AMD Radeon HD 3870: the new midrange DX10 king?

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What to make of the new Radeon HD 3800 series?

You'd have assumed that AMD was onto a real winner if we'd said at the outset of this review that it would be at least as fast as Radeon HD 2900 XT; far more energy-efficient; sell for significantly less; add in a bunch of useful features that were missing from the original range-topping DX10 design; provide a means for four-card CrossFire support and granular control over frequencies from built-in tweaking.

Well, the Radeon HD 3870 does provide all of those things, along with unprecedented mid-range performance from a cutting-edge GPU.

So why are we not sitting in a state of utter bewilderment as to how AMD has managed to pack so much into such a reasonably-priced design? The answer, of course, lies with NVIDIA and the way it has ensured good performance from its own competing products.

All the architectural musings in the world will give you a theoretical insight into potential gaming performance. Actual gaming performance is predicated on more than just how potent a design is on paper.

NVIDIA has realised this is the case and thrown considerable support - money and expertise - in ensuring that games-engine programmers code for its forward-looking architecture.

The GeForce 8800 GT is no better than the Radeon HD 3870 on paper but who cares about paper?

Our benchmarks have shown that code-related optimisations benefit the 8800 GT to a greater degree, with performance consistently higher than the lower-priced Radeon HD 3870's.

NVIDIA's GPUs are strong in texturing and comparatively weak in pure shading power, yet triple-A titles appear to use NVIDIA's balance more than AMD's shading-heavy approach.

AMD's Radeon HD 3870 is, in hardware terms, everything we'd hoped for from a competitively-priced mid-range part. Its hardware is so good that it renders the Radeon HD 2900 XT obsolete.

The UVD is nice; CrossFire works well; and it runs very quietly. But the problem facing AMD is that NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 GT 512, while more expensive and really no better on paper, does give you a better frame-rate.

And we don't think we're being too presumptuous by suggesting that most prospective buyers will care more about real-world frame-rates than a nicer architecture.

Worse for AMD, the Radeon HD 3870 will remain the company's fastest consumer graphics card until a dual-GPU model is released in Q1 2008.

Yes, AMD is now back in the game for sure but the tide still hasn't turned. NVIDIA controls the very high end of the market with its GeForce 8800 GTX and Ultra parts and has a very decent showing in the mid-range space that AMD is targeting.

We suppose that AMD may succeed in the short-term if it can quickly push volume in to the channel whilst NVIDIA's supply of GeForce 8800 GTs remains constrained, especially over the lucrative holiday period.

Bottom line: AMD Radeon HD 3870 is a fast, fast mid-range card that checks all the feature tick boxes with aplomb. Trouble is, NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 GT 512 manages to out-muscle it in the benchmarks, largely because it has a developer-relations team that’s properly funded and is allowed to compete at the highest level.

AMD's lower-priced Radeon HD 3850 256, which carries the full feature-set over from Radeon HD 3870, may far better against NVIDIA's GeForce 8600 GTS. We'll tell you soon enough; we have two in the labs right now.

HEXUS Awards

AMD Radeon HD 3870 512MiB

HEXUS Where2Buy

A Sapphire-branded Radeon HD 3870 512MiB will be available for £139.99 here
The MSI NX8800GT-T2D512E-OC 512MiB is available for £168.15 here

HEXUS Right2Reply

At HEXUS.net, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any the companies' representatives choose to do so, we'll publish their responses here verbatim.

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HEXUS Forums :: 23 Comments

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Posted by Lucio - Thu 15 Nov 2007 07:25

Well, the most generous thing that can be said about the card is that AMD/ATi have achieved their design goals. They've reduced the HD2900XT to the price area it should have been in the first place.

Still, if nVidia don't start shipping the 8800GT in greater numbers soon, people might be forced into purchasing one of these!

Posted by Sprite - Thu 15 Nov 2007 08:35

So this is basically a revised HD2900XT then ?

Wonder how well the HD 3850 will perform…

Posted by s_kinton - Thu 15 Nov 2007 08:57

That sure made me feel good about my 8800GT purchase. I was wondering on launch day whether to wait and Im glad I didnt. I'd have been left with no stock anywhere for the 8800GT and the lower performing 3870.

Posted by this_is_gav - Thu 15 Nov 2007 09:55

It is worth pointing out that these are the benchmark optimised drivers which degrade visual quality in some games - most notably Crysis, perhaps the reason why it wouldn't run at 1680x1050 on the GTS? Easy test is to rename the game .exe and then play it.

The 3870 isn't as fast as I was expecting, but it still beats the 8800GT in every other way. The choice is now whether to get a 8800GT and strap on a 3rd party cooler and cope with the drivers, or to get the 3870 and just run it as it is… I still think it'll be the ATi road I'll be going down at the moment.

Posted by kalniel - Thu 15 Nov 2007 10:21

Will Hexus be re-evaluating the bang for buck metric now that Crysis has been released? Seems unfair to only include titles that favour the nVidia card - Crysis is a AAA title after all.

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