Good News For Video Card Shopping

[Nehkara]

The new ATI Radeon HD 3870 (priced at $240) and the new ATI Radeon HD 3850 (priced at $190) have just come out. Absolutely amazing price/performance ratio.

Finally DirectX 10.1 graphics near the leading edge is affordable. I will be grabbing one soon.

Memory Express has these cards!

VisionTek 3850 $190
VisionTek 3870 $240

Diamond 3850 $190
Diamond 3870 $240

[jolinar of malkshor]

I was watching tech tv and the guy on there said that Direct 10 wont catch on for games for quite some time as it is not compatible with xp. Have you heard anything about this?

[Nehkara]

Originally Posted by jolinar of malkshor

I was watching tech tv and the guy on there said that Direct 10 wont catch on for games for quite some time as it is not compatible with xp. Have you heard anything about this?

Depends what you mean...

Crysis (which just came out) looks really fantastic in DX10 and is designed for DX10... it is also supposedly one of the best FPS ever made. Hellgate: London is designed to look best on DX10.

DX10 does not work on XP, this is true.

[Hack&Lube]

And DX10 will never work on XP. But it can't denied that games are much prettier on DX10. That's really unfortunate as I'm not upgrading to Vista anytime.

Anyway, back to the slate of current cards, it's still frustrating that prices have risen so much on the 8800GT due to demand. The MSRP was stated to be around $200USD. Right now, they are selling for over $300USD in many places, even for the stock model.

I need a single card solution and I'm afriad the 3850 truely does not cut it at all.

[LockedOut]

IMO DX10 still is not ready for prime time. Vista+DX10 usually means a hit in performance for minor visual improvements. Even in Crysis there is a hack to get most of the DX10 visual enhancements in XP and DX9. This makes the difference in DX10 and DX9 in Crysis the same (ie. minimal difference) as any other game supporting both.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by LockedOut

IMO DX10 still is not ready for prime time. Vista+DX10 usually means a hit in performance for minor visual improvements. Even in Crysis there is a hack to get most of the DX10 visual enhancements in XP and DX9. This makes the difference in DX10 and DX9 in Crysis the same (ie. minimal difference) as any other game supporting both.

That was a hoax. None of the DX10 enhancements were in the purported hack/workaround. All they did was figure out how to edit a text file so that the game would use higher graphical settings than were available in the given options in the demo. No DX10 effects or shaders were used. It was not minimally different at all, you can blatantely see the differences (water did not refract light into a prisim of color, depth of view/focus effects didn't change, foliage didn't have the proper light bleeding, etc.).

DX10 for me, is not about performance (the claimed better performance under DX10 is pretty much false anyway as a game under DX10 is going to be more graphically demanding) but getting the best eye-candy. Unfortunately, I've tried Vista and couldn't live with it so I'm going to stick with DX9 for awhile yet. I still however, do need a faster single-slot card and the 8800GT prices are absolutely ridiculous at the moment.

[Wookie]

Originally Posted by Nehkara

Memory Express has these cards!

VisionTek 3850 $190
VisionTek 3870 $240

Diamond 3850 $190
Diamond 3870 $240

Bolded cards are actually not available "out of stock"

Weird, I randomly decided to go look on the mem ex website today just wondering if the new generation of cards were out yet?

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

That was a hoax. None of the DX10 enhancements were in the purported hack/workaround. All they did was figure out how to edit a text file so that the game would use higher graphical settings than were available in the given options in the demo. No DX10 effects or shaders were used. It was not minimally different at all, you can blatantely see the differences (water did not refract light into a prisim of color, depth of view/focus effects didn't change, foliage didn't have the proper light bleeding, etc.).

