3870 video card

I needed to upgrade my DELL 9100/VISTA ULTIMATE, 512MB memory video system. However, I wanted to use the AMD/ATI card version. I was not impressed with reviews on the 2xxxx versions and the X1800 XTX I was using was a loud, hot running card as well as not doing DX10. I read some reviews on this card (3870) that made me decide to take a chance on it. I have had it in now for a few weeks and can say that this is definitely a cut above the old X1800 XTX 512MB card (which I consider it to be a very good card for my use also.) I have in the mean time made some major Hardware modifications to the DELL. It now has 2 160 GB SATA drives as well. After tying down various free floating wires in the case I powered it back up. It is now the quietest PC I Have yet owned and up to playing games like OBLIVION and BIOSHOCK with all settings full on (which is great since I am using the VISTA OS). When the PC starts up, the video card still does the max fan rev up and then dies down, but in a reasonably quiet  more

Geeze...the best graphics card I've ever owned!

ATI has indeed come up with a powerful graphics card to compete with the 8800GT, and it cost a lot less. This Radeon HD 3870 is quite a card, and easily the best I've ever owned. The 512MB DD4 ram easily handles everything I've thrown at it so far. Let me say up front, that I am not a techno geekoid, so you're not going to get an in depth technical review from me. This is what I do know: I can run all my games at the MAX settings including Crysis! You can run this card in either Directx 9 or 10 depending on your Window's software. The card is SLI capable, so you can run two of them should you have two pci-e slots on your motherboard. With no over-clocking you can run the card at default settings of 777/2100 MHZ, which is very fast but just the tip of the iceberg. If you use the over-clocking tool, you can turn the specs way up. With my Duo Core 2 cpu and 4gb of ram, I was able to over-clock the card at 810/2500 MHZ! Even without overclocking, I can run all my games at max settings  more