Look at the Tom's hardware Review of the new AMD Radeon HD...Wtf was ATI thinking?!?!?!?!?!
 
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/1 [...] page4.html

In some cases yes, but not all.  Take a look at page 14, world in conflict.  Here the 3870 beats the GTS.  (as long as AA/AF is off.)  Even the 3850 comes close to the GTS, and for nearly $100 less.  If you go to page 15 and look at UT3, you will notice that the 3870 beats the GTS, even with AA/AF turned on.  Also once again, you can notice that the 3850 comes in just behind the GTS.  Close enough that I wouldn't mind saving the $$$ and get the 3850.
 
Yes, they didn't overtake the high end.  But they never claimed they would.  The 3850 is a true midrange card, while the 3870 is basically a cheaper to produce 2900XT.  The advantage the 3870 has over the 2900XT for the end user is that it doesn't use as much power.  Sure the 8800GT is sexy and great, but not everyone is going to shell out $250+ for a video card.  What does Nvidia have at the sub $200 price point that performs anywhere near the 3850?  

Yea dude I'm just saying I miss the days where they were top lol
Plus granted they are really cheap but look at how thin the GT is...can you imagine the money you save by saving space and cooling in the case?? I mean OMG SEXYness at a hole new level. I'm actually selling my 8800 GTS OCs 2 get GTs lol
 
I need some room in my case.

Great(er) Powers (Usage) Comes With Great Space (Responsibilities?) ... I'll have to carefully consider between ATi or nVidia for my next build...save some money on hardware, or on utility bills

Tacky quote but I'll take it

I miss the days they were on top to, but I don't love AMD/ATI enough to buy a bad card if there is a better option out there.  If you want cheaper high end, the 8800GT is your best bet.  I can't afford the $280 price that they currently go for, but others might.  If you can't spend more then $200 for a card, then the 3850 is pretty much the only option.  
 
As for money or utility bills, I'm not sure I understand.  The 3800 cards use the same amount of power as the 8800 series, more or less.  They use less power in idle mode, but more when they are being used.

lol which one do you think actually counts??? I dont care if my consume alot in idle I just don't want them 2 when being used

You gotta remember the real world situation.  AMD/ATI has gone through a dry spell. The mid-range is where the big money is made for these companies. While there are some advantages to owning the high end they do not always add to the bottom line significantly and adding to the bottom line is what AMD/ATI need right now.  The same can be said of the Phenom chips about to come out.  By adding to the bottom line they can attract more investors, their stock price goes up and the interest they have to pay if they need to borrow goes down.  I do not think they will have bragging rights parts until 2-3 years out at the earliest.  I Will my self go out and buy 2 3870's for my forst crossfire setup AND I don't have to purchase a new high wattage PSU.  Therefore AMD/ATI has saved me money.  Many are not looking at this as a total cost of ownership issue and they need to to get the full picture.

 
For me idle is by far the most important, I barely shutdown my pc (I leave it working) =P.

Oh I am...but look at the size and power consumption? I mean its gonna make me buy a new board so I can actually fit all my PCi cards (sound card and all that) Plus power consumption means a better PSU in the long run you end up paying the same or more...thats what I don't like...did you see the thickness? It looks thicker than the 8800 GTSs.....and the loading watts MY GOD!!
 
WHERE ARE THE GOOD QUALITY CARDS ?!!?!?!?
 
Remember the 1900 Series? Those were some amazing cards! I had the 1900 XTX a dream among dreams... Now they just flopped.
 
Its really a shame because their cards were always the cheaper ones and also had the performance to back it up! (1st place) Now they just went down a totally diff direction...its really screwed up

Hahah, I know what you mean, I still have a 9800xt and it works fine with a generic PSU =).
 
I hope that next gen cards will be much better (it was nice to see benchmarks where the new cards kicked the asses of their little brothers), but for r6xx chips I don't see much future. I think that they are going to become like pentium D now and then they will release something cool like the core 2 duo (more mature architecture).

did yours come with the Steam account? Half life 2 and all that stuff? Cuz when I had my 9800XT thats what it came with hahaha

Well with the lower power use clearly progress has been made.....
 
I await the price battles

AMD/ATI are just getting thier collective a$$es handed to them by Intel and Nvidia. Right now both companies have no answers to what thier counterparts are bringing out in the market. Last 2 years or so whatever ATI brought out Nvidia had already been there and was gearing to bring in the next knockout. Same with Intel vs AMD. ATI/AMD when they were separate companies used to be able to keep up, AMD being regarded as a gamer's cpu and ATI being regarded as the gamer's card. Now they slipped into a abyss they can't dig themselves out of cause they just can't keep up. ATI refuses to do away with this clunky technology it's been pushing out for years.  The 3800 comes out as yet another oversized gfx card that puffs smoke instead of fire yet Nvidia comes out with the 8800GT, the thinnest gpu card i have ever seen, and is killing thier card which is half the size. Whatever ATI is gonna do to fire back is unknown but they are being slaughtered. Imagine if by some freak of nature Intel decided to aquire Nvidia like AMD did with ATI. I know it may not happen but just imagine what these two companies will pump out into the market as one single entity. If that where to ever happen AMD/ATI might as well pack it all up and start selling oranges on LA freeways.

Well 2x 3870s don't cost as much as a 8800GTX and i'm pretty sure it can outperform one. But yea... since the R600 ATI and AMD have been screwing up jsut about everything

2 HD 3870 perform the same/better in some games compared to GTX but not in all games:
 
http://www.anandtech.com/video/sho [...] =3151&p=10

those are 3850s but sure 3870 performance is just slightly better. Still beats the GTX for cheaper

You guys need to get a grip on reality in regards to ATI vs NV. One of the two will always finish second to the other in peformance, but, both still make very good cards that you can do everything video related with.
 
This gen ATi is second in the highend with thier r600/RV670 but they are still very good feature rich/performing cards to have for the money. We all put way to much importance on benchmark numbers when evaluating these cards. For example the 8800GT gets a few more fps in Crysis Vs the 3870 and people say thinks like OMG the GT pawns the 3870 !!
 
These cards are close enough in the benchies to not show much of a differance when playing most games so the 5-10 fps more one card gets over another wont be noticible when your playing.
 
So either card, RV670 or 8800GT are good enough to play most games with respectable settings/performance