Who Makes the best Radeon 3870?

[LepRechauN]

Powercolor, Gigabyte, Gecube, MSI, VisionTek, Sapphire, Diamond or Asus?

I see different companies all making what seems to be the same card. Some even at different prices. Mostly $249.

Asus makes one for $279. Does it make a difference which company I go with? People seem pretty happy with Diamond. Any company I should not go with?

Also, my OS is Win XP SP2, does that make a difference in what card I choose?

[w00fd06]

I'm gonna have to go with GECUBE, on paper, it looks like they have the best card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814241067, however, i haven't seen any actual tests on these cards specifically.

The different companies just will have slightly different speeds, if not the same, you may also see power consumption differences in different companies as well.

The only difference your OS will make is DirectX, you will be limited to DX9, if you were to upgrade to Vista Home Premium or Ultimate (downgrade, as some say), then you would be able to use DX10 / DX10.1, which does look better than DX9, thanks to some new lighting features, such as global illumination in DX10.1.

The only real difference between the $279 Asus and the GECUBE is the fact that the ASUS comes with Company of Heroes, just to show off DX10, but considering you have XP, go with the GECUBE.

[LepRechauN]

I'm gonna have to go with GECUBE, on paper, it looks like they have the best card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814241067, however, i haven't seen any actual tests on these cards specifically.

The different companies just will have slightly different speeds, if not the same, you may also see power consumption differences in different companies as well.

The only difference your OS will make is DirectX, you will be limited to DX9, if you were to upgrade to Vista Home Premium or Ultimate (downgrade, as some say), then you would be able to use DX10 / DX10.1, which does look better than DX9, thanks to some new lighting features, such as global illumination in DX10.1.

The only real difference between the $279 Asus and the GECUBE is the fact that the ASUS comes with Company of Heroes, just to show off DX10, but considering you have XP, go with the GECUBE.

Thanks, I'll probably go with GECUBE.

[LepRechauN]

Actualy, it looks like everyone is buying these cards from Sapphire and Diamond. Both companies got very high reviews. Decisions decisions! Maybe I'll try Daimond.

[DL126]

Mine are Diamond.
But there's no real reason for that other than that's what my TD rep could get her hands on when I got the first one.
I've had no problems with them so far ... hardware problems that is.

Running dual monitors in Vista will cause driver crashes.
But this is happening with Nvidia drivers as well.

[Apoptosis]

Don't forget Palit...

Lots of companies to pick from... just remember they are all the same GPU -- some just a different pcb and others use reference everything.

[kappage]

Don't forget Palit...

Lots of companies to pick from... just remember they are all the same GPU -- some just a different pcb and others use reference everything.

after seeing the 7900GTO sonic i think palit is a tad crap. IMO