ATI HD 3800 Review Thread

[Soulburner]

When you read this page you will notice how much of a hit the 8800GT takes when 4xAA/16xAF is applied regarding Z-pixel rate vs the 3870. Even though the 3870 is Z-pixel rate is lower, it takes less of a hit when 4xAA/16xAF is applied. IMO, better drivers can improve the Z-pixel rate of the 3870. Since we know that the PLL VIO divider set wrong for the 3870 it's going to be interesting to see what the improvements are if any.

That has to be the best review I have ever read. Highly recommended!

[mascaras]

great review

Like denny said "long time ago" looks like the card its good with AA x8








Temps:

[bedlamite]

Realy nice review! Best one here.
I wonder what will bring up this new BIOS and drivers.

[Zytek_Fan]

Surely the 3870 is going to make a lot of Christmas Buyer's Guides for hardware this year

[madcho]

8x is faster than 4x, drivers are too young

[DilTech]

8x isn't faster than 4x. Those are percentages, the hit incurred for 8xMSAA in percentage from without AA. That doesn't mean the card is faster with 8xAA than the others, it merely means that as a total it loses a slightly smaller percentage than the rest.

[Mayk-Freak]

Core 2 Duo E6750@ 4.2Ghz
4GB Crucial @ 630Mhz 5-5-5-15
2xHIS HD 3870 @ 860/1351Mhz
Windows Vista 64Bit

[v_rr]

8x isn't faster than 4x. Those are percentages, the hit incurred for 8xMSAA in percentage from without AA. That doesn't mean the card is faster with 8xAA than the others, it merely means that as a total it loses a slightly smaller percentage than the rest.

It simply means that at 8x AA is faster than the others grafic cards.

[STaRGaZeR]

Nice Mayk-Freak, some Crysis results with CF in Vista64? I really want to know that, since I´m with that OS too

[zerazax]

nice scores Mayk-Freak

Vista 64bit with a dual core no less... quad core in XP and I bet that set up is at 20k+

[DilTech]

It simply means that at 8x AA is faster than the others grafic cards.

No, it means that if you add up all the framerates at 0xAA, and then add up all the framerates at 8xAA, and you figure out the percentage of performance lost, the HD3870 lost slightly less performance.

Look at it like this. Say you have 2 cards, One of them only runs a title at 10 fps, while the other runs it at 100 fps. However, when you enable 8xAA the first one drops down to 9 fps, but the other drops down to 80fps. If you look at that by percentages, then it would appear the first card is better for 8xAA.

This is one of the reasons I don't like using percentages when dealing with videocards. Give me 2 frame amounts, that's all that's required. One for minimum, one for average, I don't care about the max... Because calling something a 10 percentage difference might sound huge, but if it only had 20fps, then that's only 2 frames per second, which is completely negligible.

I don't think anyone here will disagree with me on the percentage thing. I've always complained about sites dealing with percentages

[mascaras]

No, it means that if you add up all the framerates at 0xAA, and then add up all the framerates at 8xAA, and you figure out the percentage of performance lost, the HD3870 lost slightly less performance.

Look at it like this. Say you have 2 cards, One of them only runs a title at 10 fps, while the other runs it at 100 fps. However, when you enable 8xAA the first one drops down to 9 fps, but the other drops down to 80fps. If you look at that by percentages, then it would appear the first card is better for 8xAA.

This is one of the reasons I don't like using percentages when dealing with videocards. Give me 2 frame amounts, that's all that's required. One for minimum, one for average, I don't care about the max... Because calling something a 10 percentage difference might sound huge, but if it only had 20fps, then that's only 2 frames per second, which is completely negligible.

I don't think anyone here will disagree with me on the percentage thing. I've always complained about sites dealing with percentages

thats relative :

imagine In some Game without AA you have 8800GT + 4 FPS than HD3870 :

8800Gt = 50FPS
HD3870 = 46 FPS


and then when AA enable x8 the 8800GT loose about 10 FPS and HD3870 only 5 FPS

8800GT = 40 FPS
HD3870 = 41 FPS

[Don_Won]

No, it means that if you add up all the framerates at 0xAA, and then add up all the framerates at 8xAA, and you figure out the percentage of performance lost, the HD3870 lost slightly less performance.

