ATI HD 3800 Review Thread

[DilTech]

AA seems OK


3Dmark 2006 @ AA 8x

The R6*** cards always did find with AA in 3dmark, it's games you'd have to test to verify AA.

As for dual 3850's matching an ultra, is that with, or without AA?

Also, from the same page you pulled that from...

Scaling looks pretty good from the Radeon HD 3850, however it's still not as good as what NVIDIA is able to achieve with the 8800 GT. NVIDIA consistently achieves about 11% better scaling from one to two GPUs than AMD.

The other problem with CrossFire is that it simply doesn't always work, so a pair of 3850s is not necessarily a better option than a single 8800 GT or GTX. Case in point would be the two other games that we wanted to include here: Quake Wars and Call of Duty 4, both gave us lower frame rates with CF enabled than without. AMD's release notes for the Radeon HD 3800 drivers informs us that some applications may show a performance decrease with CF enabled, so we're not too surprised.

While it'd be nice to be able to purchase two cheap cards and get better performance than the best out there, there are simply too many caveats to really embrace the idea.

Dual-cards is generally not a better idea than one strong single card. However, I would be interested to see the results of gaming with AA enabled CF vs a single 8800 GTX or ultra.

[mascaras]

The R6*** cards always did find with AA in 3dmark, it's games you'd have to test to verify AA.
.

HD2900XT beats HD3870 in 2k6 without AA ( by ~ 500 marks) , When AA 8x enable HD3870 beats R600 ( by ~ 400 marks )




btw:

In the Netherlands lowest prices are around €150 for the HD3850 and sub €200 (€197) for the HD3870.

Edit: Cheapest listed is the Sapphire HD3850 at €144 and cheapest HD3870 is €183


http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.p...postcount=1445

regards

[DilTech]

I'm just curious, but why are so many reviewers leaving out AA testing, or only enabling AA on 1 or 2 titles? Considering pretty much every review for the past 3+ generations before now they tested just about everything they could with AA/AF, doesn't it seem strange to anyone that now they omit it for 9 out of 10 benchmarks?

[mascaras]

I'm just curious, but why are so many reviewers leaving out AA testing, or only enabling AA on 1 or 2 titles? Considering pretty much every review for the past 3+ generations before now they tested just about everything they could with AA/AF, doesn't it seem strange to anyone that now they omit it for 9 out of 10 benchmarks?

i see reviews with AA

( i already posted in old hd3x00 thread R600 Vs RV670 @ AA )


R600 Vs RV670 @ AA enbale:

[SKYMTL]

I'm just curious, but why are so many reviewers leaving out AA testing, or only enabling AA on 1 or 2 titles? Considering pretty much every review for the past 3+ generations before now they tested just about everything they could with AA/AF, doesn't it seem strange to anyone that now they omit it for 9 out of 10 benchmarks?

Well, I tested with and without AA in all of the games I benched.

On the other hand if you or anyone else would like to see something ELSE...I'm add ears.

[GAR]

no one is selling this yet, none of the big retailers.

[mascaras]

HD3870X2 looks with no problems (release in december ?? )

AMD Has R680 Running Stable in CrossFire


Did you wake up this morning with a strange feeling? Now that AMD has released the ATI Radeon HD 3800 series to the praise of many critics and review sites, the marketing wars between ATI and NVIDIA can once again begin. AMD has gotten the majority of the bugs out of CrossFireX, and while the driver for this four card setup isn't public, it will be in the months ahead. Finally, four cards can be married together and scale to levels that seemed to be impossible a couple years ago.




....today, we will do one better than that and bring you the first picture of the Radeon HD 3870 X2 running in CrossFire mode!

A picture is worth a thousand words and this one is surely worth that many. I'll spare the details on the card, but since the Radeon HD 3870 X2 has two Radeon HD 3870's on board it's not too tough to figure out. The cards are the longest cards that I have seen ATI make and since the cards have just one CrossFire bridge connector it seems that running four of these in CrossFireX isn't going to happen, well at least for now. It should also be noted that the cards were actually running on a demo system that AMD made available. I was able to play Unreal Tournament 3 with the cards paired in CrossFire and stability and performance were impressive.

One of the coolest features of the Radeon HD 3870 X2 is that you don't have to get a higher priced AMD 790FX chipset powered motherboard with 42 PCI Express lanes to run a pair of Radeon HD 3870 X2's. This means that this can run on lower priced chipsets like the 790X that offer just two x16 PCI Express slots.

