around 60-70fps average in the multiplayer...also I've found the 8800 series have problems rendering smoke effects, whereas ATI cards don't slow down nearly as much when people are chucking smoke grenades and things around.
My 3850 512mb @ 864mhz plays CoD4 1680x1050 2xAA max details around 60-70fps average in the multiplayer...also I've found the 8800 series have problems rendering smoke effects, whereas ATI cards don't slow down nearly as much when people are chucking smoke grenades and things around.
Never noticed any slowdowns in COD4 with smoke here on the 8 series cards.
Soldato
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as i said, unless you constantly run fraps, or the cod4 internal framerate thing, you wont notice a loss of 5 fps when your getting over 60.
plus the 3870 has more features, and a MUCH better driver than the 8800GT
plus the 3870 has more features, and a MUCH better driver than the 8800GT
With both my 8800GTS 640mb and 8800GTS 512mb lots of smoke effects in CoD4 would bring framerates down sometimes into the low 20s, even teens with the 640mb gts. My G92 gts was even voltmodded and clocked at 900mhz...
Conversely, even the stock 3850 would only dip into high 30s low 40s with lots of smoke.
And when I had a crossfire setup they didn't seem to dip at all.
I play the game online, and get no slowdowns with smoke, well nothing like that anyway, I always play with fraps enabled so i'd notice something like that.