AMD Radeon HD 3870/3850 Performance Preview

The RV670 Cards: Radeon HD3870 (bottom) 3850 (top)

While graphics manufacturers like to tout all the technology and performance offered by their flagship high-end graphics cards, it’s the mainstream segment of the graphics market that really moves the bulk of shipments for AMD and NVIDIA in a given month. OEMs like Dell and HP buy these cards by the truckload for use in affordable PCs, while gamers like you and me daydream of owning GeForce 8800 Ultra and Radeon HD 2900 XTs, but actually end up buying 8800 GTs and 2600 XTs in much larger quantities: while there are tens of thousands of enthusiasts willing to fork over $400 or more on a graphics card in a given financial quarter, there are hundreds of thousands who spend $150-$300 on their latest graphics upgrade in that same 3-month time span.



Unfortunately for AMD, they really haven’t had anything to offer in the performance mainstream segment ranging from $200-$300. The Radeon HD 2600 XT carries a $150 MSRP, while the 2900 XT officially starts at $400, leaving a huge hole in AMD’s lineup between the $151-$399 price point.

In late September, AMD quietly unveiled the Radeon HD 2900 Pro and 2900 GT to the public. The release of these GPUs was important for AMD because it finally gave them competitively performing parts in this critical segment – the 2900 GT carried a $200 MSRP while the 2900 Pro sold for $250-$300 – but these cards offered too little, too late, to make much of an impact for AMD financially. Both the 2900 GT and 2900 Pro were only offered by a handful of board manufacturers and in very limited quantities; whenever a few cards would pop up for sale at an online retailer, they would quickly sell out.

The Radeon HD 3870 and Radeon HD 2900 GT

The 3870 and 8800 GT

Radeon HD 3850 and RAdeon HD 2900 GT

These 2900 Pro and GT cards were never meant to be the solution for AMD at the performance mainstream segment. It just wasn’t practical for AMD to offer these cards at such low price points. After all, the 2900 Pro and 2900 GT both used the exact same R600 GPU found in the high-end Radeon HD 2900 XT. The boards also used the same PCB and cooling found on the 2900 XT. For all intents and purposes, AMD was basically holding a closeout sale on R600 with these cards. AMD and their board partners were essentially taking cards that once sold for $400 and giving them away for $200-$300.

As you can imagine, this wasn’t a very effective way for AMD to make money.

AMD needed a real solution to the problem at the $200-$300 price point and they needed one fast: with the avalanche of new games coming out for the holidays, countless gamers and hardware enthusiasts will be upgrading their PCs over the next 30 days. To add insult to injury, NVIDIA just released the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB at the $250-$300 price point and the card sold out everywhere within hours of its release!

Radeon HD 3870

Radeon HD 3850

Today’s introduction of the Radeon HD 3850 and Radeon HD 3870 are meant to address this issue. The GPUs are built around a new 55-nm manufacturing process, making them cheaper for AMD to manufacture. Yet both chips feature 320 stream processing units, just like the 2900 XT! Let’s see what else is new about these cards…