Serious question about the 3870

FiZuR

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 29, 2005
Messages
304
I recently sold my 8800GTX because i needed the money to pay for bills, so i went and purchased a Diamond HD 3870. 3 months later i was at a LAN and won a Visiontek HD 3870. I have yet to find a side by side comparison, but i would like to know which one has the overall higher quality card. The diamond card has a larger fan on it like the older 2900XT cards and the visiontek is the newer slimmer shrouding. I really need some hard input as to which card i should go with, even if they are clocked remotely different, i need to know everything. All the help is much appreciated.
 
i don't think there's too much difference to be honest, i know the visiontek has a lifetime warranty, and that's the card i have. I'm unaware as to what the warranty on the diamond is. i'd just sell the visiontek on ebay/forums if it's still brand new in box and keep the diamond.

or you could just 3dmark each one and see which one wins...
 
Same clocks, same PCB, same everything. Apparently the Diamond has an aftermarket cooler, so that would be the only real grounds to base your decision on. The visiontek, as stated above, has a lifetime warranty. What kinda papers do you have to certify that you won the thing at a lan turny? I don't know how RMA support at visiontek would take that...

you could sell the motherboard and get one crossfire compatable, if your willing to go through the hassle, at little cost to yourself. Run em in tandem and watch em smoke your old 8800GTX scores.
 
i have a P35 board. Was running them in Crossfirex and after a couple days, i was getting serious video corruptions, scan lines appearing and such.
 
i have a P35 board. Was running them in Crossfirex and after a couple days, i was getting serious video corruptions, scan lines appearing and such.

jeez. thats not good, test each one individually, sounds like you got one thats dead.
 
hopefully it's the visiontek and that lifetime warranty comes in handy :p
 
and for some odd reason, 3Dmark will start the splash screen and then it will not respond after that. This is a very clean install of vista.
 
and for some odd reason, 3Dmark will start the splash screen and then it will not respond after that. This is a very clean install of vista.

thats not odd, thats one of the cards croaking.

test em, pray its the visiontek.
 
I tested the visiontek on its own. ITS A FREAKING HOTPLATE. i saw it get into the 90's. My Diamond card, barely gets into the 70's
 
Oh yeah, get that checked, i had to put my zalman on my 3850.

anyone warrantied through viziontek before? think they'd know if I slapped the stock cooler back on?
 
im waiting for some really good aftermarket coolers for these cards, that will help.
 
There's a fix for that 3dmark issue you're having, I was having it as well. It involves renaming a .dll somewhere. Google to the rescue!
 
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