ATI Radeon HD 3870 & 3850: A Return to Competition
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on November 15, 2007 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Sensible Naming and the Cards
It looks like we may just be seeing some of the fruits of the ATI acquisition here today; no, we're not talking about the Radeon HD 3800 series, but rather the naming of the cards. AMD is releasing two cards today, the Radeon HD 3870 and the 3850, both based off of the new RV670 GPU. Notice anything missing from the GPU names? That's right, gone are the annoying suffixes. AMD is committed to getting rid of the suffix with its GPU products, so you won't see any XT, LE, PE, FUFME, SE etc... versions of these graphics cards. Can we just say now that we think this is a great idea?
Even though the name ATI Radeon HD 3870 is still a little long for our tastes, it's still better than having confusing suffixes. As long as AMD sticks to the higher numbers means better cards methodology we're happy.
There is a method to the nomenclature madness, which the image below should explain:
The first digit is the product generation, the second digit is the family, and then the last two digits refer to performance within that family. This should sound a lot like AMD's new CPU naming system or Intel's current Core 2 family. Note that with today's launch we're already pretty high in the 3800 series, whether or not that means we'll be looking forward to a 3900 or 4000 soon is another matter entirely.
Specifics on the two cards are as follows:
The 3870 is a two-slot solution, it runs its core at a minimum of 775MHz and comes with 2.25GHz data rate memory. Despite the two-slot cooler, the 3870 is actually quieter than the 3850, which itself is much quieter than the 2900 XT.
The Radeon HD 3870
The 3850 is a single slot card, with a 670MHz core clock and a 1.66GHz memory clock. The cards are priced at $219 and $179, respectively (more on pricing later). Like the 3870, the Radeon HD 3850 is actually quiet.
The Radeon HD 3850
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Agent11 - Sunday, November 18, 2007 - link
I was very disappointed with the use of a p35 chipset to compare crossfire to SLI.You use a motherboard with 16x by 16x pcie lanes for SLI but use one with 16x by 4x for crossfire... And then make a point of crossfire not scaling as well!
Ask any bencher, it does matter.
SmoulikNezbeda - Sunday, November 18, 2007 - link
Hi,I would like to know what numbers in graphs really represents. Are those average FPS or something like (min + max + ave)/3 FPS?
Thanks
Agent11 - Monday, November 19, 2007 - link
If it isn't average then theres a problem.wecv - Monday, August 14, 2017 - link
Hello, I am from the future.We now have 2GB GPUs with GDDR5 as entry level, 4GB-8GB GPUs for midrange with GDDR5 and 8GB GDDR5/GDDR5X/HBM2 or 11GB GDDR5X for High-end and enthusiast!
You may go and live back in the past.
TheOtherRizzo - Saturday, November 17, 2007 - link
What would you need a frame buffer of 512 MB for? That's enough room for about 80 1080p images. Sounds to me like someone at ATI is stuck in 1994 when framebuffers were the only memory on a graphics card...wecv - Monday, August 14, 2017 - link
Hello, I am from the future.We now have 2GB GPUs with GDDR5 as entry level, 4GB-8GB GPUs for midrange with GDDR5 and 8GB GDDR5/GDDR5X/HBM2 or 11GB GDDR5X for High-end and enthusiast!
You may go and live back in the past.
ZipFreed - Friday, April 13, 2018 - link
Lol, this comment is awesome and cracked me up. I am reading these older GPU reviews researching something and have been thinking similar sentiments to myself as I go.Glad you necro'd this.
0roo0roo - Saturday, November 17, 2007 - link
the convoluted naming systems of gpus garrantees pretty much only geeks in the know will make good purchasing decisions. this matters to the health of the pc game industry, i'm sure many have been turned off by the experience of going to their local store and buying a card within their budget and little other useful information and getting a lousy experience. i'm sure retailers actually benifit from the confusion since they can charge more and just hope the customer just bases their decision on their price range.Shark Tek - Saturday, November 17, 2007 - link
Finally GPU manufacturers are thinking right. Instead of making oven like heaters power hogs GPUs they're trying to make things right like Intel and AMD are doing with their CPU lines with less heat and power consumption.Lets see the upcoming generations how they will perform. ;)
araczynski - Friday, November 16, 2007 - link
I'm assuming this is a mid line card with better stuff coming out?otherwise I don't see the point of getting anything other than an 8800gt, prices are too close to give up top of the line for merely 60 or so bucks, or better yet, waiting a few more months till the 8900's roll out.