[White]

Hi. I'm in the process of buying a new PC, and was wondering what would be a better option to choose out of these two:

1 x GeForce 9800 GT 512MB

or

2 x Radeon HD 3850 512MB in Crossfire


I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to these things, so any help would be appreciated. It may also be worth mentioning that the ATI option is £60 more expensive. Thanks in advance.

[MaxWilson]

hi mate, personally I'd buy one the new 4850 or 4870 if you can afford.
these are new cards from ATI, they preform very well and should cost more or less than what you suggested.

to buy - http://www.ebuyer.com/search/?intSto...SubcatUID=2586

heres a good review - http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341

hope this helps!!!

[alex]

The 9800GT.

Simply because a typical 3850 can run a game (pick one) at around the same fps/detail settings as a vanilla 9600GT.

A single 9800GT will outperform 2 9600GT's in SLI. As you only see around a 20-40% increase in performance with two cards.

Also, it'll depend if the game's you play are coded to make use of a multi-gpu setup.

On top of that, a single 9800GT will allow you to game at 1920x1200. 2 3850's in Crossfire won't even get close when running a title that allows usage from two cards.

Then you've got the extra wattage required for a dual card setup, a potential lack of airflow across the gpu's, loss of access to the mobo's expansion ports due to having dual card's....

[thingie2]

The 9800GT would be my choice too for the same reasons as Alex.

[MYRM1D0N]

buy a single 4850 or 4870. they are probably the new best thing on the market for the money and are cheaper and better than the 9800 gtx