Hi,
 
I'm going to get myself a new PC and found that some HD3870s in my country (Sweden) have price droped to 9600GT prices. But at a closer look its cooler is single slot and looks just like the one on the HD3850. So if there aren't any differences besides the cooler to begin with isn't the single slot HD3870 just a OC:ed HD3850 in disguise? And on top of that, how good is that cooler?
I hope I'm wrong cause it'll be a really good deal.

 Here you go  http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/AMD- [...] 29753.html
   Thats Toms review of the two cards. It points out the main differances.
      mactronix
   

I've read the reviews from tomshardware, anandtech and xbitlabs. Right now the standard sapphire version of HD3870 are at 9600GT price level but it has single slot cooling and the cooler looks identical to the on on the HD3850. Will it manage to cool the HD3870 effectively? What about noise? How much will it OC?

Here are the differences between the two cards.  Basically the same chip but the HD3870 has higher clocks and several models have DDR4 memory.
 

 
To answer your questions:
1.) From the reviews I have read on New Egg the Sapphire HD3870 is quiet.  I think this can be attributed to the larger fan.  Look at the thing, it is almost the width of the card.
2.) The card (from what I have seen from reviews) appears to be reasonably cool.
3.) There is head room for Overclocking.
 
Personally I perfer Sapphire's original doubleslot design MUCH better because it exhausts hot air out of the case rather than inside it.  I have a Sapphire x1950GT which has a similar single slot cooler where the hot air rises off the end of the card which likely passes over my CPU.  Over all it is probably a very minor tempurature increase but an increase none the less.
 
The Sapphire HD3870 is a great looking card.  However they are coming out with a faster revision of this card next month or in early May.  I think it would be worth holding out for another 30 days.  Plus the Nvidia vs ATI price war should heat up even more and you would get a better price.  If you have a half way decent video card right now I would try to hold off of buying.  It is painful to do (at least it would be for me) but try to bear it if you can.
 
Here is the story on the new HD3870 cards: http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php? [...] &Itemid=65

Yup Theres going to be a A12 revision. Hopefully it will break the bios bug and be able to OC higher than 850mhz. The card should easily break 900mhz with a good cooler. easily...

thanks for the replies.
Well if the A12 revision isn't going to be a big thing then I can probably just get the cards now. I'm on a HD2600xt so I won't be playing any games today . From what RWayne said the single slot cooled HD3870 don't seem bad at all. Although I agree that the dual slot cooler is better but it is also more expensive and not that much from what a dual slot 8800GT would cost.

I want to get a HD3870 really bad but I am trying to hold off until the R700 when it comes out like in 60-90 days.  I have heard of performance increases of between 40% - 100%.  AMD has a lot of confidence in the R700.  They are telling their partners to expect to gain about 50% of the Video card market with this new chip which would be about a 15% -20% increase in market share for ATI.
 
It is very HARD for me to have patience to wait for it but I have a decent card right now.  The only way I get a HD3870 if the prices drop a lot (which they might) in April or May.

 
I suspect 3870s are binned higher than 3850s, seeing as 3870s seem to oc higher than 3850s, hence there are modified BIOS' on the internet to allow them to oc above 863mhz, right?
 
Maybe the 3870s have a higher Vcore or something though.

New egg just updated their reviews for the single slot HD3870.  The most recent reviews from 3/13 say the card is loud.  Much more so than the other components.  Not good.

RWayne:

I know it is against our nature to want to aim a bit lower, but you can't wait any longer you may want to grab a 3850 on the cheap.  Supposedly a price drop has been announced, so we should see it filter through over the next week or 2.

I had a Sapphire 3850/512, but it was overheating--more of a poor choice for my system parameters than a knock on the card.  I now have a double slot HIS ICEQ3 3870 (sucks--but that is another story).  The cooling system is much more efficient, but I really don't see much of a difference in performance over the 3850.  Most reviews only show a couple frames difference in real world performance--would you notice that difference?  Even the 3850 was a MASSIVE performance increase over my 800 xt.

If your system could handle the extra heat of a single slot design, you may want to snag one--especially if they hit the $125 or so mark as they should shortly.  Even if you take a 50% hit when you look to resell it in a few months, a $60 loss isn't too bad--probably about the amount that you would save by waiting a month or so after the R700 release to purchase it.  That's at least how I am justifying upgrading...

Husky,
 
I think I am really gravativating towards a value purchase.  Meaning getting something next month when prices will likely be at their lowest point.  When the R700 comes out it will be sold by etailers for above MSRP just like the 3870 and 3850 cards were.  And I don't want to over pay just to be one of the first adoptors of a new product.
 
