new replacement computer help

The image rendering quality of the 3870 (Radeons in general, in fact) is much better than that of the 8800GT, and realistically the performance difference isn't that noticeable. However, in the UK the 3870 is a lot cheaper than the 8800GT, in the US that may not be the case.

 

so i ordered the HD3870 thinking that its better to spend a little more $ now so that down the road the video card is still at least decent as compared to a cheaper card now.

I do have a question about this computer build. I am confused as to how to hookup the chipset fan rec'd by abuzar: Chipset Fan
I know abuzar said it goes ontop of the northbridge heat sink. How do I do this. I looked with the gold gigabyte heatsink on and off, but it doesn't make sense to me. Can someone help me with this. It seems to me that I am overlooking something very obvious, but i don't know what it is.

 

The fan will only attach securely with the P35-DS3R board I think, since that has a bigger chipset heatsink, with fan mounting holes. You can probably still attach it to this board, but you'll have to do it by some other means.

 

I think it will work. You will have to get some screws and attach the fan to the furthest little gap between the fins.

 

This was taken straight from tom's hardware best GPU's January 2008 guide.

"Best PCI-E Card For ~$290
GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB
The 8800 GT offers incredible Geforce 8800 GTX-class performance at almost half the price. It beats the Radeon 3870 by a notable margin, but it does tend to be a bit more expensive when available. That said, if you have $300 to spend on a graphics card, you can't do better than a nice 8800 GT."

They're saying that the 8800GT clearly out performs the HD3870...I complete agree with you saying that the radeon GPU's have better video quality... but is that quality improved enough to justify a "notable" decrease in performance at the same price???

*** Note that the guide on tom's hardware quoted the 8800GT at 290.00 and the HD3870 at 250.00 Right now on newegg, both GPU's are available for sub-200 dollars (identical price points)... given the similar prices what is better???

This sounds repetitive but the main question I have is, is the video quality of the HD3870 along with it's feature set reason enough to sacrifice performance and buy it over the 8800GT??

 

I would get an 8800GT. I don't see the big quality difference...

 

If you can get the settings right with Catalyst (which isn't actually that hard, I was just an idiot lol) the image quality of the Radeon is far superior in most departments. The Anti-Aliasing effects are cleaner and more reliable than nvidia cards (hence why AA doesn't bring nvidia down so much in benchmarks), and the cards support DX10.1, so you may even be able to have anti-aliased DX10 Vista graphics if 10.1 is ever released. It probably won't be though, so I won't press that advantage too much.
The shadow rendering quality of the Radeon is MUCH higher than the geforce, without question, so if you like your high-res, get the 3870. It's worth pointing out that you shouldn't get the card for Crysis though, since all these benefits do not apply to that game.

 

hmm I guess there's no alternative but to either try out both gpu's to see if the difference is significant enough for yourself... Or pick performance over quality/vice versa.

just out of curiosity, are there any added features to the HD3870 that the 8800GT does not have, since it's an older card?

 

Directx10.1, and I think, better HD video support, but I'm not sure exactly where.

 

So I have the computer up and ready to go. I am using my hard drive from my old dell. However, I get a screen that says I need to reactivate windows.
I have another windows XP cd that I used in my other computer. Is there anyway that I can wipe the hard drive clean and install windows fresh from my windows XP cd.

 

Possibly, but you'll still need to activate it! Why don't you just do as it says and activate over the phone?