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
Pricing and Availability
It wasn't too long ago that every time we reviewed an ATI video card we had to complain about pricing and availability, not to mention that anytime either company released a new graphics card we'd get a friendly reminder email from NVIDIA letting us know how highly it values hard launches and immediate availability. This time around, the tables are turned, and while we still love NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 GT, the fact of the matter is that the pricing and availability of those cards are just not what NVIDIA promised.
Leading up to the day the 8800 GT NDA lifted, you could actually purchase the 8800 GT for as little as $220 from a variety of online vendors. Once the embargo was lifted, the story changed considerably. Prices went from the expected $199 - $249 to a completely unexpected $250 - $300 range. Looking at our own price search engine we see that only Amazon is listing a card available at $249, but it's not in stock, nor are any of the other more expensive 8800 GTs listed.
The cheapest 8800 GT we can find at Newegg.com is $269 for either a XFX or PNY card, but neither are in stock, not to mention that the listed price is still $20 over what NVIDIA told us the maximum would be.
AMD will have you believe that NVIDIA simply can't make the 8800 GT cheap enough, citing die sizes and bill of materials costs. Without access to that sort of information, it's tough for us to verify, and NVIDIA isn't really willing to let us know exactly how much it costs to build one of these things. It's more likely however that NVIDIA didn't produce enough 8800 GTs to meet demand, which is understandable given how fast the part is. As we mentioned in our review of the card, it basically makes NVIDIA's entire product lineup obsolete. We've heard that during launch week, hundreds of thousands of boards were shipped out to add-in board vendors, which should start appearing soon, but at who knows what price.
It simply doesn't matter how good the 8800 GT if you can't buy it, and right now it's just not available. NVIDIA is promising that in the next two weeks we will see an influx of 256MB 8800 GT cards, and more 512MB cards are coming. NVIDIA's recommendation is to hop on a pre-order list if you want one, as new cards are coming in regularly and pre-orders are filled first. We don't know how the 256MB variants will perform, but NVIDIA claims that they will arrive at $179 - $199. Whether or not they will stay that way is another issue entirely.
All this brings us to AMD, and its proposed pricing/availability of the Radeon HD 3870 and 3850. The 3870 is supposed to retail for $219, while the 3850 will carry a $179 price tag. We've already mentioned that neither card is faster than the 8800 GT (we'll get to the numbers momentarily), but if AMD is actually able to hit these price points then the cards are still quite competitive.
We've gotten a lot of information about quantities of boards shipped from various manufacturers and vendors, and here's what we've been able to piece together. While there will be quantities of the 3870 and 3850 available at launch, it doesn't look like there will be any more of these two than there were of 8800 GTs at launch. Production will continue to ramp up and we expect to see multiple hundreds of thousands of cards from both AMD and NVIDIA by the end of this year, whether or not that will be enough to satisfy demand is a different question entirely.
If the supply satiates the demand, then AMD shouldn't have a problem hitting its price points, meaning that the Radeon HD 3870 would actually be a viable alternative to the 8800 GT. You'd have less performance, but it'd be met with a lower price.
Now if AMD can't hit its price points, then none of this matters, we'll be stuck with two GPUs from two different companies that we can't buy. Great.
The TestFor this test, we are using a high end CPU configured with 4GB of DDR2 in an NVIDIA 680i motherboard. While we are unable to make full use of the 4GB of RAM due to the fact that we're running 32-bit Vista, we will be switching to 64-bit within the next few months for graphics. Before we do so we'll have a final article on how performance stacks up between the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Vista, as well as a final look at Windows XP performance.
Our test platform for this article is as follows:
| Test Setup | |
| CPU | Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 |
| Motherboard | NVIDIA 680i SLI ASUS P5K-E (CrossFire) |
| Video Cards | AMD Radeon HD 3870 AMD Radeon HD 3850 AMD Radeon HD 2900 XT AMD Radeon X1950 XTX NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GT |
| Video Drivers | AMD: Catalyst 7.10 NVIDIA: 169.01 |
| Hard Drive | Seagate 7200.9 300GB 8MB 7200RPM |
| RAM | 4x1GB Corsair XMS2 PC2-6400 4-4-4-12 |
| Operating System | Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit |
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Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
I was talking about http://anandtech.shopping.com">http://anandtech.shopping.com, currently working on getting a solution to the RTPE issues :)Take care,
Anand
dm0r - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
Loved the review and also the 3850....this is the real midrange card ill buy...excellent power consumption.Just only 1 thing missing is the temperature of the gpu's, but anyway excellent review
Thanks
yacoub - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
Why are you recommending people wait for the 256MB of the GT? That model has no bearing on anything for people playing Crysis, CoD4, World in Conflict, etc. All the testing done on the 512MB GT shows that 512MB is really the new minimum for vRAM for gamers running a 19" or larger display and the 256MB model is well and truly irrelevant to their purchase options.Instead, the reason they should wait a couple weeks is just to see how the 512MB's availability and pricing changes.
yacoub - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
I really really like the new style to the charts and graphs. Everything is very easy to read and understand! Much improved over some older review designs! =)Also, lol @ how pathetic the 8600GT performs! :D
Iger - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
Actually, in terms of power consumption I would call this round a win for AMD. My home PC is on 24/7, but I really get to play on it for maybe a couple of hours a day at best (actually, probably, much less). AMD leads idle consumption by 40w, while losing the load power by 5. I think for pretty much every one 3870 will turn out cheaper than 8800GT. And I think it's important enough to be mentioned in article (no offence - just trying to be helpful).About prices - currently on overclocker.co.uk 8800GT 512 is preorderable for 350$, 8800GT 256 - for 290$, 3870 - for 320$ and 3850 - for 235$ (and AMD cards actually are listed in stock(!!) - impressive).
With such disposition I would be close to buying a 3850 atm, btw... But, anyway, europe's prices are terrible :(
Thanks very much for the article - it'll serve to satisfy at least some hunger before Phenom's ;)
Ilya.
Leadthorns - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
Some review sights suggest that the IQ is marginally better on the 3870. Would be interested to know your take on thislux4424 - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
In 2006 there were number of articles and presentations about benefits of new WDDM (Windows Vista Driver Model). These also mentioned WDDM 2.1, coming with DX10.1, and the benefits it should bring. Couple of examples:Since then it's absolute silence on the matter. It would be really great if Anandtech would cover the promises made WRT WDDM 2.1 (DX10.1) or even WDDM 2.0 (DX10) after SP1 for Vista is released.
Regards
GTMan - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
Sentence with no ending..."Hopefully with DX11 Microsoft will be a little more used to the"
Thanks for the article, interesting reading.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
eep, thanks :)Take care,
Anand
NullSubroutine - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link
I am extremely disappointed in the review of the product.1) Only Vista was used, though XP has a lot larger user base.
2) Limited variety of games.
3) Limited variation of AF/AA
4) No UVD tests.
All could be forgiven if the title would have included First Look: DX10. I understand there is a limited time to do tests and it seems you had trouble getting your samples so this could lead to the problem. I usually look to anand for the most complete review of products (rather than having to look at many different incomplete ones sites use), but I believe this review to be incomplete and not what I expect from Anandtech.
I await follow up reviews to reinstate my faith in this site. (and yes I am sure I will modded down as I will probably been seen as a 'hater' rather than trying to give constructive critism.