System setup and notes
Hardware
| Graphics cards | Sapphire Radeon HD 3850 1GiB | Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 ULTIMATE 512MiB | Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 512MiB | Inno3D GeForce 9600 GT Overclock 512MiB | ZOTAC GeForce 9600 GT AMP Edition 512MiB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Current pricing, including VAT | £120 | £120 | £93 | £104 | £120 |
| Shader Model | 4.1 | 4.0 | |||
| Stream processors | 320 | 320 | 320 | 64 | 64 |
| GPU clock speed (MHz) | 702 | 777 | 777 | 700 | 725 |
| Shader clock speed (MHz) | 702 | 777 | 777 | 1,680 | 1,750 |
| Memory clock speed (MHz) | 1,656 | 2,252 | 2,252 | 1,900 | 2,000 |
| Memory bus width (Bits) | 256 | ||||
| CPU | Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 LGA775 (2.66GHz, 8MiB L2 cache, quad-core) | ||||
| Motherboard | ASUS P5K Premium Deluxe WiFi-AP (Bearlake P35) | eVGA NF68 (nForce 680i SLI) | |||
| Motherboard BIOS | 0504 | P31 | |||
| Mainboard software | Intel Inf 8.4.0.1016 | NVIDIA device driver 15.08 | |||
| Memory | 4GiB (4 x 1GiB) DDR2-1066 | ||||
| Memory timings and speed | 5-5-5-15 2T @ 1,066MHz | ||||
| PSU | Enermax Galaxy DXX 850W | Gigabyte ODIN GT 800W | |||
| Monitor | Dell 24in 2405FPW - 1,920x1,200 | ||||
| Disk drive(s) | Seagate 160GiB SATAII (ST3160812AS) | ||||
| Graphics driver | CATALYST 8.4 | CATALYST 8.2 BETA 5 | NVIDIA ForceWare 174.12 | ||
| Operating system | Windows Vista Business, 64-bit | ||||
Software
| 3D Benchmarks | Company Of Heroes: Opposing Fronts v2.103: DX9 and DX10 Enemy Territory: Quake Wars v1.2 (demo_00010.dem, map Valley) Lost Planet: Extreme Condition v1.004 built-in benchmark: DX9 |
|---|
Notes
Five mid-range cards whose pricing fluctuates between £93 and £120.Radeon HD 3870 512MiB pricing is such that it's dropped significantly over the past month. The £93 figure represents a 'lite' retail package, consistent with the HD 3850 1GiB's, and thus making its £120 pricing seem expensive in comparison.
The two reviewed Sapphire cards were run with CATALYST 8.4 drivers. The older Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 512, which is identically-clocked to the ULTIMATE, was run with 8.2 beta 5, and any significant performance deviation will be down to the use of newer drivers.
Benchmarks were conducted at 1,280x1,024(720), and 1,680x1,050 with decent image-quality settings to boot. The scores represent the average of three runs, and any large-scale variances were thrown out and the test re-run.
