With both AMD and NVIDIA readying a new arsenal of video cards, the real battle for GPU supremacy won't be fought until later this summer. In the meantime, gamers are enjoying attractive price points nearly across the board, and unlike days of yesteryear, enthusiasts needn't plunk down plus $600 for a high-end gaming experience. Remarkably, AMD's Radeon HD 3870 has nestled into the $150ish tier, unheard of territory for a high performance part. Built on a 55nm manufacturing process, AMD's RV670 core puts the company's graphics division back in the same ballpark as NVIDIA, and then ups the ante by adding DirectX 10.1 support, a claim NVIDIA can't currently make. - HardwareLogic

MSI Radeon HD 3870 512MB OverClock Board Review

We would never pick out a video card based on its bundle, and you shouldn't either. Good thing too, because you won't find any extra's tossed in with MSI's retail package. Though, what you do get are the standard assortment of cables, adapters, and a CrossFire bridge, the latter of which replaces the clunky dongle method. Like every high-end video card, MSI's Radeon HD 3870 comes with a dual slot cooling solution designed to exhaust hot air out through the back of your case, complete with the obligatory graphics on the heatsink's surface. But unlike NVIDIA's flagship single GPU card, the Radeon HD 3870 is a little shorter.

On the top of the video card sit two notched CrossFire connectors, giving you the ability to run two, three, or four video cards in a CrossFire configuration. We put extensive time into our overclocking tests to ensure complete stability, and for an overclock to be considered stable, it must pass repeated runs through our gamut of benchmarks without any hiccups. With our methodology in place, we pushed the core clock speed all up to an impressive 875MHz, a full 100MHz over the reference. We weren't as lucky when it came to the memory, and only managed to coax an additional 50MHz out of the Hynix chips before settling at 2300MHz.

Based solely on performance, the Radeon HD 3870 video card becomes a tough sell. Cause in the single GPU arena, it simply can't keep pace with NVIDIA's newly released GeForce 9800 GTX, instead sliding just behind the GeForce 8800 GT when looking only at benchmarks. But that doesn't make the Radeon HD 3870 a dud. Quite the opposite, no other video card offers as much bang for your gaming buck. For under $200, the MSI's Radeon HD 3870 OC edition provides PCI Express 2.0 support, DirectX 10.1, an unified video decoder, and playable frame rates at high resolutions. By contrast, our complaints are minimal.

You won't gain any bragging rights by comparing frame rates with those who own an NVIDIA graphics card, and despite the low power draw, the cooling fan runs at full bore from the moment you hit the power button until you shut down your PC. And if you own an SLI capable motherboard, you can rule out a dual video card setup with the Radeon HD 3870. Simply put, if you need the latest and greatest, then you have no business buying a graphics card right now. Instead, step outside this summer just until both NVIDIA and AMD start shipping their next generation parts, then look at your options and go for the one of your choice.

But if you need an upgrade now, only the GeForce 8800 GT can rival the Radeon HD 3870's bang to buck ratio, at least until when and/or if DirectX 10.1 becomes a factor. Which one you choose may very well come down to which chipset you invested in, leaving yourself an inexpensive dual video card upgrade path.