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AMD Radeon HD 3850 & HD 3870 spotted in the wild
Author: Richard SwinburnePublished: 13th November 2007
Already spotted online - the HD3870XTs and HD3850 Pros should be a good price.
No, I don't expect you to read that, click for full size!
Overclockers UK has since removed the listing, although the directory remains.
According to the screenshot, a Radeon HD 3870 XT with 512MB of GDDR4 will cost £158 (inc. VAT), whereas a cheaper 256MB GDDR3-based Radeon HD 3850 Pro is just £123 (inc. VAT) - that's right in range of the GeForce 8600 GTS. All products will come with a copy of Call of Juarez, which you can pick up yourself for £4.99 including delivery, meaning it's not much of a value-add, even if the game is right up your street.
Most Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTs are listed at over £170 (inc. VAT), but they're all on back order - that's because of the old "demand outstripping supply" problem. As soon as stock arrives and there's some competition in the upper-mid range, things should level out a bit. Either way, it might make some early 8800 GT/8600 GTS adopters gag just a bit, unless they're die hard Nvidia fanboys, that is.
We can't tell you how the cards will compare to their competition yet or even tell you when they'll be available to purchase, but I'm sure some enterprising search skills will help you there. You might be able to put one and one together anyway, as the picture shows stock of the HIS cards already. Obviously, we'll be here to give you the complete low-down when the time is right - good things come to those who wait, don't-cha-know?
Whether you love red or green, we're just thankful there might actually be some competition for a change! Let us know your thoughts in the forum.
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Comments (23)
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Image quality appears to be pretty much the same between the two, so it looks to be a price war all the way.
In simple terms: This is bloody good news for us consumers, no matter what side of the ATIMD/nV fence we sit on. :D
looks like a couple of these would be great please :)
oh and 7.11 should give a nice bump to :-)
If the 8800GTs were in stock I would have already bought one. If these ATI cards are comparable, maybe I'll reconsider...
The HD3800 series supports DX10.1. The 8800GT doesn't.
Anyone have any info?
EDIT: Looks like a release date of the 19th of this month for the US, just 3 days after I can possibly get my hands on a GT, any idea when the UK release date is?
All DirectX 10 compatible cards will support 10.1 , but they won't be able to take advantage of all it's features(and 10.1 is only a small jump from 10)
Everyone says this, but the only major driver issues in Windows I've ever ran into were with nVidia chipset drivers causing my WindowsXP install to BSOD on boot. The only Windows graphics driver issue I've had is getting a TV to run at a different resolution then my monitor using whatever nVidia driver I had at the time. Windows could not find the TV, but the nVidia control panel could, but would only let me run span or clone, so the resolution needed to be the same.
Although in Linux the story is different, hopefully the spec release of R500 and R600 cards will generate better Linux drivers for ATI. Although since I only do gaming in Windows, so my main system tends to just have Windows on it, as I game a lot and restarting to switch the OS is a pain. On a secondary computer/non-gaming system I would try for an nVidia card to get Compiz or similar effects working on it.
You mean like nVidia did with Shader Model 3 on the series 6 cards? Both of them have been guilty of this 'ploy' at one time or another, it's just swings and roundabouts... as always. :)