DX10 for me, is not about performance (the claimed better performance under DX10 is pretty much false anyway as a game under DX10 is going to be more graphically demanding) but getting the best eye-candy. Unfortunately, I've tried Vista and couldn't live with it so I'm going to stick with DX9 for awhile yet. I still however, do need a faster single-slot card and the 8800GT prices are absolutely ridiculous at the moment.

did you actually look at the comparison shots of Crysis on XP with Very High settings vs Crysis on Vista with DX10? the difference is subtle at best, with only a few extra shadows noticeable in DX10. here's a piece that Gamespot did showing exactly that

http://www.gamespot.com/features/618...g=header;title

DX10 is pointless and was only developed as a way to sell a crappy OS (Vista). and already there is a group of coders working on bringing DX10 to XP (you can already download an alpha version here) so by the time that you can actually notice any difference between DX9 and DX10 games, you won't have to give up XP to do it

[Regorium]

I would personally wait for the 8800GT to come down in price. A single slot card that is 10-30% better than the 3870. This means that if the 3870 is selling for $240, you can buy a 8800GT at $278 (average 15% better) with the same price/performance. The 8800GT is selling for $269-$309 at the moment with the supply problems, so some models are still a better buy.

Once the supply problems are alleviated and we're seeing 8800GT's at 229-249, it'll become no contest.

[Bobblehead]

These cards have been getting rave reviews. [H]ard OCP is usually pretty fair and they recommend these cards - at the price point they are dominate.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

did you actually look at the comparison shots of Crysis on XP with Very High settings vs Crysis on Vista with DX10? the difference is subtle at best, with only a few extra shadows noticeable in DX10. here's a piece that Gamespot did showing exactly that

http://www.gamespot.com/features/618...g=header;title

DX10 is pointless and was only developed as a way to sell a crappy OS (Vista). and already there is a group of coders working on bringing DX10 to XP (you can already download an alpha version here) so by the time that you can actually notice any difference between DX9 and DX10 games, you won't have to give up XP to do it

I don't think you've actually looked at the differences. A Gamespot article is pretty horrible for really showing you anything but a bland screenshot of a generic beachfront (with no action happened or any specific shaders or effects in use) that doesn't actually point out the features of DX10. I'll have to find a link but there are much better articles that show you the difference of the view when you are underwater (water refraction of light), the different focus/depth of view effects, particle effects, light bleeding in foliage, etc. There are also videos of later Crysis levels (the demo is very small part of the game) that really show the differences. They are very obvious and have a big impact on what you see onscreen. There are however, plenty of games on the market (maybe Call of Juarez) that are definetely reserving better quality textures and effects for their DX10 versions which could be impleted in the DX9 versions but Microsoft has probably given them a bucket of money to make then DX10 exclusive.

The Alky project is a long-shot that is very unlikely, the only way to adapt DX10 to XP is to create a workaround OpenGL wrapper. I've been researching DX10 for months trying to anticipate whether or not its features can be ported to DX9 and I've concluded from most of the major and reputable sites and forums and a direct port is highly unlikely at this time or the near future. We're on the same side, we are both against DX10 and prefer to stick with XP but I know for a fact that DX10 offers some beautiful graphics that cannot be achieved in DX9.

[Hack&Lube]

Frustrating that Memory Express is again, overcharging for these cards. Why do these guys simply have no competition in Calgary?

MSRP for the 3850 is $179 USD ($175 CDN). But then again, that's nothing new, MemEx has always charged $10-$15 premiums on many products over the price of other Canadian online retailers like NCIX. With the way the 8800GTs are backordered, the prices probably won't come down until the new year.

[Nehkara]

I like Memory Express... they seem to have better prices than any other computer places that I've been to.

Also, the 3850 is $10 cheaper on NCIX but the 3870 is the same price, plus you have to pay shipping.

[Vulcan]

I wish these cards had of come out last summer when I built my new computer. It has a crossfire MB, so I would have gone ATI if they had a decent card at the time. I have two Nvidia video cards now as I need two cards for dual monitors and my TV. A Crossfire setup would be great but too expensive now, so I'll wait till the 8800GTs drop in price and get one.

[LockedOut]

It's nice to see Memory Express open a store in the NW (Dalhousie). Now I don't have to drive so far just to pick up a spindle of blank DVD's.

[Bertuzzied]

Originally Posted by LockedOut

It's nice to see Memory Express open a store in the NW (Dalhousie). Now I don't have to drive so far just to pick up a spindle of blank DVD's.

I can't wait till they open in Dalhousie. I guess its suppose to be where Kelseys was. Too funny i was just on google searching for specs on a new vid card too.

[Bobblehead]

Its just nice to see a bit of competition again.