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ATI Radeon HD 3870 – first benchmarks
It’s a like the 3850, but a little bit faster
Thankfully, the 3870 had no trouble with the Unreal Tournament 3 BETA, even at 1,920 x 1,200, where it managed a respectable minimum frame rate of 35fps. That said, though, this test uses no anti-aliasing and, as such, the 3850 also handled the game fine at this resolution, with its minimum frame rate of 32fps. Okay, so the 3870 is slightly quicker, but it’s not enough of a performance-leap to buy you a higher resolution setting in a game, and that’s what you should be paying the extra money for.
The story was similar in Crysis, with the minimum frame rate of 13fps at 1,024 x 768 with no AA improving massively on the 3850’s abysmal 7fps, but this still isn’t enough to make the game comfortably playable by any means. To be fair, though, there isn’t a graphics card out there that can handle Crysis fluidly at Very High settings yet, so while this is a failing of the 3870; it’s also a failing of the competition.
Of course, we can only draw our conclusions based on the results we've achieved so far. However, based on these, it's fair to say that if you’re looking to spend just over £100 on a graphics card, and you don’t want to go higher than 1,680 x 1,050, then the Radeon HD 3850 is a veritable bargain for the money. However, if you want to make the jump to 1,920 x 1,200 and you have a bit of extra cash to spare, then you’d be better off spending a bit more on the 512MB GeForce 8800 GT than going for the 3870. The Radeon HD 3870 is quicker than the 3850, but it’s not quick enough to justify the extra cost.
Click here for the full benchmark results.
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I just want a card (£100/£160) that will play all the new games at a low price and get good results.
Comment by RichJBrown at 9:53pm 25th December 2007
8800gt/3850....Personally I'm waiting to see the power and price of Nvidias 9800 models! (And who knows, maybe ATIs 3900xt)??
Comment by marcus at 10:12pm 16th November 2007
We want better results from a single card that can play my world in conflict at maximum, DX10 enabled, AA AND AF !! Cmon ATI AND NVIDIA - Outsource and look at the devlopers of games perhaps? Ask them what they have in, focus on making a card for GAMERS !!! Nvidia still got the upper hand EARLIER than ati with its GT series... Im still happy with my GTS 320mb though...... ;)
Comment by Lightning_Pete at 10:46am 16th November 2007
I ordered one today from OCUK for several reasons. 1) my venerable 8800GTS is slowly dying, 2) these cards are showing nice gains from overclocking (the HardwareCanucks review had a 500mhz memory OC!) 3) early ATi drivers are always rubbish, so performance will improve over time, and 4) there isn't an 8800GT in sight the world over. At the end of the day, there isn't enough muscle in any single card to let me play Crysis @ 1680x1050 on max settings with AA and AF, so I didn't really see the point in waiting for the 8800GTs to come back into stock. My current GTS runs everything apart from World in Conflict and Crysis at maximum detail, so I'm not all that bothered about the apparent dominance of the 8800GT. Still, it is disappointing that ATi can't release a card that will match the GT's performance blow for blow.
Comment by reflux_ at 1:03am 16th November 2007
Apologies for the double post and for my failed superiority complex as I spelt if with an O.. I seem to have a problem typing today
Comment by PyrO_PrOfessOr at 11:26pm 15th November 2007
"the 3870 has 512MB of GDDR4 memory clocked at 2.4MHz..." Of I had to chose a piece of hardware that I know the least about it would be graphics cards, but a 2.4MHz memory bus..Isn't that a bit slow for memory....? =:P
Comment by PyrO_PrOfessOr at 11:24pm 15th November 2007
"the 3870 has 512MB of GDDR4 memory clocked at 2.4MHz..." Of I had to chose a piece of hardware that I know the least about it would be graphics cards, but a 2.4MHz memory bus..Isn't that a bit slow for memory....? =:P
Comment by PyrO_PrOfessOr at 11:24pm 15th November 2007
AA - yes the 3800 cards still use shader-based AA, so they will have the same problems as the 2900 cards in this respect. Noise - it's actually very quiet, even when the fan spins up during games Overclockability - we've yet to test this yet, but I doubt it'll go particularly high, given that the 3850 didn't overclock massively either
Comment by hardwidge at 4:39pm 15th November 2007
So is it any faster than ATI's previous DX10 efforts? 2900PRO in particular? Is the AA issue still about? Noise and temps? Overclockability? We need more facts!
Comment by D_Cypher at 4:35pm 15th November 2007
So it looks like i've still got to hang around for Nvidia to start churning out enough 8800GTs to meet demand!
Comment by FitlhyCarlos at 4:15pm 15th November 2007
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