Thread: ATI Radeon HD 3870 x2 Graphic Card

One of the biggest mistakes a competitor can make is to react to a competing product with something that is half baked. ATI needed something to counter the G80 and all its variants which not only ate into its sales but also established itself as the benchmark for DX10 graphics cards. The Radeon HD3870 was touted as an 8800GTX killer, but even 320 SPs seemed unable to counter the solid across-the board performance that NVIDIA was getting with its cards. The HD3870 x2 was born out of desperation and as any birthing under such circumstances it was a stop gap at best, a drastic failure at worst. This was however, ATI's first multi-GPU card since awhile, and it paved the way for the mighty HD 4870 x2. With 640 SPs the 3870 x2 seemed to be unbeatable on paper. It also sported GDDR4 memory, which was the second time ATI went with this largely discarded memory standard - the X1950XTX being the only other GDDR4 sporting graphics card around. NVIDIA hasn't touched GDDR4 thus far, and isn't likely to either. The HD3870 x2 had 1 GB of GDDR4 clocked at 2.0 GHz, and it was a CrossFire solution that didn't need a CrossFire motherboard it worked just fine with a single PCIe slot.

Features
ASUS sent us a very fancy looking version of the 3870 x2 called the EAH '3870 x2. Basically, this card had four DVI ports instead of the normal two, and sported a very different looking cooler which is much lighter than the stockATI cooler, and has two fans instead of one. The other card was from Sapphire. This card was based around a stock ATI cooling design. Both cards came clocked at 825 MHz for each core - this also ensures these cards stay toasty throughout our tests, and the Sapphire HD 3870 x2 also ran hot throughout the tests. In fact this card heated within five minutes of booting into Windows Vista. The ASUS card was cooler by an aggregate of 15 degrees, which suggests that ASUS' cooler is really a godsent for users. ASUS provided the usual accessories a leather CD pouch and a mouse pad, also bundled was an HDMl adapter, and Component and S-Video connectors. Company Of Heroes i a older game, but we'll give ASUS a plus for bundling one of our all time favourites. The Sapphire card didn't have any games, although an HDMI adapter and the usual S-Video cables were bundled.



Performance
In terms of fps the 3870 x2 isn't too hot. It does manage to outpace the newer HD 4870 cards but only in one game S.T.A.L.K.E.R., and this isn't too indicative of performance. The fact that a single GPU HD 4870 is able to thrash it by a good margin in all of the games including taxing ones like Crysis, Company Of Heroes and World In Conflict, not to mention 3D Mark Vantage, showcases the shortcomings of the Radeon 3870 architecture. It's equally incomparable to the GTX 2XX series, which simply massacre it. Stay away from both these cards they are simply obsolete there's no other word for it.