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
Final Words
Without a doubt, AMD is back in the graphics game. When the Radeon HD 2900 XT launched, we couldn't be more surprised at how poorly the product did. The lack of competition allowed NVIDIA to sit back and relax as the orders for more 8800-based product kept on flowing in. While the Radeon HD 3870 isn't faster than the GeForce 8800 GT, if AMD can hit its price point, it is a viable alternative if you're looking to save money.
AMD is in a lot of trouble however if the 8800 GT pricing/availability problem does get worked out; the 8800 GT does offer better performance-per-watt and better performance in general, at the same price the decision is clear, but luckily for AMD the two don't appear to be selling at the same price.
The Radeon HD 3850 is a bit slower than its more expensive sibling and as such ends up being tremendous competition for current mid-range cards like the GeForce 8600 GTS or Radeon HD 2600 XT. We only compared it to the 8600 GTS in this review, but the 3850 similarly obsoletes the 2600 XT.
Both cards from AMD are quite competitive today, but the balance of competition could easily shift depending on pricing and availability of either these cards or their competition. If AMD can't deliver on the prices it is so adamant about meeting, it loses serious cool points. Similarly, if NVIDIA can get enough 8800 GTs in the market, or if the 256MB version actually hits at $179 - $199, AMD would be in a lot of trouble.
Today the Radeon 3870 seems like a nice, albeit slower, alternative to the 8800 GT. But it's difficult to make a thorough recommendation without knowing how the 256MB 8800 GT will stack up and where it'll be priced. Given how the 8800 GTs sold out, if you're truly interested in the 3870 pick one up now, but if you're like us and want to carefully weigh all options - wait a couple of weeks and see what happens with the 8800 GT 256MB.
There is one more point to discuss, and that is: what happens to the high end GPU market? AMD is talking about sticking two 3800 GPUs on a single card and NVIDIA has been very quiet about its next-generation high end GPU plans, but with games like Crysis and Gears of War out on the PC, it'd be nice to actually advantage peak performance as well as affordable performance. What we do like about these new affordable GPUs is that they finally leave us with a feeling that you're getting something for your money, whereas mid-range GPUs of recent history seemed to just give you mediocre performance while lightening your wallet a lot more than they should.
While this may seem like a blip in an otherwise very profit-centric product lineup, we'd love to see similar performance revolutions at other price points in the graphics market. Give us a $100 graphics card that's actually worth something, and maybe we'll end up seeing a resurgence in PC gaming after all.
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ChronoReverse - Friday, November 16, 2007 - link
I'll third that. The lines are great. Let's me know the resolution scaling quickly too.peldor - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
The line graphs are an improvement over the bar graphs. Good use of colors on these charts too.Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
I think this is honestly one of the best ideas I've ever heard. If I were talented enough to make a good looking hand puppet...Take care,
Anand
xsilver - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
pfft. hand puppets,you need 3d virtual godzilla representing nvidia and 3d virtual king kong representing amd. BTW godzilla would win because it can shoot flames out of its mouth. :P
about the article - is it not feasible that when the price of the 8800gt drops to $220 or lower the 3870 just needs to drop to 85% of that mark? With the 3870 being on the smaller die process, they could afford it or at least try to?
Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
ohhhhhk, I just said that I'm not talented enough to make a couple of hand puppets, you expect me to be able to create 3D models of reptiles and animate them? I picked text as a medium for my artistic expression for a reason - I'm not exactly artistic otherwise ;)The thought of a $220 8800 GT and a $187 3870 (and thus an even cheaper 3850) is just too much for my mind to handle at this point. I think it'll eventually happen, but not in the near term, these things are too new and both companies like making money.
Take care,
Anand
Anonymous Freak - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
Will you do a comparison on CrossFire performance, say, comparing two 3870s to two 8800GTs on X48 vs. 680i? Or even two 3870s on X48 vs. even ONE 8800 Ultra? If 3870 can really sell for $219, or 3850 for less than $200, two of them might well blow away an 8800 Ultra in $/fps terms, even worse than 8800 GT SLI does.Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
Ask and you shall receive, I just added two new pages to the article - the new Page 10 tackles the CrossFire question.Take care,
Anand
wpapolis - Friday, November 16, 2007 - link
First off, great article! I still surf other web sites but when I read articles produced by Anandtech, they are usually more informative and better presented. Anand, you have a great sense of the relevant information to include in your articles and I do appreciate your effort.Just one small thing regarding CrossFire performance. I was a little disappointed when I read your comment ...
"Scaling looks pretty good from the Radeon HD 3850, however it's still not as good as what NVIDIA is able to achieve with the 8800 GT. NVIDIA consistently achieves about 11% better scaling from one to two GPUs than AMD."
You mentioned that scaling of the 3850's isn't as good as a 8800 GT. In this case, did you compared ...
2 x 3850's with 256MB per card
vs. 2 x 8800 GT's with 512MB per card?
If so, I would be interested in how well ...
2 x 3870's with 512MB per card compares.
I suspect that running a Crossfire configuration sucks up more RAM, so using a 256MB cards doesn't scale as well as using 512MB+ cards.
I know, I know, you didn't get 2 x 3870's, but maybe you can get one more now? Maybe one more page to this article?
Thanks again for your tremendous effort!
Bill
chrispyski - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
Nice crossfire chart. I know many people will be thinking about CF'ing the 3850's over a single high-end card (although I totally agree, it does not really work out well in the end)chucky2 - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
Those that could have waited for the 3850 and instead bought a 8600 or 2400/2600 are probably kicking themselves right now...Chuck