AMD Radeon HD 3800: The Empire Strikes Back

I alway imagined ati would be the good guys you know, not the evil empire

Wow, the article really could have done without the 5-6 pages worth of hyperbole and AMD hating, and just stuck to doing an actual review of the facts, rather than opinions.

I hate to be mean, but: WOWWWW WAY TOO MANY COMMAS!! Whoever wrote this article needs to take a super chill pill with the commas. They're used incorrectly and make the article hard to read.

This article is very informative, however. Great work.

hmmm...

I wonder what 4x 3870 could do with crysis?

I agree 100%. I read this article on the UK site this morning before it was posted here and each page ticked me off more. There is so much bias and hate it's ridiculous. Every time there is something that ATI did well (and they are still ATI, not AMD. Being owned doesn't change their name) you mention it twice as both a good thing and a bad thing. It's like saying "I like that you have brown hair, but... your hair is brown so i hope you rot in hell." Not to mention the commas, the "however"s, and the "clearly"s. The graphs are also very sub-par compared to usual. Having everything mashed into one diagram is awful and makes it hard to see what is what. 2 charts per benchmark is standard and it should be adhered to.

Aside from that i disagree that this isn't a big step forward. It's no a HUGE jump like we've seen a few times of late, but more of a 9700-9800 kind of step. Not every generation can add 100FPS to a game. But lets look at it this way. The MID-RANGE card is out preforming the current top model. Ergo when they release a top model based on the new process we should see something that does much better than the 2 new cards. Plus the drivers are beta. Let them get public quality drivers and we could see further increases.

You complain as though a midrange card is supposed to out-do everything in the previous generation. That's bunk. What i see is a card that is within range of the direct competition, of an equal generation, for a much lower price. ATi didn't mess up at all. Nvidia has a new gen, so do they. Both are mid range and are showing what the new midrange looks like.

The reduction in heat, noise, and power draw are great improvements. The increase in clock is good. Supporting the new DX10.1 standard is good. PCIe2.0 is good. There are a lot of great things about this card, but you are so blinded by your anger that they are taking they price/performance(bang for buck) from Nvidia that you can't see them.

Next time give us an article without all the bias, hate, negativepositivenegative comments that keep anything the card does right from coming off in a good light and get back to a normal review process.

Good article. There may very well be a 3870 in my future.

Dear all,

As much as 3870 suckies compared to 8800GT, it sold out quickly on a website of an unnamed online vendor (rhymes with legg) – 2 different brands in under 25 minutes. I didn’t get to take the first screenshot, but it started off with quantities of 25 and 20 (Diamond and HIS respectively). Minute later (13:20h EST):



minute later (13:21h EST):



2 minutes later (13:23h EST):



minute later (13:24h EST):



minute later (13:25h EST):



then the unnamed vendor caught onto interest in this product and limited the quantities to 2 max:



then I got to skimming through the tom’s article on this card and before I was finished I checked the cart one more time and the 3870s were gone:



Interesting to note that not a single 3850 sold in the mean time… I wonder which is generating more excitement in the community – of course the one they plan to ship less of.

I personally have a preorder for an EVGA 8800GT from frys ($229). I placed the order on Oct 29, and it still hasn’t shipped as they haven’t heard from EVGA why their shipment didn’t come in on Nov 5th. I don’t want to let the order go because of a good price that I locked in (ZZF has an EVGA in stock for $399!!!! Talk about price gouging). After calling them now, they say they expect a shipment to come in to their warehouse on Nov 18 – this Sunday. They will ship out on Monday and I should hopefully have it by Tuesday.
All I know is that I am sick of waiting, but the situation doesn’t look like it will be a whole lot better with ATI – sending such small quantities for sale. So advice – if you are interested in one pick it up as soon as you can so that you don’t end up like me with the 8800GT…

The article was good in my opinion. Any article is not going to be perfect and I would like you to show me an article reviewing a product without any bias.

Good job, toms.

I suppose I didn't really see too much anti-ATI because I didn't read the first six pages. It looked boring, something or another about Direct3d.

this is good news for everyone.....lower prices for the holiday season are gonna be good

Can't beat price. 219 even 2x of these dont cost as much as a 8800gtx

you cant deny, though that the 3850 obliterates any other midrange option right now. and shouldnt this be called "return of the Jedi" (not because nVidia is evil, just that they were on top...)

Nvidia is evil, they didn't give intel SLI license and they cheat on drivers.

3870 can't even outperform the 2900XT by much and sometimes not at all

You just proved your blind and dogged brand loyalty

Yes it did... Wont point finger to whom

Wow. Fanboys of all shapes and sizes coming out of the woodwork today. Everyone wants to claim pwnage...


From a reasonable human being's standpoint, I think the 3870 and 3850 look to be pretty decent buys for the dollar. Is the 8800 GT better? Sure it is, but it's more expensive and, at this time, impossible to find.

As long as there's a decent price spread, I think the 3870's will do well. If the 8800 GT's arrive in force and price match the 3870, the 3870's will have a very rough time.

I'm interested in seeing Nvidia's 8800 GT 256mb answer to the 3850 though, and once again, finding out if there will be enough on the market to make a dent over christmas.



On a side note, this article was probably originally written in French. All the commas might be an artifact of translation.

perchance slightly off-topic, but I have one sleigt problem with the 38XX's (and the 8800GT's to) - The extra 6pin connector.

These new ATI cards are clearly THE choice fot htpc owners like myself (ati consistently wins the video playback - though an 8800GT would definately do as well), but my shuttle power supply doesn't offer an 6pin connector.

Is there an simple answer like an molex/sata to pci connector???

Why all the claims of Nvidia bias in the review? I came out of the 20 pages thinking these are a solid recommendation. If anything the absence of dx10 testing yielded a better result for the 3800's.

Most people I know deal in a $200.00 window for a gpu and the 3850 would be where I would point them, of course followed up by some OCing.

Anyhow, why does everyone, feel the need, to be, so critical?
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Actually the commas can be fun, if you clench your hands out in front of you as read them you could be doing a Shatner.

Well newegg has them..$179.00 for the 3850 and $219.00 for the 3870

Nice pricing.....and check out this link for the over clocks.....


http://www.gpureview.com/gpureview [...] e-584.html

I've purchased several cards from both ATI (original RadeonAIW, 9600AIW, 9600pro, x800xlAIW, hd2600xt, and 1950xt) and nVidia (Ti4200, 6800, 7800gt, 8800GTS) so I'm clearly not a fanboy myself. That said you are 100% on the money. ATI heads, shut up already! Your brand has been trailing nVidia since the original 8800s came out. The reviews are fine, suck it up and admit that the new ATI/AMD cards are disappointing compared to the 8800GT.

When did the world decide to leave it up to you to decide if some thing was disappointing or not......I think the cards did quite well. The prices are even better. I am not sure where this nonsense you are spewing is coming from or why you bother to be such a drama queen about it.....

Let's see you owned a Ti4200 and then jumped to a 6800.....? What happened to that 5900 GPU you were going to pick up??????????? I thought so............

I don't know, about being a fan boy for either company. All that I can say, is that clearly the HD 3870 offers decent performance figures at a exceptional price. I can't argue the evidence that the 8800 GT is superior performance wise, but at roughly $60 more per card, and the fact that they're so scarce, I would probably give the HD 3870 a try.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6812201004
http://www.performance-pcs.com/cat [...] s_id=20580

HD3850 to me seems like a great option. Good performance at low resolution and not a big hole in the wallet. Perfect. Still hesitant to purchase though...the last ATI product was, well, not so good. We shall see.

DAAAAMN!