Two leading add-in board companies; ASUS and Gigabyte have their respective variants of the 3870 out on the market right now and each one takes a different approach.

World-renowned manufacturer, ASUS has issued its 3970 Top card a couple months ago and really has don’t nothing to the overall design of the card other than issue its own bundle with the card. It’s a pure reference-design and setup which isn’t bad – just offers nothing “new”.

ASUS has seemingly bought a ton of copies of the Company of Heroes’ add-on pack as it seems to be bundled with about every video card they sell these days. I’m not sure what the huge lust-factor is with this game, but I guess it can be a nice bonus to those whom enjoy getting a “freebie” with their purchase.

The dual-slot design means that most small-form-factor PCs will not be able to properly accommodate it; however, most folks run full-sized PCs so this won’t be an issue for the majority of gamers out there.

The massive copper heatsink ensures excellent cooling properties and I'm a huge fan of dual-slot designs as they push the hot air outside of the PC. Standard-issue clock rates are here as well but you can use AMD’s overdrive feature in the Catalyst control panel if you want to get some added horsepower.

Inside the box is the ever-so-usual fare of cables, booklets and driver/utility CD’s. As with all video cards, you’ll want to make sure to check AMD’s website for the latest driver as there’s a good chance the one in the box will be outdated by the time you buy it.

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Article Index 1. ASUS 3870 vs. Gigabyte 3870 2. Gigabyte Radeon 3870 3. Test Setup 4. COD4 and Crysis 5. Unreal 3 and Power Usage 6. Conclusion and Ratings