ATI Radeon HD3870X2 and HD3870

ATI is back in action with their latest mid-range and high-end cards, which offer more features and great performance

Saturday, April 05, 2008

It had been a long time since we got a high-end card from ATI, but this wait ends with the launch of ATI Radeon HD3870X2, a top-end card, which has two GPUs onboard on the same PCB. We just got the ATI Radeon HD3870, a mid-range card along with the recent HD3870X2 for review in our labs. Both cards are based on 55nm technology, but when one compares their capabilities and features then the latter comes powered with almost double capabilities. Compared to the 320 stream processor, 512 MB of RAM and 775 MHz core clock speed of the HD3870, the 3870X2 card has a 640 stream processor, 1 GB of RAM and a core clock speed of 825 MHz.

The only glitch with the HD3870X2 is its size; it is 10.5 inch in size, which makes it difficult to be installed on the motherboard, especially if you are planning a Tri-Fire or Quad-Fire configuration using one HD3870X2 and one HD3870 or two HD3870 cards respectively. The support of HDMI and 5.1 audio channels remains intact as it was with the earlier series cards. Moreover, these cards have got the support for DirectX 10.1, which is even missing from the nVIDIA's latest 9-series.

One of the greatest features of the HD3870 card is the inclusion of GDDR4 RAM, which enables you to get more bandwidth and fast memory responses.

We stressed both these cards to check out their performances and much to our amazement, they did perform explicably well. We got some really high scores from HD 3870X2. A score of 11745 in 3D Mark06 was comparative to what we got from Asus 8800GTX Aqua Tank (reviewed Oct2007). Coming to the gaming tests, in Crysis with all setting high and without anti-aliasing (AA) it gave an average score of 36.11 fps which is pretty high. Even in Unreal Tournament 3 we got a high score of 64.2 fps; though we can get a higher score than this from nVIDIA's 9600GT cards which are priced almost half to the price of these ones.

Coming to the scores of HD 3870; it managed a score of 10215 in 3D Mark06, which is good, though it is slightly lower than the likes of nVIDIA 9600GT and nVIDIA 8800GT. In gaming too it managed decent scores, in Crysis a score of 30.6 fps was good. Overall, the performance was decent, but the ATI Radeon HD3870 is bound to face stiff competition from nVIDIA's 9600GT, which not only delivers comparatively much better performance but also comes at a lower price.

Bottomline: With DirectX 10.1 support & great performance the HD 3870X2 will be perfect for gamers, though HD3870 will face stiff competition from nVIDIA's 9600GT.

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