Radeon 3870 Reviews

[PhenomWithCrossfire]

I know , it is a bit outdates compared to the new X2's but I was impressed that it managed to beat out the 8800 GTS in some benchies.

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/sapphire_hd_3870/

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/11/30/rv670_amd_ati_radeon_hd_3870/1

[DazedNConfuzed]

Benchmarks or not...haven't been impressed much with the 3870s.

my 8800GT is probably just as good.

[PhenomWithCrossfire]

the 2 3870's run very well on my machine, can run Crysis at almost max....

[smirnoff]

Hardly a bad card and does give nvidia a run and in higher settings beats it.

A nice change from the resent past when things were hugely different.

Also the power down feature ,temp and lack of noise is a improvement over basically any card in its range.

[compygeek]

The 3870 is a great card for it's price/performance. You do have to remember that the GTS came out almost a year prior to the launch of the 3870, which gave ATI/AMD the time to improve the performance of that card. The 3870, was ATI/AMD's response to the GTS. And it definately held it's ground.

[compygeek]

Benchmarks or not...haven't been impressed much with the 3870s.

my 8800GT is probably just as good.

According to some of the reviews, your one 8800GT beats the 3870 in Crossfire mode. That's certainly pretty good I would think.

[PhenomWithCrossfire]

Not sure if it is just me but I myself am seeing a difference of image quality with ATI cards vs Nvidia. I have heard some say no way man, Nvidia has better image quality but I just dont see it. Anytime, I have compared several of the cards between the 2 companies I have noticed a difference favouring the image quality of ATI. I myself prefer goodlooking graphics to a few frame rates. The one thing that I can not stand with Nvidia cards is that so many companies make them as opposed to ATI. Sure ATI has this to an entent with the Sapphire cards ect but are they not designed and made by ATI directly as opposed to designing the cards and outsourcing the cards to so many different companies.

[compygeek]

As far as image quality is concerned, IMHO it's basically up to the user to determine that, so I normally take image quality with a grain of salt. However, I do take framerates a little more seriously. Although the human eye will never see anything really above that of 30-60 frames per second. When gamers crank up the resolution on their 24-30" monitors, the first thing to take a hit is the frame rate... especially if you keep all AA, AF, Shadows, and effects on high, to make the best gaming experience at that resolution. As a purely hypothetical example, running Crysis on a midrange card at 1280x1024 with effects on medium averages say 60fps. As you start increasing effects to max the framerate drops to a very playable 30fps. Run 1280x1024 on a high end card with effects set medium, you get say 120fps. Ramp up effects to max - it still runs 60fps. Then, if your monitor supports higher rez, you can ramp that up til you get a good comfortable playable 30fps (you may need to do more tweaking on the effects though). This is why running a top end card on a monitor that supports max res of 1280x1024 may be overkill for some people, as a midrange card will be more than enuff for them.

If you look at websites like HardOCP, they're take on reviews is based more and best frames/image quality for the best resolution for that card. Regarding 2 different cards for example the GTX and your 3870, they will run a gamut of tests and come up with the best playable experience for both cards at whatever best resolution is "playable" for that card. So, the framerates will match (say 54fps for Crysis), but the resolutions, and settings for effects (AA, AF, fogging, shadows) will be different for each card - in order to give the reader a good possible scenario on what to expect from the video card (keeping in mind the rest of the hardware is similar to their test setup) (for example running a rez of 1280x1024 on one card, versus 1600x1050 on another card, with the best possible effect settings enabled on high/medium).

HardOCP will also do an "apples - to - apples" comparison, showing how the two cards stack up using the same resolutions and effect settings, which will show how different the frame rates will be (This is a more common way to review cards, which is the way most web reviewers do it). You say that you would take visual quality over frame rates, however, when it comes down to a good gaming experience, I would rather have a game run at a smooth fast framerate, with the BEST resolution and best possible effects achievable on my hardware in order to enjoy the game. If that means setting some of the effects down to medium or even low, I would probably sacrifice those settings in order to keep the frame rates up. Especially for online gaming - nothing is worse than lag coupled with poor framerates when you're trying to take out a buddy online - be it RTS, or first person shooter.

One thing I do know from personal experience, back in the 9800pro days, is that ATI has always had better image quality than NVIDIA. It was normally subtle, and you would never really be able to tell during actual gameplay, but screenshots normally would be able to depict the differences a little better.

With regards to outsourcing the gpu's - NVIDIA never really created in-house cards to begin with. They are mainly a chipset company that creates the reference boards and sells them off to other companies to do what they will - which is the main reason why you see companies like BFG, EVGA, Chaintech, Gainward, Galaxy, Gigabyte Tech, Palit, PNY, XFX, as well as ASUS making use of NVIDIA's reference design, and then adding their own flavor and packaging.

ATI does outsource their chipsets as well. ASUS, Sapphire, Diamond, PowerColor, MSI, VisionTek and HIS use ATI brand reference gpus and then repackage them to their flavor as well. What it boils down to is money. NVIDIA AND ATI can make more money in the end if they outsource their technology to as many manufacturers as opposed to keeping it in-house. Which is why nforce and ATI/AMD chipsets see their way to many off market motherboard companies as well. Heck even online e-Tailers can get NVIDIA and ATI reference boards to sell off as an in-store comapany graphics card. NCIX sells reference ATI graphics cards branded with their own moniker

[PhenomWithCrossfire]

