| Sapphire Radeon HD3870 X2 1GB Graphics Card
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Conclusion:
The 1GB Sapphire Radeon HD3870 X2 graphics card couples the power of two HD3870 GPUs on one card to provide the muscle necessary to smoothly drive today's games with ease. And if you are a player that insists on the absolute cutting edge and top notch performance at any cost you can take advantage of CrossFireX and use two of these cards in tandem.
The Sapphire Radeon HD3870 X2 showed up some single processor HD3800 series cards during testing, and took game play to a new level of enjoyability. Even with the settings on high, there wasn't a game played where the frame rates dropped low enough to be noticeable. While the default settings should be more than enough to make any user happy, you can always overclock for an even greater boost. My experience was that 6% overclocks on both the memory and GPU were easy to accomplish, and that benchmarks and the frame rates achieved in actual games responded nicely to the extra speed.
Other than the fact that the fundamental design of this card requires it to be big, bulky, and sometimes kind of noisy, there aren't any significant issues with it. When you put two powerful graphics processing units on one card it is going to be big and it is going to get hot, and shopping around for different brands isn't really going to help you. While the minimal bundle of accessories may help keep the total cost down, it would be one area that could be improved. There are no games included, and the 'bonus' software includes two CyberLink titles and a copy of 3DMark06, which are nice but not overly exciting. And while you do get a bundle of cables and connectors, I found it odd that two 6-pin power connectors were provided when the card requires one 6-pin and one 8-pin connector.
A search of PriceGrabber finds the 1GB Sapphire Radeon HD3870 X2 at a variety of retailers for as little as just under $400 (or about $370 with a $30 rebate being offered at the time this review was released). While I realize the word 'little' may not be appropriate for anything with such a price tag, when compared to other HD3870 X2 cards the price is rather competitive. The lowest price on PriceGrabber happened to be from Newegg.com, and browsing their selection of 1GB HD3870 X2 cards shows that $400 is as good as it gets.
Considering the strong performance in games and benchmarks, as well as the competitive price, the 1GB Sapphire Radeon HD3870 X2 graphics card earns the awards of "Recommended" and "Gaming Approved".
 
Pros:
» Top notch performance
» Makes high end games playable at higher settings
» Single card Crossfire that can be paired up with another card for the power of four GPUs
» Two slot design dumps GPU and system heat out of the case
» At just under $400 it is competitively priced with other HD3870 X2 cards
Cons:
» Rather weak bundle of accessories and software
» Includes two 6-pin power adaptors, but you need one 6-pin and one 8-pin adaptor
» General issues with reference design: Size, weight, fan noise
Special thanks to Sapphire for providing the Sapphire Radeon HD3870 X2 1GB Graphics Card to Bigbruin.com for review!
Please drop by the Bigbruin.com Forum and feel free to post any comments or questions.
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