To be honest with you now I am thinking about a 9600GT.  It seems to be a better performer when AA is enabled.
 
Hey, tell me about your HIS IceQ HD3870.  What sucks about it?  I was considering getting that card but I really am questioning if they are a quality company.  I mean...they will not even respond to emails from me about questions about their product.  How could they keep their mouth shut to a potenial customer?

I bought 2x HD3650's 512DDR2 in the interim for 94$ each. Really I need 1, but I bought a 2nd one for my g/f's PC which she will get once I test them in crossfire =D(She plays the sims2 w/ onboard 6100 graphics atm). I wouldn't suggest buying a 9600gt before seeing what r700 has to offer, you may end up kicking yourself in the arse. 9600gt by all means should definetly be a better performer with filtering of most kinds since it uses a better compression algorythm to make the best out of whatever hardware it has. Expect the 9800's to be high performers as well due to this. Now I wonder how well AMD is going to either keep up or overtake nvidia in the next few months. After the last 10 years, nothing can surprise me from AMD anymore. The good, the bad and the ugly, they've had it all.
 
Back to the topic:
Yes, the 3870 is a higher clocked 3850 and vice versa. But I do not believe it is an "overclocked" 3850 as in a 3850 rated chip OC'd to 3870 clocks.

 His are not the only company to make the 3870 and 3850 with a twin slot solution cooler.
Gecube make a card that is pretty much identical in apperance, dont know about the clocks.
I have two friends who have gone the value route and have a 3850 from them.
You cant tell when the card fires up it really is very quiet.
   Mactronix

 
We all heard this, about this time last year about the R600.  
 
And CrossfireX.... going to be so great with those 8.3 Catalyst drivers...  
 
Erm.... nuff sed.

If you can wait, wait for the 4850 or 4870. Nordic Hardware says they're arriving in June, and that the 4870 will be 50% faster than a 3870. That's a single GPU card as fast as my factory overclocked 3870x2!
 
http://www.nordichardware.com/inde [...] re&id=7356
 
If you can't wait, get the one that works for you. Once I went to a GPU that exhausts air out of the case, I never wanted to go back to a GPU that simply has a normal fan; even if it's a good one like a Zalman.
 

 
At least you didn't just say "buy an 8800gt", so you may not be an Nvidia fan down on ATI. Well, I agree that 8.3 hasn't met CrossfireX expectations (I'd be happy to see Crossfire support in LOTR online), but the difference between R600 and R700 is that the X2900XT was launched too early. Probably because of the AMD merger.  
 
The 3870 is what the X2900XT should have been from day one. Since the 3850, 3870 and 3870x2 are good cards, I expect more of the 4850, 4870 and 4870x2 than I did when the 3870 was announced. Then, I was worried that ATI would flub it.
 
Now, the flubbing seems to be on Nvidia's side with a slight improvement 9800gtx and a two PCB monster that might be another 7950; the 9800gx2. R700 for ATI is a big deal. Nvidia's holding back on G100 until AMD releases R700.  
 
Whatever happened to the regulatory investigation on price fixing between ATI and Nvidia? They may not actually fix prices, but they hold back on tech until the other side releases something better than current models. What ever happened to new cards with significant improvements every 6 months?

Well, I only have a 19" LCD Monitor running at 1280x1024 resolution.  I am not going to be able to appreciate anything over 60 fraps with my monitor.  Both the HD3870 and 9600GT run most of todays games above that level.  If I wait for the R700 in June and buy it in June I am going to be paying a premium for it.  It will take until August in order for prices to drop to bargain levels like they will be this month or next month.  I can understand why the guy who started this thread wants to get a card this month too.

RWayne just get the 3870. It will run CNC3 no problem.

I want to get that OC 9600GT from MSI:
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814127333
 
It is 7% faster than the standard clocked 9600GT.  Which with AA/AF enabled to max it is faster than the HD3870.
It has an AWESOME HEATSINK which makes it run cool and silent.
 
Only $154.99 after rebate ($174 before rebate) and I have had great results with MSI rebates in the past.
 
It has 19 reviews on newegg and every single one of the 19 reviewers gave it 5 eggs.  I never seen a card before with that high of an approval rating (percentage wise)
 
Look at this 20 page review on tweaktown:
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/1 [...] index.html
 
On MSI site they say it is 15% slower than their MSI 8800GT (which is clocked at 660MHz instead of the standard 600MHz reference clock) and only costs 2/3rds the price.  However with the rebate the cost is even less than that.
 
I like ATI cards but the price / performance ratio of this card is seriously making me think of turing back to Nvidia again.  No card ATI has is even close to it on the price to performance ratio.  If so show me.