Okay so I know the HD2900PRO is a little bit older now, but at its time i remember it being a very good price/performance ratio. Now im looking to pick up a card and am considering that or the HD3850 There both about the same price. I can get the hd2900pro for $180cdn and the hd3850 for about 200-215 i think so it is slightly more. I could not find any reviews or benches which specifically compared these 2 cards. Just wondering if I could get some guidance on this please.
The HD3850 is nearly as fast as the 2900XT, let alone the Pro. Get the HD3850, it uses less than half as much power as the 2900XT (c. 90W versus 250W) makes far less noise (32dB vs 50dB) and is almost as fast. Plus of course it supports DX10.1 and SM4.1 too, so it's futureproof.
Wow thats a huge difference in power. I dont think the dx10.1 is much of a big deal though. But you think it should be quite close in performance? Because to me i dont really care to much about the power consumption im just trying to get the best performance from either card. Plus the 2900pro is about $30-40 cheaper. Is the 3850 comparable to the old 8800gts 320 or 640 models? Its so hard to keep track these days with so many different high end cards being released.
Like sammorris said HD3850 is nearly as fast as the HD2900XT, and the HD3850 is newer, newer technology, more future proof, a good card
It is pretty nice, faster than th old 8800GTS. Do yourself a favor though, get the 512MB version if you can.