03:29
Abdul Raauf
Grabbing a video card for a mid-range gaming computer is really a gruesome task these days, because there are a lot of options from both ATI and NVIDIA. Basically, I am thinking about the $150-$200 price range, maybe a few extra bucks, depending on your location. Anyway, considering that most card based on the HD 3870 GPU from ATI are priced below $190 and can provide a serious punch for your buck, today I will tell you some things you should know about a few (very!) interesting choices belonging to this family, Sapphire's Radeon HD 3870 cards.
First, we should make clear some things about all the Radeon HD 3870 cards you may find on the market. As we speak, you may find on some sites the HD 3870 classified as an "enthusiast/high-end" card, but I completely disagree with this. The HD 4000 series is knocking at the door, and the HD 3870 X2 is way above the single-GPU HD 3870, at least in some games/applications, so this is leaving the HD 3870 as the most powerful single-GPU ATI card, but not powerful enough to beat quite a few cards from NVIDIA.
Regarding pricing, the HD 3870 is going slowly towards the $150 tag, which is a great deal for a card that was released less than a year ago, for about 3 times that amount. Anyway, arriving to our topic, Sapphire HD 3870, you can still get the single-slot cooled Atomic edition, which comes with a very rich bundle, inside a custom aluminum case, and for a price that will blow your socks off(somewhere around $350-$400, I guess).
Now, let me give you the complete Sapphire HD 3870 lineup:
- SAPPHIRE ATOMIC HD 3870 512MB GDDR4 PCI-E
- SAPPHIRE HD 3870 512MB GDDR3 PCI-E Single Slot Fansink
- SAPPHIRE HD 3870 512MB GDDR4 PCI-E Dual Slot Fansink
- SAPPHIRE HD 3870 512MB GDDR4 PCI-E Dual Slot Fansink SP (Sold out, according to the official Sapphire site)
- SAPPHIRE HD 3870 512MB GDDR4 PCI-E Single Slot Fansink
- SAPPHIRE TOXIC HD 3870 512MB GDDR4 PCI-E
- SAPPHIRE ULTIMATE HD 3870 512MB GDDR4 PCI-E
While all these cards come with DirectX 10.1, Shader Model 4.1 and CrossFireX support, as well as hardware processed 1080p video playback for Blu-ray and HD DVDs, the differences between them are made by the cooling system, memory type, core/memory frequencies and the bundle package.
Considering the above, you can't go wrong with any of the above, because the difference in terms of performance between the slowest and the fastest card in the list is probably around 7%-10%, the most.
Do you want benchmark results? Well, I'll give you a hint on them a bit later, because now I have to finish telling you about the feature list of the HD 3870 GPU. Just remember the fact that you won't play benchmarks, but real games, so those 3dmark scores won't do any good for you, as long as games won't run properly.
This is what I didn't tell you yet about the HD 3870:
- 320 stream processing units
- PCI Express 2.0 x16 bus interface
- 256-bit GDDR3/GDDR4 memory interface
- 512-bit Ring Bus Memory Controller
- ATI PowerPlay™
- ATI Avivo™ HD Video and Display Platform
- Integrated HD audio controller with multi-channel (5.1) AC3 support
- Up to 24x Custom Filter Anti-Aliasing (CFAA) for improved quality
First, we should make clear some things about all the Radeon HD 3870 cards you may find on the market. As we speak, you may find on some sites the HD 3870 classified as an "enthusiast/high-end" card, but I completely disagree with this. The HD 4000 series is knocking at the door, and the HD 3870 X2 is way above the single-GPU HD 3870, at least in some games/applications, so this is leaving the HD 3870 as the most powerful single-GPU ATI card, but not powerful enough to beat quite a few cards from NVIDIA.
Regarding pricing, the HD 3870 is going slowly towards the $150 tag, which is a great deal for a card that was released less than a year ago, for about 3 times that amount. Anyway, arriving to our topic, Sapphire HD 3870, you can still get the single-slot cooled Atomic edition, which comes with a very rich bundle, inside a custom aluminum case, and for a price that will blow your socks off(somewhere around $350-$400, I guess).
Now, let me give you the complete Sapphire HD 3870 lineup:
- SAPPHIRE ATOMIC HD 3870 512MB GDDR4 PCI-E
- SAPPHIRE HD 3870 512MB GDDR3 PCI-E Single Slot Fansink
- SAPPHIRE HD 3870 512MB GDDR4 PCI-E Dual Slot Fansink
- SAPPHIRE HD 3870 512MB GDDR4 PCI-E Dual Slot Fansink SP (Sold out, according to the official Sapphire site)
- SAPPHIRE HD 3870 512MB GDDR4 PCI-E Single Slot Fansink
- SAPPHIRE TOXIC HD 3870 512MB GDDR4 PCI-E
- SAPPHIRE ULTIMATE HD 3870 512MB GDDR4 PCI-E
While all these cards come with DirectX 10.1, Shader Model 4.1 and CrossFireX support, as well as hardware processed 1080p video playback for Blu-ray and HD DVDs, the differences between them are made by the cooling system, memory type, core/memory frequencies and the bundle package.
Considering the above, you can't go wrong with any of the above, because the difference in terms of performance between the slowest and the fastest card in the list is probably around 7%-10%, the most.
Do you want benchmark results? Well, I'll give you a hint on them a bit later, because now I have to finish telling you about the feature list of the HD 3870 GPU. Just remember the fact that you won't play benchmarks, but real games, so those 3dmark scores won't do any good for you, as long as games won't run properly.
This is what I didn't tell you yet about the HD 3870:
- 320 stream processing units
- PCI Express 2.0 x16 bus interface
- 256-bit GDDR3/GDDR4 memory interface
- 512-bit Ring Bus Memory Controller
- ATI PowerPlay™
- ATI Avivo™ HD Video and Display Platform
- Integrated HD audio controller with multi-channel (5.1) AC3 support
- Up to 24x Custom Filter Anti-Aliasing (CFAA) for improved quality
Posted in: Computer Vidio Card
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