Sapphire Radeon HD 3870

Note its utility in the coming consumer-level QuadFire arrangements.

why is it the that the 8800 GTS 640MB does so badly?

It doesn't really do that bad IMHO... it's neck-and-neck with the 2900 XT in Crysis/BioShock and faster than it (and the 3870) when AA is applied in ET:QW and CoH:OF.

The reason why it's slower than the 8800 GT/3870 in some scenarios is a lack of shader horsepower and its memory bandwidth/MSAA resolve performance makes up for this when AA is appled.

UK Price (as reviewed): £139.98 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed): £249.99 (ex. Tax)

i think there is something wrong here.....

Originally Posted by DXR_13KE

Quote:

UK Price (as reviewed): £139.98 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed): £249.99 (ex. Tax)

i think there is something wrong here.....

thanks! :o

have you still got the card Tim?

could you do a little test for me, hook up a second monitor and push the mem clocks past stock
see if its stable?

mine is showing some quite odd dual monitor behaviour
the card is unstable past stock mem clocks (even like 10-20mhz which is inside the rated speed for the mem) if i have dual monitors up
i could play crysis for hours on end at 860/1260ish if i disabled my secondary in windows before playing but it would hard lock and need to be reset with both screens up
supcom did this too, theres some weird flickering on the secondary if its going to crash too

I have still got the card, but today is going to be tight - I'm working towards another deadline for tomorrow. ;)

Originally Posted by Tim S
thanks! :o

you are welcome...;)

Great stuff, it's nice to see AMD actually producing something worth buying.
If only it wasn't red.. :)

Originally Posted by Tim S
I have still got the card, but today is going to be tight - I'm working towards another deadline for tomorrow. ;)

Is that another AMD-related deadline, by any chance, Tim?

Originally Posted by Zurechial
Great stuff, it's nice to see AMD actually producing something worth buying.
If only it wasn't red..

would you rather it be green :-p

god how ugly would it be if they decided to carry the green theme of AMD over to their video cards.

Originally Posted by Zurechial
Great stuff, it's nice to see AMD actually producing something worth buying.
If only it wasn't red.. :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tim S
I have still got the card, but today is going to be tight - I'm working towards another deadline for tomorrow. ;)

Is that another AMD-related deadline, by any chance, Tim?

I do believe that nVidia's 8800 GTS 512MB launches tomorrow :)

I would like to buy the 3870 but there are two problems, finding the money, and I dont want to buy a card only to have the company go down the drain like 3dfx did after I bought a voodoo 3.

what i would like to see is what that overclock does in terms of performance. a hefty oc like that you would think should put it over a gt. then of course what kind of oc can you get out of a gt and where will it all shake out? my gt has been kinda crummy on the oc, hitting only 710 core and 2060 mem.

Originally Posted by Drexial
would you rather it be green :-p

god how ugly would it be if they decided to carry the green theme of AMD over to their video cards.

they probably will eventually

they said the name ATI would be kept and two weeks later the damn site turned green ...

Originally Posted by Corvyne
I do believe that nVidia's 8800 GTS 512MB launches tomorrow :)

Indeed, and it will be confirmed that it's not really worth the money.

Originally Posted by rupbert
Indeed, and it will be confirmed that it's not really worth the money.

i'd say no. 8800GTX still is the best :D (second paragraph)

any hints Bittech on when's your GTS 512MB review going to come out? can i request it to be tested against GTX in every test please?

killer feature of these cards is that you can 3d acelerate upto 4 monitors using 2 cards so there awsome for those who have massive multi monitor setups :D

*with matrox boxen thats 12 monitors :D

Could anyone tell me where I could find this exact package that includes the Black Box bundle. The link that points to the BT shop seems to be the one without it as I read elsewhere that if it has the model number 21122-00-20R its not included. I think the one that has it is one with model number 21122-00-50R. I'm only interested in this because of the Black Box but I can't seem to find that one anywhere

nice review and its good to see amd/ati producing something so nice, i think they have well and truly fallen off of the bandwagon for high end cpu's but atleast the gfx guys are still working hard, i may have to flash the bios and massively o/c my 2900xt to prolong its life before i buy a 3870 or 2 and do the bios on that, go watercooling and really push the envelope on the oc'ing of it. Money money money....

peace

fatman

Originally Posted by Tim S
I have still got the card, but today is going to be tight - I'm working towards another deadline for tomorrow. ;)

no rush dude, just wondering if its something that effects them all or if its something specific to my combination of hardware/software

Whop. This review makes me so happy. Just bought this card (black box and all), and it should arrive on friday. Thanks alot tim.

Btw, since this is almost a reference card, any chance on seeing a crossfire review? Cause that would probably be my next upgrade ;P

Hi Danzki, do you mind me asking where you bought your one from?

Originally Posted by Danzki
Whop. This review makes me so happy. Just bought this card (black box and all), and it should arrive on friday. Thanks alot tim.

Btw, since this is almost a reference card, any chance on seeing a crossfire review? Cause that would probably be my next upgrade ;P

Hi Danzki, welcome to the forums. Our original reference card review covered CrossFire performance - the only game that showed us really worrying performance was Crysis... however, there is a patch coming very soon that will apparently fix this and we'll be doing a follow up with Crysis/CrossFire once the patch is released.

i heard sumwhere that they are planning on releasing a dual gpu crossfired single card?

any1 else got some more info on this?

Originally Posted by shahidur
Could anyone tell me where I could find this exact package that includes the Black Box bundle. The link that points to the BT shop seems to be the one without it as I read elsewhere that if it has the model number 21122-00-20R its not included. I think the one that has it is one with model number 21122-00-50R. I'm only interested in this because of the Black Box but I can't seem to find that one anywhere

Crap, I just ordered the -20R thinking it came with the Black Box! Tim, can you confirm the part number of the card you reviewed?

Thanks!