3870 better than 8800GT in 8x AA?

[Harrisson]

Found some interesting data - as we know 8800GT is slightly faster than 3870 without AA or with 4x AA, but barely anyone tested with higher antialiasing. Extensive german review about it: http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/hardware/grafikkarten/2007/test_ati_radeon_hd_3870/13/

In higher AA modes 3870 pretty much always wins over 8800GT, sometimes with wide margin. Why nobody has noticed this before? Probably because its assumed fps will be too low to be useful, but thing is - diference from 0 AA to 4x is much bigger than 4 to 8x. Also SLI/CrossFire shouldnt be ignored too, its the future for both firms in dual cards setups or in dual-core chip cards.

 

[elbert]

Found some interesting data - as we know 8800GT is slightly faster than 3870 without AA or with 4x AA, but barely anyone tested with higher antialiasing. Extensive german review about it: http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/hardware/grafikkarten/2007/test_ati_radeon_hd_3870/13/

In higher AA modes 3870 pretty much always wins over 8800GT, sometimes with wide margin. Why nobody has noticed this before? Probably because its assumed fps will be too low to be useful, but thing is - diference from 0 AA to 4x is much bigger than 4 to 8x. Also SLI/CrossFire shouldnt be ignored too, its the future for both firms in dual cards setups or in dual-core chip cards.

Dang it even beats the GTX and Ultra in some cases on higher resolutions with 8xAA/16xAF. Prey, Fear, Oblivion, Call of Juarez, and Crysis. Rating – 1600x1200 8xAA/16xAF and Rating – 2560x1600 8xAA/16xAF beats even the ultra's average. Nice find.

 

[spotless]

does the test rig uses pci e 2.0?

 

[starcraftfanatic]

guess high AA puts those shaders to work

 

[xkm1948]

R6xx's in lack of ROP and TMU. I don't think 3870 will beat 8800GT under 8aa

 

[DrMaV]

Goes to show you how many biased reviews came out.

 

[Heyyou27]

The real question though is this; what 8x setting are they using with the 8800GTX and Ultra? If they're using 8xQ AA on the 8800s and 8xCFAA on wide tent with the HD 3800 series, that isn't exactly fair, is it? If they're using equivalent antialiasing settings this is indeed an interesting development, although surprising that we haven't heard about it before. Still, not one of those situations where the HD3870 outperformed the 8800Ultra was at a "playable" framerate so this would be a small victory for the red team.

 

[Harrisson]

does the test rig uses pci e 2.0?

Probably not, they mentioned 680i and i975X chipsets.

 

[Harrisson]

The real question though is this; what 8x setting are they using with the 8800GTX and Ultra? If they're using 8xQ AA on the 8800s and 8xCFAA on wide tent with the HD 3800 series, that isn't exactly fair, is it? If they're using equivalent antialiasing settings this is indeed an interesting development, although surprising that we haven't heard about it before. Still, not one of those situations where the HD3870 outperformed the 8800Ultra was at a "playable" framerate so this would be a small victory for the red team.

There is detailed explanation of settings used:
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/hardware/grafikkarten/2007/test_ati_radeon_hd_3870/7/

Too bad I dont understand german, still its obvious they used nVidia 8xQAA and ATI 8xAA with Adaptive AA Off.

 

[San Pedro]

Ok, I'm confused as to what is the difference of 3870PCS and just 3870. Anyway, good find, lots of games used!

 

[qmalik]

if u believe that ati 3870 is better than 8800GT in performance... than your an #$%*^ (>.<)

 

[Evilonigiri]

Wouldn't be bad if this is true. Lower price for more performance? Right on.

 

[randomizer]

Who seriously plays with 8xAA on mid-range cards? And at 20fps or less? It's a moot point.

Btw, I like the way you can move the cursor over the graph and it gives you percentages performance of each card relative to the one you have highlighted. Very cool.

 

[narutard]

Who seriously plays with 8xAA on mid-range cards? And at 20fps or less? It's a moot point.

Btw, I like the way you can move the cursor over the graph and it gives you percentages performance of each card relative to the one you have highlighted. Very cool.

Playing at that FPS is definitely sub-par but, what advantage we can get out of this is if you put a pair of these babies in cross-fire. Now we are talking about something really nice. Imagine if it was on a x38 board as well and with newer drivers, this card just came out you know

 

[boner]

nicee....

 

[boner]

hell yeah nice

 

[emp]

That's nice to know... except that 8x AA isn't really an improvement on image quality to be honest. There's barely a difference from 4x to 16x, so a small victory indeed if the review is legit, but still means nothing in the real world.

 

[Heyyou27]

There is detailed explanation of settings used:
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/hardware/grafikkarten/2007/test_ati_radeon_hd_3870/7/

Too bad I dont understand german, still its obvious they used nVidia 8xQAA and ATI 8xAA with Adaptive AA Off.

That's what I was thinking; otherwise there is no explanation how a card that performs consistently worse with antialiasing would all of the sudden outperform it's competition at a higher antialiasing setting.

 

[spentshells]

yeah Im buying 3870 its way cheaper here in canada like

Diamond Viper ATI Radeon HD 3870 512MB GDDR4 PCI-E w/ VIVO, Dual DVI, HDTV-Out, HDMI


$239.95

vs

8800 GT

 

[spentshells]

yeah Im buying 3870 its way cheaper here in canada like

Diamond Viper ATI Radeon HD 3870 512MB GDDR4 PCI-E w/ VIVO, Dual DVI, HDTV-Out, HDMI

$239.95

vs

eVGA e-GeForce 8800 GT SuperClocked 512MB PCI-E w/ Dual DVI, HDTV-Out


$289.95

50 bucks better no I doubt it

 

[randomizer]

The 3870 is $330 here, same as 8800GT. The 3850 is $262.

 

[vegie]

3870 is $440.... cheap compared to some other shops that sell this card in nz....... i hate buying pc's here...

 

[DiamondWraith]

I payed $240 US for my 8800GT on launch day... Prices are now $330 for the same model. Its in the mail right now, should be here monday or tuesday. =)

Perhaps 3870 prices will jump 50% as well. Only time will tell.

 

[Harrisson]

Ok, I'm confused as to what is the difference of 3870PCS and just 3870. Anyway, good find, lots of games used!

PSC is PowerColor, they used two 3870 cards:

ATi Radeon HD 3870 (775/1125), 512 MB
PowerColor Radeon HD 3870 PCS (800/1200), 512 MB