Look at it like this. Say you have 2 cards, One of them only runs a title at 10 fps, while the other runs it at 100 fps. However, when you enable 8xAA the first one drops down to 9 fps, but the other drops down to 80fps. If you look at that by percentages, then it would appear the first card is better for 8xAA.

This is one of the reasons I don't like using percentages when dealing with videocards. Give me 2 frame amounts, that's all that's required. One for minimum, one for average, I don't care about the max... Because calling something a 10 percentage difference might sound huge, but if it only had 20fps, then that's only 2 frames per second, which is completely negligible.

I don't think anyone here will disagree with me on the percentage thing. I've always complained about sites dealing with percentages

if u actually take a look at the results you'll see that the hd3870 was actually faster with high resolutions and 8xAA than even the 8800gtx in many cases

[Krizby87]

I would like to see 8800GT performance with 16x CSAA enabled .

[DilTech]

if u actually take a look at the results you'll see that the hd3870 was actually faster with high resolutions and 8xAA than even the 8800gtx in many cases

I did take a look, I was merely stating that I dislike the usage of percentages for the reason I stated.

[mascaras]

Radeon HD 3600 Details Leaked

While the current RV670 chips are selling like hotcakes, AMD is working on putting out mid-range and low-end parts for those market segments. The successor to the HD 2600 series, according to graphics card manufacturers, will be called the HD 3600 series (big surprise). The 3600 series will come in two versions, an XT model and a Pro model. The XT will be clocked at 800MHz, and the Pro will be clocked at 600MHz. Both will be attached to 128-bit VRAM, which will run at an unknown clock speed. The Pro will have GDDR2, while the XT will have GDDR3. Both will support DirectX10.1, and the micro-architecture itself is codenamed "RV635". The RV635 should be launched with the RV620, the successor to the HD 2400 series. The RV620 should be dubbed the HD 3400 series.

Reg Hardware


http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=44872

[DeathReborn]

So basically the only improvements are in power consumption/die size for HD 36x0. 2600XT already has 800MHz Core & 2200MHZ GDDR4 & fairly low power consumption. So far i'm underwhelmed by RV635.

[DilTech]

I'm sad to see them still standing by a 128-bit memory bus.

Hopefully, by the next gen, 128-bit will be designated to the full out low end.

[freeloader]

Does anyone have any idea when an AGP version of the 3850 will be available? I want to throw one in my son's computer but don't really want to upgrade his mobo as well.

[STaRGaZeR]

AGP must die... AGP must die... AGP must die... AGP must die... AGP must die... AGP must die... AGP must die... AGP must die... AGP must die... AGP must die...

[DilTech]

AGP must die... AGP must die... AGP must die... AGP must die... AGP must die... AGP must die... AGP must die... AGP must die... AGP must die... AGP must die...

In some ways, I agree, but there are plenty of capable AGP based socket 939 systems that could last through one more generation of videocards, and as such a 3870/3850 would be GREAT for them.

I say this knowing I'm running an 8800gtx with a socket 939 3800+, merely because there isn't enough of a gain for me as of yet to upgrade. My CPU hasn't really held me back too badly with AA/AF applied in games, and I'm close enough at this point to merely wait things out until DDR3 becomes mainstream...

Plus, this would leave AMD the AGP market to itself, which obviously would be quite the blessing for them seeing their issues with the markets they find themselves in.

[STaRGaZeR]

I think that the reason AMD is making an AGP version of almost every of its PCI-E cards is that, NVIDIA has none. And they want to earn some extra cash. But aside of that, AGP is now an ancient technology, like PCI, both should be dead.

[ls206]

Is there any reason why they chose 3800?? it looks a lot like 8800...and the lower level cards will be known as 3600...
just wondering if there is some strange psychological explanation :p

[Miwo]

any updates on the new BIOS for 3870 cards?

[tbone8ty]

i dont see any Gears of War benchmarks for DX9 at 1680 x 1050 res?

any ideas of how this will run?


anybody want to run a quick test for me?