WARM: Radeon 3870 $217 shipped AR

[Zap]

http://www.clubit.com/product_...il.cfm?itemno=A9630955

GIGABYTE Radeon HD 3870 512MB
$229.99
-$20 MIR
$6.98 shipping

$216.97 total

This is merely a warm deal. Normally it would be hot because it is a 3870 and has a Zalman cooler, however IMO the reference cooler that exhausts out the rear is a better choice. Additionally, this card has slower RAM than the other 3870 cards. Still, a better deal than most of the 512MB 3850 cards.

EDIT: Fixed rebate amount.

 

[Engineer]

Notice it has GDDR3 instead of GDDR4? :Q

I wonder how it would stack up against something like this (HD 3850 with 512M GDDR3 that's overclocked with better cooler)?

Now with HD 3850 review.

This review is what makes everything so damn confusing. The above HD 3850 seems to beat the HD 3870 "most" of the time.

 

[ghost recon88]

According to newegg, there are 2 different models. The Gigabyte with the red PCB is the GDDR4 one, while the blue PCB (what this deal is for) has GDDR3.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: Engineer
Notice it has GDDR3 instead of GDDR4?

Yes, I already noted in my OP that it has slower RAM. However, the RAM and core are still faster than the 3850 you linked to, so I don't know why you say the 3850 would beat the 3870 "most" of the time. Design is the same so this "slow" 3870 is still faster (core/mem) than then fast 3850.

That's a nice 3850 though.

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: Zap

Originally posted by: Engineer
Notice it has GDDR3 instead of GDDR4?

Yes, I already noted in my OP that it has slower RAM. However, the RAM and core are still faster than the 3850 you linked to, so I don't know why you say the 3850 would beat the 3870 "most" of the time. Design is the same so this "slow" 3870 is still faster (core/mem) than then fast 3850.

That's a nice 3850 though.

It seems like it beat the 3870 on most of the tests that I saw in the above linked review. There's another 3850 that's a few MHz faster than this one for a few bucks cheaper ($189 + shipping) on Newegg. All of these cores and memory speeds and overclocks out of the box just muddys the water for me.

 

[cubeless]

something odd about those bmks... this card is clocked higher (Core Clock: 775MHz
Memory Clock: 1900MHz ) than the 3850 512 in the test... i would sure think that the 3870 would perform better at those speeds...

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: cubeless
something odd about those bmks... this card is clocked higher (Core Clock: 775MHz
Memory Clock: 1900MHz ) than the 3850 512 in the test... i would sure think that the 3870 would perform better at those speeds...

Yes, I would agree.

Oh well, sorry Zap for pulling your thread OT!

 

[cubeless]

don't think it's ot... the price/performance of the various incarnations of these cards directly affects the hotness of a deal... i think that, based on the clocks and features of the card, this is pretty hot...

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: cubeless
don't think it's ot... the price/performance of the various incarnations of these cards directly affects the hotness of a deal... i think that, based on the clocks and features of the card, this is pretty hot...

The 3870 I'm assuming?

 

[cubeless]

yup

 

[bf1942]

NeverWinter Nights 2

looks like it is included with the card.
That can really help heat up this deal .
for me anyway.