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ATI Radeon HD 3870 – first benchmarks
It’s a like the 3850, but a little bit faster
We’ve got some good news and some bad news here. The good news is that we’ve got a Radeon HD 3870 in the labs and we’ve tested it. The bad news is that the BETA drivers that ATI gave us for the card are causing a biblical amount of grief with Need for Speed: Carbon and S.T.A.L.K.E.R., so we’ve yet to get any decent benchmarks from those games. However, as we know that you’re waiting on tenterhooks for 3870 benchmark results, we thought we’d at least share the results we’ve got with you.
Let’s start by covering the differences between the 3850 and the 3870, which is firstly the memory; the 3870 has 512MB of GDDR4 memory clocked at 2.4GHz, compared with just 256MB of 829MHZ (1.66GHz effective) GDDR3 memory on the 3850. However, both the 3870 and 3850 use a 256-bit memory interface, with a 512-bit Ring Bus interface for memory reads and writes. The 3870’s core is also clocked a little higher, at 775MHz, and it accordingly comes with a larger dual-slot cooler.
The other difference, of course, is the price. Sapphire told us that the RRP for the 3870 card that we tested is £140 inc VAT, making it £30 more than the RRP of its 3850 card. That said, the more realistic asking price for 3870 cards, such as this Gigabyte card from Scan, appears to be around £153. Either way, though, that’s still a good £20 cheaper than a 512MB GeForce 8800 GT, so do you really lose anything by skimping on £20?
Unfortunately for ATI, the answer is yes. With its extra memory and higher clock speeds, the 3870 should bridge the gap to a resolution of 1,920 x 1,200 with 4x AA, which was out of the reach of the 3850 because it only had 256MB of RAM. However, while the 3870 was quicker than the 3850 in F.E.A.R. with 4x AA and 16x AF, the minimum frame rate of 18fps still made the game unplayable. Comparatively, the 512MB GeForce 8800 GT managed a playable minimum frame rate of 29fps at this resolution.
That said, the 3870 performed much better than the 3850 in our Company of Heroes DirectX 10 benchmark, in which the former actually managed to produce a playable frame rate of 26fps at 1,024 x 768 with no AA, while the minimum frame rate of 23fps at 1,280 x 1,024 would also be sufficient for RTS fans who aren’t sticklers for fluid animation. Comparatively, the GeForce 8800 GT managed a minimum frame rate of 24fps at 1,024 x 768 with no AA.
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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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