bit-tech Shopping: Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 Video Card

Rating: 10

Time with product: 15 Days

Strengths: Stability, Easy to install, Performance is great and won't break your budget.

Weaknesses: None so far

Summary: I would purchase this video again without hesitation. The fan is very quiet and the card runs cool all the time. I have it slightly overclocked and it is very stable.

Rating: 10

Time with product: 14

Strengths: Fast & Quiet

Weaknesses: Mine only came with a driver cd, no other extra software. It also only comes with a 1 year warranty I believe.

Summary: So far I'm very happy with this card. Its MUCH quieter than I expected. The large fan design on this is better than the tiny fan on the 8800gt cards... it also blows the hot air out the back of your case instead of just swirling it around inside yoru case. I upgraded from a 7900gs card. And this card appears to be roughly twice as fast in most of the games I play. In LOTRO where I used to get 40fps I now get roughly 80fps. Although I think the drivers still have room for improvement, as in some games the benchmarks are very weird compared to my previous 7900gs (such as World in Conflict) where its the same speed as my 7900gs in some resolutions and other resolutions its faster. I chose this card mostly because it has features the 8800gt doesn't have. Such as DDR4 memory, Directx 10.1, Shader 4.1, HDMI output, Less noise, PowerPlay power management, 55nm core. Yeah I know the Nvidia fans won't like me saying that, but its fact. ATI is actually using newer technology than Nvidia is.

Rating: 10

Time with product:

Strengths: Quieter than 2900xtPerforms better overall in games than 2900xtCooler than 2900xtA bit shorter than 2900xtExcellent PriceUses only 1 6-pin pci-e power

Weaknesses: Not quite a g92, but comparable for its price

Summary: I bought this to replace my 2900xt which was just too hot even under water. The stock fan on this surprised me since it is really quiet and never goes above 40% even when playing games, benching, etc.... On air you can manage temps like 45C at 55% fan or on stock fan speeds it goes to about 70C. It has built in ramsinks so when I went to water cooling it was easier than messing with mc14s and I was able to get idle 32C and load 37C with a q6600 in the loop with a gtx360. It was quite worth the money and has dx10.1 support (if that even means anything) and I can't wait to overclock it!