ASUS EAH3870/G/HTDI

Advantages Fast, good value and overclocks very high
Disadvantages could be faster

...The HD 3870 has corrected nearly every fault the 2900xt came with. It runs cooler and quieter, performs better than the 2900xt, and is increasing in performance with every driver release (monthly). Generally the performance is just under that of the 8800gt, its direct competitor, but the price of this card is less than the nvidia card. The 3870 is also more overclockable and performs better with some games againts the 8800gt. It also scales better when paired with a second 3870 better than two 8800gt in sli. Its generally a better investment because no other card apart from its older brother 3870 x2 (two in one card) had better video and HD playback and the card also features dx10.1 which no nvidia card has. The card is near silent and uses half the power of the 2900xt. ATI cards are slightly better with picture quality over... Read review

Advantages works on most motherboards
Disadvantages expensive, heavier

...The EAH3870 TOP/HTDI/512M from Asus which, as you might have guessed from the snappy name, is based on AMD/ATI's HD3870 or RV670. It has a PCI-E 2.0 interface but is fully backwards compatible with the 1.0 specification, so it will work in most motherboards. The Asus EAH3870 is more on the hefty side of cards, than the slight. It was a double-slot cooler and feels a lot heavier than you'd guess it would, judging from looks. Which much thicker than its nemesis, the 8800 GT, the HD 3870 is about the same length, at a little under 9 inches. You can see some resemblance between the HD 3870 and the HD 2900 XT, but not that much -- in a way, the HD 3870 looks like a 'HD 2900 XT Lite.' I wish Amd dropped the price a little more to make the price/performance more relevant to how the 3850/3870 perform unless its driver error where they could... Read review