Right, other factors come into play such as the quality of the selected monitor the gamer is using. And you are right, the image quality is very subjective in that it is a total personal perseption thing. In all fairness to Nvidia, over the years they have greatly improved on thier quality image as well as FRPS. However, I still see the quality edge in ATI/AMD cards. But then again, the two compnaies use different shader technolgies ect and take a different approach. At the end of the day it is price/performace and personal prefernce. I love pumpkin pie with whipped cream and think it is hands down the best pie in the world, many would disagree with me on that. I am just glad that I as a gamer and a consumer can make that right choice for me. That is one of the reasons why i do not always like giving friends opinions about what video cards that they should buy because it boils down to that. What I do suggest to them if it is possible is to look around at other friends systems, compare it ect to others. Also, depending on what games you intened to play on the system is a factor. If many games are optimized for Nvidia and most of them are and you intened to play those games then the logical choice would be to get an nvidia card. If on the other hand you intened to play those games more optimized with ATI technology , then I would opt for the ATI cards. What I refuse to opt for is having an Intel processor for a couple of reasons. One past experince I have had issues with them and secondly, I think they have shadly or certainly questionable business practises that tend to board on unethical and even illegal. Of course, I will let the courts decide if thier practises are ILLEGAL.

[compygeek]

LOL, which lawsuit??? Intel sees so many of them, I lost track!!!! While I also do not agree on Intel's business tactics, what it does boil down to for the consumer is price : performance for a computer. And let's face it, Intel has been sitting pretty on that throne for a long time now (I'm still waiting for AMD/ATI to step up!!!). Ever since the original Core 2 Duo days, Intel's architecture seemed to have it right for performance. The Original Q6600 is still beating the Phenom 9850 (http://www.legitreviews.com/article/682/1/)Black Edition in many benchmarks - and as of this point, the Q6600 is still cheaper to boot. For the true FB's, sticking with their fav manufacturer is a no contest situation - however for those regular PC users who are really looking for the "best-bang-for-buck" PC right now at this time, Intel still seems to be doing something right.

However, with the entire Phenom FX lineup on the way - the lower prices can really appeal to many users out there, which I think will definately ramp up sales for AMD/ATI. We'll have to see how the FX lineup fares with todays cpu's as well as Intel's upcoming Octo-core Nehalem CPU's... Who needs eight cores?? I mean really????

[PhenomWithCrossfire]

I should have specified the most recent antitrust lawsuit to date:) Also, I posted awhile back, I am sure it is still lingering here somewhere that Intel is now also being sued by a University, claiming that Intel copied the Core2 aritecture or technology. If that is true and can be proven in the court system then Intel in my view doesnt deserve any credit or recognition for that arcitecture design. Seems to me Intel is now gradully doing away with thier dratitional FSB and opting for thier own version of the memory controller which as we know AMD has been usign for quite some time now and that is where thier processors still shine compared to that bottleneck Intel has in thier FSB. I am sure AMD is by no means perfect either, having copied or taken ideas from others but seems to me they do less of that then Intel. Should be intresting though in the courts for Intel though having to deal with 2 lawsuits at the same time.

[compygeek]

The thing with lawsuits against major corporations like Intel, is that in the end it turns out to simply be a huge thing that's normally settled out of court. People will read about it, talk about it, and then a short while later, it will soon be a "remember when" topic at the watercooler. Look at Immersion Corps. They had patents all over the Dual shock technology, which Sony touted as their own. Microsoft, and Nintendo followed suit shortly after with their iterations of this Technology. Immersion Corps, threw lawsuits on all of them. MS and Nintendo settled out of court first, while Sony held their ground - which is why the PS3's did not have any dual shock technology built in. Now, just recently, Sony settled which is why the Dual Shock 3's should be making their way to store shelves sometime this year. Intel will probably settle, lose some money and then move on.

Nehalem will be Intel's first introduction to a memory integrated controller on the cpu, as seen on AMD's older cpu's. Already there is some skeptisism for those "enthusiast" builders out there who love to oveclock their CPU's, as we all know that one of the main reasons why AMD cpu's don't OC well is due to the integrated memory controller generating too much heat and instability during higher clock speeds. You are right the the FSB cap on current Intel CPU's don't even come close to the bandwidth available seen on memory bandwidth benchmarks using SANDRA with AMD's integrated memory controller. But, even the Penryn CPU's out now (both Wolfdale and Yorkfield) can reach FSB speeds of 2000Mhz with the right board. And as seen on reviews, memory bandwith holds little ground in terms of overall performance - mind you every bit of bandwith added helps.

The only downside to an integrated memory controller is the changing state of RAM nowadays. For example, if DDR4 were to become the norm tomorrow, all CPU's with integrated memory controllers would be bunk, as the memory controllers are only tailored to read DDR3.

[PhenomWithCrossfire]

Yes, those points are true but I still will continue to buy and own AMD processors and graphics cards until the buisness practises of Intel are different. It is mainly Intels arrogance that got them into trouble with the Athlon64's when introduced in 2003. Sinse that time frame, I have been a pretty big fan of AMD. I have a mouse pad of AMD, T -shirt with the AMD logo, which I am wearing now. As far as the integrated memory controller, yes there must be some advantages to that because otherwise Intel would not be going with that in thier new cpu's. By the way not to get off topic but I started playing Gears of War on the PC, did not give it too much of a chance before , for some reason Unreal ( as Law) was saying was one of my fav games of late, but I am now playing gears of war again and I must say I am liking it more this time around. Creepy atomsphere with some intresting graphics. I want to get the action figures as well now. I thought there was a Gears of War part 2 in the making, am sure i saw that somewhere. If they do, I sure hope it is as good as the first one.

[compygeek]

I thought there was a Gears of War part 2 in the making, am sure i saw that somewhere. If they do, I sure hope it is as good as the first one.


There is a GOW2 in the making, I saw the press release with Cliffy B on XBOX Live, however knowing EPIC, it will be released, when they say it's ready...