ATi Radeon HD 3870 vs nVidia 7950GT for FS9/X

**pacallen** · 01-31-2008, 04:31 PM

Hey all... I want slightly upgrade my video card and dump nVidia altogether due to Squawkbox incompatibilities and was considering the ATi Radeon HD 3870. The specs on the Radeon seem to dominate my 7950GT specs, but the benchmarks for FSX don't seem to reflect it, as seen http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphi...=710&chart=293. However, all the other games and benchmarks show a dominant lead by the 3870. I will be using FS9 but I would think the FSX benchmarks would be similar. Would this card be an upgrade for FS (and why the large drop w/ AMD/ATi cards?)? I play other graphics intensive games too, but I always gear my system towards FS.

**Irocx** · 02-02-2008, 10:54 PM

Using benchmarks of FSX for FS9 isn't really a fair comparison - a totally different sim. Phil Taylor from Ace's noted about the close performance between Nvidia's 7000 and 8000 series cards in a blog post, though he never commented as to why it happens. The biggest performance gains I've ever accomplished in FS9 was the result of a CPU upgrade, as opposed to a GPU upgrade. I can't really comment on the 3870 - I was looking at it but opted to replace my X800Xt with a 8800GT, so we're going opposite directions. I have heard that ATI has better IQ - guess I'll find out.

**djt** · 02-04-2008, 03:20 PM

Originally Posted by Irocx

I have heard that ATI has better IQ - guess I'll find out.

That was true with Nvidia�s 7 series but not with the new 8 series.

**pacallen** · 02-06-2008, 08:13 PM

Originally Posted by Irocx

Using benchmarks of FSX for FS9 isn't really a fair comparison - a totally different sim.

I do plan on switching to FSX when certain addons get updated so I would want a card that isn't going to hinder me there.

There is such a large boost in graphics power from the 3870 vs the GeForce 7950GT that I can't believe the performance would be worse. In a head to head test by anandtech the HD 3870 came very close to the 8800GT so I've opted to go for it and am looking for a good deal on the card.

My CPU is an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 so I'm not terribly lacking in that department but may upgrade down the line sometime.

Thanks for the replies all.