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With this review, I was hoping for a clear bang-for-buck performance winner to emerge from the benchmarks, but this just wasn't the case. There really is a card for everyone between the 9600 GT, HD 3870, HD 3850, and 8800 GT.

If you were to study the benchmarks in this review quite closely, you might be inclined to argue that the Palit 9600GT Sonic was the best deal of the bunch -- and you might have a case, as it is definitely a strong contender for that title. One thing to keep in mind is that this particular 9600GT is a overclocked version, and retails for about $30 dollars more than a standard 9600G, and this overclock gives it a bit of an advantage in the benchmarks presented in this review. However even when this is taken into account, with the Palit 9600GT Sonic retailing for $209 at NewEgg currently, while the Gigabyte HD 3870 is going for $195, things look arguably better for going the 9600GT in this particular match up. The 9600GT out-performed the Gigabyte HD 3870 in most of the benchmarks.

How about the Gigabyte HD 3870 compared to the rest of the cards around the $200 mark?

Compared to our NVIDIA 8800GT, the HD 3870 faired much better. With 8800 GT's ranging from $200 to $260, the HD 3870 doesn't look too bad at all at around $195. With the exception of Crysis and World In Conflict (with AA on), the Gigabyte HD 3870 was neck-in-neck with the 8800 GT, and with the Gigabyte HD 3870 being one of the less expensive HD 3870 cards around, it isn't that bad of deal at all.

In comparison with the HD 3850, you may have noticed that the factory-overclocked, 512MB PowerColor HD 3850 Xtreme PCS put in very similar results as the Gigabyte HD 3870. But the two are currently about the same price, so the PowerColor HD 3850 did not really distinguish itself in this line-up. 

If we set aside the competition for moment, overall the Gigabyte HD 3870 is a good card. On the positive side of things, the Zalman cooler is quite nice (and would cost you around $25 if you bought it on its own.) Not only did it keep temperatures down for a decent GPU overclock, but it was also very quiet, it was also nice to see was the inclusion of Neverwinter Nights 2 in the Gigabyte HD 3870's bundle. With competition this close, if you are a big RPG ran, I could see this game titling this card into your good books. One thing that did not impress me very much with for this card was the memory; it is one of the very few HD 3870 cards with GDDR3 memory, and it is clocked by default to less than the reference HD 3870 clock speeds. While you could overclock it no problem to the standard speeds if you wished (and this should not decrease the lifespan of your card significantly), not everybody is an overclocker, and many consumers probably would not realize their HD 3870 is a bit slower than the others. If you are an overclocker, the lack of heatsinks on the memory will limit you from really pushing the memory very far.       

In the end, the Gigabyte HD 3870 is a good card, and it is a good deal to be had at around $200, but competition is so tight around this mark -- especially now with the release of the 9600GT -- that this card doesn't really have that certain something that would make it stand out from the rest of the pack.