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 is set to be released in Q1 2008 if all goes well, and after seeing it in action, I have no doubt that it will come out. AMD is making a comeback in the desktop graphics card market, so sit back and relax as the marketing wars are just now being drawn up.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/593/1/

[CBONE]

If they can get that x2 to work as a pair in every scenario and it comes in at less than $400, it might be worth it. We need benches!

[GAR]

At higher resolutions? Because my 8800GT overclocked quite a bit CANNOT compete with my 8800GTX at 1600x1200 in Crysis with Very High Detail.

everything was on very high, except for shader and shadows, game ran 30-60fps all the time, very smooth and very playable, looks good as well.

[Jigsaw]

Why, why did ATi use the 256 bit memory bus!?

[GAR]

Why, why did ATi use the 256 bit memory bus!?

cheaper?

[ryboto]

Why, why did ATi use the 256 bit memory bus!?

to avoid a complex pcb design and keep costs down?

[Epsilon84]

I'm just curious, but why are so many reviewers leaving out AA testing, or only enabling AA on 1 or 2 titles? Considering pretty much every review for the past 3+ generations before now they tested just about everything they could with AA/AF, doesn't it seem strange to anyone that now they omit it for 9 out of 10 benchmarks?

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...ew/default.asp

Plenty of AA/AF in the FS review, though the CoH 1920x1200 numbers are clearly, uhh... mislabeled.

With AA enabled, the 3870 is consistently 10 - 30% slower than the 8800GT, with the exception of Bioshock. Looks like Leadtek wasn't BSing after all.

[GAR]

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...ew/default.asp

Plenty of AA/AF in the FS review, though the CoH 1920x1200 numbers are clearly, uhh... mislabeled.

With AA enabled, the 3870 is consistently 10 - 30% slower than the 8800GT, with the exception of Bioshock. Looks like Leadtek wasn't BSing after all.

everything from FUDZILLA was true, except for it retailing for $199 usd, that would have been a good start for the 3870......considering the 3870x2 is going to be $399 usd.

[mascaras]

Guru3D review




(so many )



HD3850 256Mb GDDR3 :









HD3850 512Mb GDDR3:









HD3870 512MB GDDR4 :









Crysis Medium quality& High Quality







http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/472/

they always have good Photos in the reviews




In the Review HD3850 512mb seems good card , almost same performance as HD3870











only "bad" thing its Overclok , not so much as HD3870

[s3rv3r]

Has some review of the CROSSFIRE of the HD3870?

[GAR]

Has some review of the CROSSFIRE of the HD3870?

its about equal or a big better than the 8800gtx when properly supported

[zerazax]

Anandtech actually had the 3850 in crossfire match the 8800GTX, so i think 3870 in CF can exceed GTX to be @ Ultra / slightly higher than Ultra levels

[v_rr]

its about equal or a big better than the 8800gtx when properly supported

That´s HD 3850.
And beta drivers.

[Shadowmage]

Please no quoting TechSpot or LegionHardware. They fake their reviews.

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=44484

i see reviews with AA

( i already posted in old hd3x00 thread R600 Vs RV670 @ AA )


R600 Vs RV670 @ AA enbale:

[Torphoto]

Something I want to point out is if you compare alot of these reviews, I see scores varying widely on similar spec'ed systems at the same or similar enough settings, I think we need to do a little sorting of BS reviews from the real honest ones. I take both techspot and legion as fake fudged reviews with scores for the new cards that my 1900 does at the same settings!

Next if the 512mb 3850 comes in under $180 I'm buying one! Power colour better start shipping them soon.

[Zytek_Fan]

The Guru3D review was very good. Always like their reviews.
Hilbert isn't afraid to speak his mind

[Mortal]

The Guru3D review was very good. Always like their reviews.
Hilbert isn't afraid to speak his mind

Totally agree. I always look forward to their reviews.

[tbone8ty]

does the 3850 and 3870 have the same core?

so if there is a 512mb 3850 version wouldnt that be the way to go?
because single slot cooler i think is better.

is that a UV light on teh 3870?

[SKYMTL]

FYI, I have a bit of an update regarding overclocking past 860Mhz with the Thermaltake DuOrb.

LINK