2 replies to this topic

[Stephen]

I'm thinking about upgrading from a Radeon X1950Pro to the Radeon HD 3870. Does anyone know the differences in terms of gaming performance, heat, and sound - with stock cooling for both?

[1200]

If you know how good geforce 8800 then you should have an idea about the radeon HD3870. Radeon Hd 3870 Is obviously better than Radeon X1950 Pro in performance, heat, etc... But I don't understand why you would want to upgrade it though, Radeon X1950pro is not that old and is a good graphic card.

[CTskifreak]

First, to answer Stephen's question, the 3870 will obviously be better, and you get the inclusion of DX10 and some other newer features, such as HD decoding that is fully offloaded from your processor. If you don't have any HD content, there is no real use for it.

1200 --- The problem with you statement is that there are technically 5 cards that are under the "8800" designation. They are the GT, the GTS (320MB and 640MB versions), the GTX, and the Ultra.

The 3870 is comparable to the GT/GTS, but not the higher end GTX and Ultra cards. I know this because I read Maximum PC and they have stated that ATI/AMD is staying out of the high end of the market, because they cannot compete. (Good thing to, because the Phenom processor can hang with even the Q6600 processor from Intel.)

AJ