HD3870, Which One To Get?

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Oline61

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Aug 8, 2005
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I've always bought Nvidia cards, but the HD3870 is just too good to pass up. At Newegg right now there are four HD3870's which all appear pretty much identical. The four brands are Powercolor, Diamond, HIS and Sapphire. Which one would you advise I buy?

Thanks,
oline61
 
Whichever is in stock, haha. Or you can wait till other manufactures come out with bundles.
 
dont buy sapphire, you can read the horror story in this forum to see why;)
 
I would go with Powercolor - I have had a decent amount of their cards, my first a 9700 Pro and I still use it today on a secondary pc.
 
his and powercolor are very good (powercolor has lifetime guarantee i think)
 
provoko said:
Whichever is in stock, haha. Or you can wait till other manufactures come out with bundles.
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Amen to that.

cesium666 said:
dont buy sapphire, you can read the horror story in this forum to see why;)
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Noted, thanks for the advice.

Tetrahedron said:
I would go with Powercolor - I have had a decent amount of their cards, my first a 9700 Pro and I still use it today on a secondary pc.
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Thanks for the advice. Do you have any experience with their RMA service?

If the main thing seperating these cards is customer service, which brand has the best record?
 
Oline61 said:
Powercolor is starting to sound like a winner. Thanks for the advice.
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My Powercolor x1900 had a lifetime warranty. I checked the powercolor site because I'd like the lifetime warranty on my 3850/3870 purchase but I couldn't find anything.
 
Wierd thing is that I have purchase Sapphire cards for quite a number of years. Never had a single problem with any of them. Yet my friend bought Powercolor x1900XT and had to RMA it 3 times due to problems in the first year.

So, I guess it is just preference. :D
 
'PowerColor today announced that it would start issuing lifetime warranties across the board for all of its X1900 series graphics products that are manufactured after January, 24, 2006. The program is designed to guarantee workmanship and manufacturing quality.

PowerColor will provide a lifetime warranty to the original purchaser of each retail product that the product will not suffer, in material or workmanship, from any defect that adversely affects the performance of the product.'

http://www.liquidninjas.com/modules.php?name=News&file=showarticle&postid=100707

seems to be for x1900 only if so go for His :p
 
cesium666 said:
dont buy sapphire, you can read the horror story in this forum to see why;)
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Does anyone have a link? :confused:
I used search, but can't find it.

I just got a HIS 3870 from Newegg, but was thinking of swapping it for the Sapphire due to the software bundle (PowerDVD v7, DVD suite v5) both of which I could use.
However if the service is c**p, I could just keep the HIS. :cool:

Oh, and BUYER BEWARE! :eek:
Newegg has switched its return policy on all these HD 3000 series cards.
It WAS 30 day Return for Refund and 30 day return for replacement.
NOW its NO RETURN FOR REFUND, only 30 day return for replacement!
This is OK if you KNOW what the deal is, but they switched in mid-day Thursday.

Hoping for that Sapphire link.
 
ATI needs to get some better companies using their chips. I'd love to get a MSI or Gigabyte ATI card. I dunno about you guys. I like ati but ehh.. everytime I get one it has something funny about it.
 
Gigabyte has a 3800 lineup with NWN2 bundled, at least over here in Europe, MSI has 3800s on the way with a female android motif.
 
MrLonghair said:
Gigabyte has a 3800 lineup with NWN2 bundled, at least over here in Europe, MSI has 3800s on the way with a female android motif.
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I'd pick them over these current ones. lol odly enough yeah I knew gigabyte did since I own one haha arg.. Gigabyte 9600xt or pro or something
 
I've always bought Sapphire... back as far as my 9800 NP, and there's a pretty good chance I'm buying it again. Not because I never had any issues but also that it just ends up being a little cheaper than most brands since it doesn't ship with many extras at all.

I didn't get anything with my X1950 XT, just the connectors and the CD in a package and it cost me $250 back in December. Less than one year later the Sapphire 3870 is shipping for the exact same amount from canadacomputers and it's easily twice the card my X1950 XT ever could be.

It's really amazing how things just keep getting faster and cheaper.
 
that MSI looks tasty, it says its going to be 512bit memory instead of 256.
 
Seeing as everything is out of stock right now the MSI card is sounding mighty tasty. I still have an MSI 6600GT and K8N Neo4 that have treated me very well. Any idea when the MSI and Gigabyte 3870's might show up on Newegg?
 
The 512bit thing must be wrong, it's a quote from MSI PR, claiming all 3800s have it :/

I do like their cover design more than that of GeCubes silver-age superhero comics reject though.
 
arklab said:
I just got a HIS 3870 from Newegg, but was thinking of swapping it for the Sapphire due to the software bundle (PowerDVD v7, DVD suite v5) both of which I could use.
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Well, I got one of the Sapphire 3870's from New Egg and it DOESN"T COME WITH ANY ADDITIONAL SOFTWARE. It just comes with a Catalyst Install disk.
No HL2 Black Box Code either.

I feel ripped off.
 
twil said:
Yeah, Powercolor does aftermarket cooling well. I have a Powercolor x1950 pro with an arctic silencer on it. Silent is right.
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The stock "dual slot" heatsink/fan that came with my Sapphire 3870 is *really* quiet, but doesn't seem to move much air. It looks alot like the Arctic Cooling designed dual slot cooling solutions that I had on my X800 and 9800. The exhaust of the hot air out the back of the case is why I bought the Arctic Cooling coolers for my previous card, and I like that that style of cooling is "standard" on the OEM 3870's.

The aftermarket cooling on the Powercolor looks like it's a single slot solution that will dump all the hot air back into your case. :eek:
 
Having read the horror story about Sapphire's customer service here, and seeing a Sapphire 3870 on NewEgg.com available, the question I ask:

Yes or no?
 
octoberasian said:
Having read the horror story about Sapphire's customer service here, and seeing a Sapphire 3870 on NewEgg.com available, the question I ask:

Yes or no?
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Thats up to you and im sure EVERY manufacturer has had a few bad stories to go along with them....I've had 3 sapphire cards and never had a problem with any of them.
 
Here's one with 2 heatpipes!!!

http://www.gecube.com/products-detail.php?prod_id=69097

cms_file.php


(I wonder if that's ok pasting the above image.. since it's very do-able.. Moderator, if not, please just delete the image and let me know. thanks)
 
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