ATI Radeon HD 3870 CrossFire Video Card Review

[Apoptosis]

Last month, Legit Reviews benchmarked a pair of Radeon HD 3850's on the day they were launched, but didn't have a pair of Radeon HD 3870's to include in the article. We have now received a pair of ATI Radeon 3870 graphics cards to test and compare to all the other cards we have on the test bench. Read on to see how the ATI Radeon HD 3870 does as a single card and in CrossFire on recent game titles like Bioshock, Crysis and Call of Duty 4!



Article Title: ATI Radeon HD 3870 CrossFire Video Card Review
Article URL: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/605/1/
Pricing At Time of Print: $249.99 plus shipping

[DMB2000uk]

Did I miss the noise comparison between the 3850 and 3870?

Which sounded louder?

3850 Xfire looks seriously tempting in place of a 8800GT...

Dan

[Apoptosis]

Did I miss the noise comparison between the 3850 and 3870?

Which sounded louder?

3850 Xfire looks seriously tempting in place of a 8800GT...

Dan

Page One! Second Paragraph!

The cooling fan on the ATI Radeon 3870 is obviously bigger than the Radeon HD 3850, and it is also louder. The acoustics on the Radeon 3850 is 31dBA compared to 34dBA on the Radeon HD 3870.

Now I know you didn't read all 13 pages! I couldn't tell a difference between the two on the test bench.

[DMB2000uk]

Do'h, I actually remember reading that now >_<

I did read it all, I promise, even the bits that were the generic-ness from the last review that you cut and paste and didn't change

Dan

[maj0r_pawnage]

3870 in crossfire is basically an even match for ultra at what 150$ less :D sounds like good news for amd?

[Apoptosis]

I did read it all, I promise, even the bits that were the generic-ness from the last review that you cut and paste and didn't change

Yeah hard not to cut and paste most of the middle since the games remained the same... Added Call of Duty 4 this time around, which I think is a nice addition to the benchmarks being run. Now I'm already benchmarking the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB card... so get ready for some more copy/paste love.

[DMB2000uk]

I did read it all, I promise, even the bits that were the generic-ness from the last review that you cut and paste and didn't change

Yeah hard not to cut and paste most of the middle since the games remained the same... Added Call of Duty 4 this time around, which I think is a nice addition to the benchmarks being run. Now I'm already benchmarking the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB card... so get ready for some more copy/paste love.

I don't mind it, and I'm sure it'd be a trick I'd love to use if reviewing, I'll check for bits where you might have written something card specific in the original

Dan

[Apoptosis]

And to be honest when AMD sent out the 3800 series to reviewers they thought the 3870's would be a flop... That's why they didn't send them out to sites like Legit Reviews and others at first. The performance on many games was close to that of the Radeon 2900XT, so they didn't know how to market it really. I wish they would have sent them all to me at once as it would have been nice to do the 3800 series all at once. After the launch the Radeon HD 3870 sold out, so I guess they had nothing to worry about.

They thought the 3850 would out sell the 3870 3 to 1, but in reality the 3870 is out selling the 3850 3 to 1. This is why many of the 3870's are out of stock right now, but also there was a problem with a small batch of the 3870's a couple weeks ago. The boards were going through final testing and qualification and they found a component that needed to be re-worked on just one batch of them. They got those cards fixed and now two batches are hitting the market here in the next few days. Should be plenty of Radeon HD 3850's and Radeon HD 3870's to go around before the holidays.

[provoko]

When will the 3x and 4x 3870 crossfire reviews come out? And also, will you be testing the dual-gpu 3870s? Thanks.

[maj0r_pawnage]

they have dual slot coolers so i dont think more than two of them is possible(except for 3870x2 in crossfire)

[Apoptosis]

When will the 3x and 4x 3870 crossfire reviews come out? And also, will you be testing the dual-gpu 3870s? Thanks.

We have the boards to do 3x and 4x CrossFire now, but AMD is holding off on the drivers as they are not public yet. Guess they are still perfecting them a bit. The 3870 X2s will be out after CES in January and we will of course have a review on them!

they have dual slot coolers so i dont think more than two of them is possible(except for 3870x2 in crossfire)

Four of them with dual-slot coolers is very possible and that is what this picture is showing... 4 3870's in CrossFireX (4-way CrossFire is called CrossFireX)

[martini161]

wow, are all crossfire bridges bendable like that? and how are people gonna fit that in a case? my case is a huge tower and it only has 7 expansion slots! 4 cards X 2 slots each = 8 slots!

[Apoptosis]

no big deal really... the crossfire bridges flex and it takes up no more room than a normal ATX motherboard. They are running the MSI K9A2 Platinum board that has each PCI Express slot double spaced...

[Ramzii]

Yes the MSI K9A2 Platinum will definately work with 4 x Crossfire
Note: the 2 red SAS ready ports of the Promise controller
(SAS Serial attached SCSI - backward compatible with SATA ... now you play with 15k 2.5/3.5 speed demons.)


But as for the case you will need a Super Tower:
Like the Xaser VI VG4000 series or Armor+ VH6000 series both have steel and aluminium variants.
10 expansion slots (3 more that a standard motherboard)
2 for each 3870 = 8 slots
plus 2 for USB/firewire/audio plates etc.

now we only need longer motherboards so can fit the X-FI and aegia card somewhere ... LOL

[Apoptosis]

Yes the MSI K9A2 Platinum will definately work with 4 x Crossfire
Note: the 2 red SAS ready ports of the Promise controller
(SAS Serial attached SCSI - backward compatible with SATA ... now you play with 15k 2.5/3.5 speed demons.)


But as for the case you will need a Super Tower:
Like the Xaser VI VG4000 series or Armor+ VH6000 series both have steel and aluminium variants.
10 expansion slots (3 more that a standard motherboard)
2 for each 3870 = 8 slots
plus 2 for USB/firewire/audio plates etc.

now we only need longer motherboards so can fit the X-FI and aegia card somewhere ... LOL

Good point on the case... Won't need longer motherboards if the Radeon HD 3870 X2 works out.

[martini161]

what about 4 of teh 3870 x2s when they come out with 2 crossfire slots? cant wait to try using 8 gpus!

[Apoptosis]

what about 4 of teh 3870 x2s when they come out with 2 crossfire slots? cant wait to try using 8 gpus!

Nice thinking, but it can't be done... Notice the Radeon HD 3870 X2's only have one Interconnect, so two in CrossFire is the most possible. ;)

[martini161]

EDIT: that's what i meant when i said 2 crosfire slots. didnt know they were really called "interconnects"

im starting to regret buying a thermaltake armor. the sideaways psu is a complete PITA! its a good idea if you use a lot of hdd's but im never gonna be using six of them! i dont think i even own six hard drives with all my computers combined!

[maj0r_pawnage]

is crossfire with two 3870x2s possible with a "normal" 775 mobo like P5WDH?

[Apoptosis]

is crossfire with two 3870x2s possible with a "normal" 775 mobo like P5WDH?

highly likely, but since it's an unreleased product it can't be 100% confirmed at this point. R680 will be on show and might even launch at CES 2008 in Las Vegas, so you shouldn't have to wait too much longer to find out.