ATI cuts prices on the 3850 and 3870

sbrehm72255

Tech Monkey
Rumor control at its best...................:eek:

This again is from the Inquirer, so take it for what its worth department............:D But anyways, if its true there might just be another price war starting like what went on with AMD and Intel, we can only hope so.................:eek:

ATI IS GOING TO drop prices on the 3850 and 3870 in the next day or two. This is not a short term thing, it is a permanent cut.

The price on the 3850/512 is going to sink to $145 or below, and the 3870/512 should hit $159 or less. At that money, many may ask, why bother with the 3850?

In any case, these are screamingly good deals. You can buy three 3870s for the price of a 3870X2, or three and a mobo for less than a GX2. Not bad. µ

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/03/19/ati-cuts-prices-3850-3870
 

Kougar

Techgage Staff
Staff member
Dailytech said pretty much the same thing... AMD wasn't happy retailers were marking the 9600GT's prices around $150, which is below what NVIDIA's claimed market price.
 

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
I doubt it's a rumor... AMD needs to do this. Their HD 3850 performs worse than the 9600 GT, yet costs more. That doesn't make an ounce of sense.
 

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
is anyone else tired of all the midrange cards coming out?

I'm somewhat tired of the fact that there are so many different mid-range (and even high-end now) cards available. It's no wonder novice computer builders get so confused... there are SO many freaking options. Then to top it off, there are a few models that just vary in memory size, from 256MB up to 1GB.

But, I have to contradict myself because if you do know about GPUs and what to look for, it's actually rather nice having such a wide selection. I just wish the 256MB options would drop entirely from mid-range options, and leave that for the low-end/budget cards. I'd like to see forthcoming cards begin out at 512MB and work their way up.
 

Kougar

Techgage Staff
Staff member
What I found scary, was the report I saw that companies were slapping 1GB of ram onto 8500GT cards to try and clear out old stock for upcoming 9-series versions, and actually selling them very well. The things that boggle the mind...
 

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
What I found scary, was the report I saw that companies were slapping 1GB of ram onto 8500GT cards to try and clear out old stock for upcoming 9-series versions, and actually selling them very well. The things that boggle the mind...

The sad thing is that the regular consumer falls for this. I used to work with someone that thought that having a card with more memory was always a good thing. He went out to purchase an "upgrade", which actually turned out to be a downgrade. He only bought it because it had more memory, and even the guy at the store who he bought it through thought along the same lines.

Having 1GB on a GPU makes more sense to me now that I've tried to use SLI'd 512MB cards at 2560x1600. I have a feeling with 1GB, performance would be greatly increased, since at that resolution, there is a lot that could be stored to memory. But, it's obvious that it would have no effect on a budget card. The GPU has to have some performance at least.

I'd love to do a writeup on that soon, actually. Comparing SLI'd 8800 GT 512MBs to SLI'd 8800 GT 1GBs would be a good test, I'd think.
 

Merlin

The Tech Wizard
I'd love to do a write up on that soon, actually. Comparing SLI'd 8800 GT 512MBs to SLI'd 8800 GT 1GBs would be a good test, I'd think.

Also each card in non SLI, to see what the difference is before SLI? and after, then the two in comparison in SLI

I tried both on mine with the 8800GT...and...lol... actually saw a performance gain in sigle card use in Lightsmark. Go figure.

:techgage::techgage: Merlin :techgage::techgage:
 

Kougar

Techgage Staff
Staff member
That is what I mean by it being scary! They wouldn't be doing it if it didn't work... Did you hear Jetway just launched 8800GT and 9600GT cards with 2GB of RAM now? :eek:

Well, when the people at the store suggest things like that, they are probably just pushing the company policy. Best Buy is known for it.

I've seen a highly clocked 1GB 8800GTS (G92) card tested at 2560x1600, and it still didn't yield any differences over 512mb versions. Ramping up AA and AF may work, but no single card is going to have the horsepower to run lagfree framerates in current games under those settings anywy. You have an interesting point though if two 1GB cards in SLI might be able to finally show it is useful.

The thing is, with the exception of the "Ultra High" mode on Quake 4 where they used 500mb of uncompressed game textures, I don't think games are going to be designed to be able to use more memory than 512mb anytime soon? It'd be great if they did though.
 

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
I think it's obvious that 2GB of memory on a GPU is completely needless at this point in time, especially on a mid-range offering. There are no games or many workstation applications that will even remotely touch 2GB of RAM. Even the 2GB of available RAM on the ATI FireGL V8650 is ridiculous, and could only be touched by those who know how to and actually have a need for it.

That said, these constant races are growing tiresome. Personally, I feel 512MB for a 9600 GT is perfect, and I highly doubt that even bumping the card up to 1GB would make an ounce of difference. That's something I'd like to test though.

I've seen a highly clocked 1GB 8800GTS (G92) card tested at 2560x1600, and it still didn't yield any differences over 512mb versions. Ramping up AA and AF may work, but no single card is going to have the horsepower to run lagfree framerates in current games under those settings anywy. You have an interesting point though if two 1GB cards in SLI might be able to finally show it is useful.

I agree completely and that's my thoughts. Playing any game at 2560x1600 with AA enabled decreases performance greatly, so that's where I feel the 1GB of RAM would be very useful.

What I find odd, though, is that no NVIDIA 9-series cards use more than 512MB of RAM (with the exception of the 9600 GT which also has a 1GB configuration). Even the 9800 GTX that's coming out soon has only 512MB... down from the 768MB of the 8800 GTX. Somewhat of an odd move, if you ask me. Reviews for that card will be coming very, very soon though, so we'll soon see.
 

Kougar

Techgage Staff
Staff member
Doesn't seem odd at all, 512mb has been pegged as the industry standard for a few years going now. 640/768 didn't offer any advantages, and considering those parts often have premium RAM / more expensive memory busses it was a great way to trim costs.

I'm worried how long it'll take before more than one or two games consider even coming with the option to use more than 512mb.... 256mb is only now just becoming the middle mainstream, but Valve's HL2 engine is a great example that it was built to even run on 64bit 128mb hardware.

The unfortunate thing is I think far more cards would need to be 1GB before game developers would consider building games that will use it.
 

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
The unfortunate thing is I think far more cards would need to be 1GB before game developers would consider building games that will use it.

I'm all for seeing that happen, as long as the game developers focus more on gameplay than graphics ;-)
 
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