More Testing:

Here are a couple of the latest game titles to see how well these cards handle the stress. COD4, STALKER, and Fear are a couple games that can require quite a bit system resources especially at higher resolutions.

The Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 3870 produces some respectable frame rates at 1680 x 1050 as well as High settings. Crossfire mode is pretty handy in these highest settings with the exception of Crysis. Unfortunately, Crysis pretty much pummels every graphics card out there individually and often in dual graphics system. This is true as well for my formerly trusted 8800 GTS Superclock.

Single HD 3870 - Normal Action

Single HD 3870 - Intense Action

For a little more insight to how the HD 3870 handles the over all system 3D environment, I ran Cinebench 10. The results were compared to the 8800 GTS as well. The 8800 GTS comes out a little ahead, but not by much since the CPU helps do a lot of the work.

Also worth mentioning is the lower temps. At idle, the cards reported the same temps at 38 C. This is quite a bit lower than a poorly cooled 8600 GTS or 8800 GTS for that matter. At 3D load, the temps hung around the 43 C area, topping out at about 48 C when enclosed in the test case at full load.

Desktop Temps

Game Temps

Conclusion:

Alright, the things I like and don't like. I like that the cards are pretty darn good performers especially for the cost. They work great independently and obviously do better in Crossfire. The downside may be in the drivers themselves. The Catalyst 8.3 drivers and set up features seemed a bit buggy. One problem I encountered was a random issue tweaking and playing around with driver quality settings. I'm not sure which settings were exactly used, but switching to Performance over Quality mode caused some weird tearing randomly in games. Going back to the default install settings worked very nicely.

Everyone will most likely be picking up these cards for single or Crossfire solutions to play their latest game titles and at least have pretty decent playable experience. The frame rates aren't going to quite match something like the 8800 GTS Superclock cards or a single HD 3870 X2 card, but they aren't lacking in performance. It's also nice to see the latest Catalyst drivers helping the cards stand up to the tasks at hand.

However, these cards can also serve other purposes like some good quality HD and Blu-ray DVD playback. Since they support every current and future required DVD format, the DVD experience continued to support my personal opinion on the nicer, more realistic graphics. That's not to say that the 8800 GTS can't produce some very likeable results. It's definitely done better for me over the slower version 8500 and 8600 cards.

You can find the Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 3870 512MB Graphics Accelerator for about $180 or less these days. That's not a bad price at all and wouldn't be an unjust idea in picking up two of these. Both the HD 3870 and 3850 cards have proven themselves a really good option over an 8600 GTS. If comparing the 8800 GTS or GT price wise, you'll find the 8800 to cost as much as $50 more which means those on a budget should really consider the HD 3870. This should give regular or enthusiast users exactly what they need, especially if you want to use it in an HTPC application.

Believe it or not, I'm pleasantly surprised to see ATI Radeon cards return with some good results. If you can ignore all the ATI vs NVidia bashing, there's really nothing bad to say about the Gigabyte's newest, silent HD 3870 512MB Ultra Durable 2 Graphics Accelerator. It performs well, is very well priced, and is anything but a stock HD 3870. I can't wait to see what they come up with next!

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