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
Obsoleting Products: Radeon HD 3870 vs. 2900 XT
There must be something in the water these days, first NVIDIA makes most of its product line obsolete and now with the Radeon HD 3870 AMD gets rid of any reason to have the 2900 XT.
Our benchmarks show that the cheaper, cooler, quieter Radeon HD 3870 is at worst, the same speed as the poorly received Radeon HD 2900 XT. Granted there are a few areas where the 2900 XT does better, but for the most part it simply can't hold its own against the 3870.
These next two tables summarize things a little better for those of you that are more interested in raw numbers. What you're looking at here is the percentage of 2900 XT performance each one of these cards delivers, first off is the Radeon HD 3870 vs. the 2900 XT:
| 3870: % of Radeon HD 2900 XT Performance | 1280 x 1024 | 1600 x 1200 | 1920 x 1200 | 2560 x 1600 |
| Bioshock | 107% | 106% | 107% | 110% |
| Unreal Tournament 3 | 98.8% | 96.2% | 93.3% | 93.8% |
| ET: Quake Wars | 108% | 117% | 118% | 111% |
| Oblivion | 101% | 103% | 101% | 100% |
| Oblivion (4X AA) | 104% | 103% | 105% | 105% |
| Half Life 2: Episode 2 | 100% | 97.7% | 96.3% | 97.8% |
| World in Conflict | 118% | 120% | 115% | 118% |
| Call of Duty 4 | 136% | 130% | 118% | 102% |
| Crysis | 104% | 104% | 103% | - |
| Average | 110% | 110% | 108% | 106% |
On average, the Radeon HD 3870 gives us a 6 - 10% increase in performance over the more expensive, less featured, louder Radeon HD 2900 XT. Not bad for improvement over the course of 6 months.
| 3850: % of Radeon HD 2900 XT Performance | 1280 x 1024 | 1600 x 1200 | 1920 x 1200 | 2560 x 1600 |
| Bioshock | 90.7% | 91% | 92.9% | 60.1% |
| Unreal Tournament 3 | 92.1% | 86.1% | 80.8% | 77.2% |
| ET: Quake Wars | 107% | 104% | 99.3% | 81.7% |
| Oblivion | 91.1% | 86.4% | 85.8% | 85.4% |
| Oblivion (4X AA) | 92.5% | 89.3% | 89.1% | 83.5% |
| Half Life 2: Episode 2 | 97.4% | 90% | 87.1% | 86.1% |
| World in Conflict | 109% | 108% | 97.4% | 92.9% |
| Call of Duty 4 | 108% | 93.6% | 88.3% | 75.8% |
| Crysis | 93.7% | 91.4% | 89.7% | - |
| Average | 97.9% | 93.2% | 90.1% | 80.3% |
The Radeon HD 3850 comes close in performance to the 2900 XT, especially at lower resolutions, but at ultra high resolutions it delivers only about 80% of the performance of its older brother.
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nowayout99 - Friday, November 16, 2007 - link
I don't see a noise slide...But actually, Anand, noise may be a deciding factor for me. I'd really like to know what the cards sound like vs. the GT8800, particularly the 3870, if you guys could come back to it.
starjax - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
What about testing with updated drivers? I understand that the HIS HD3870 cards are shipping with catalyst 8.43 drivers.Comdrpopnfresh - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
How do you guys decide the intermediate slopes of the graphs between them? Some of them look like cubic regressions...Bram van der Heijden - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
Just one thing i want to add.I think the last year AMD is really screwing up... dunno what there doing, but they aren't able to beat Intel, they aren't able to beat nVidia. Something went totally wrong over there. Marketing, Financial, Corporate launching strategies whatever... their screwing up.
Leadthorns - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
Anand,How about the image quality? Some reviews claim its marginally better on the ati card than the 8800gt. Whats your take?
Bram van der Heijden - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
Best Anand, and other readers.I find it startling to see you making an assumption that's already a fact: "The Radeon HD 3870 becomes even more attractive the more expensive the 8800 GT is and the opposite is true the cheaper it gets; if the 8800 GT 512MB was available at $219, then the 3870 doesn't stand a chance."
I'm allready able to order Club3D 8800GT's 512MB for 208,- EURO's and even XFX's for about 212,45 EURO's... so thats even less in dollars. CLub3D is a company that builds good quality reference cards, so no suprises afterwards and XFX you all know.
So... for such a good site as Anand's i find it a bit strange you are not aware of this, and living by the quote stated above... this allready blows away the 3870... though luck again AMD.
Anyone interested in these cards haha, check out BEE-CT
Regards,
a Dutch bloke.
MrKaz - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
There are rumors that in my country the ATI 3850 256MB version will cost 140€.160€ for the 512MB and around 200€ for the 3870.
So this is in line with what you say.
(all values have VAT)
About the good luck, I think even with the slightly slower card the DX10.1 capabilities will be a selling point.
Just ask the guys that bought the faster X800 over the 6800 and now can’t play some SM3 games.
jcromano - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
One Euro is worth about 1.46 USD these days, no?So the 208 Euro card would cost about 304 USD, right?
Jim
Bram van der Heijden - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
Hmmm. back to school...That would mean 208/1.46 = 142 something...
Bram van der Heijden - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
but it's not like that... damn.. ur right... that's pretty expensive...I was wrong... sry.