Conclusion

With today’s introduction of RV670, AMD finally has a GPU that’s been built from the ground up to service the performance mainstream segment of the 3D graphics market. RV670 will hit shelves in two forms: the $220 Radeon HD 3870, and the $179 Radeon HD 3850. We’ll discuss the Radeon HD 3870 first.

As you saw in the benchmarks, the Radeon HD 3870 delivers performance that is equal or better than AMD’s flagship Radeon HD 2900 XT GPU in most cases. This is quite an accomplishment considering that the board is equipped with a narrower 256-bit memory interface. Clearly it appears R600 wasn’t taking full advantage of its 512-bit wide interface. We’ve been told that the 3870 pulls even further away from the 2900 XT in DX10 apps, but due to time constraints we weren’t able to test this out. We’ll have a follow-up article testing AMD and NVIDIA’s latest graphics offerings exclusively in DX10 apps in the coming weeks.

You also no doubt noticed that the Radeon HD 3870 wasn’t able to outperform its closest competitor, the GeForce 8800 GT. NVIDIA really hit a homerun with this product and it’s clearly the faster GPU overall, which is why AMD chose to undercut the 8800 GT in price: it may not be faster than the 8800 GT, but some gamers may appreciate its lower price tag. If you’re the type who craves performance though, the GeForce 8800 GT clearly outclasses the Radeon HD 3870 at this point. Radeon HD 3870 also runs considerably quieter than its predecessor, the 2900 XT, and consumes significantly less power. We’ll be curious to see if board partners who elect to employ single-slot coolers on their Radeon HD 3870 cards are able to deliver a card that delivers low noise levels similar to ATI’s reference cooling unit.

The Radeon HD 3850 looks pretty strong right now. As you saw in our benchmarks, it outperformed its closest competitor at the moment, the GeForce 8600 GTS, and delivered a nice performance improvement over the Radeon HD 2600 XT and 2900 GT. In fact in some cases it outperformed the 2900 Pro! However, keep in mind that NVIDIA’s upcoming GeForce 8800 GT 256MB will be competing directly with the Radeon HD 3850 when it launches in a few weeks, so we’ll have to wait and see what kind of performance that board delivers in comparison to the Radeon HD 3850. All indications are it’s going to be a very interesting battle.

The debut of the Radeon HD 3870 and 3850 is quite significant for AMD. They’ve finally delivered competitive parts to go head-to-head with NVIDIA at the performance mainstream segment. It’s been quite awhile since we’ve been able to say this. Both GPUs appear to offer good performance for their segment, while also providing technology leadership with support for DirectX 10.1 and 4-Way CrossFire with CrossFire X. We probably won’t see the first DX10.1 titles until this time next year at the very earliest, but CrossFire X has potential to be very interesting for those of you who prefer to upgrade incrementally. You can buy one RV670 card now, and up to three more boards as your performance needs (and budget) allows. NVIDIA has their own 3-Way SLI solution that will be launching shortly, but this will only be available for their high-end cards, the GeForce 8800 GTX and Ultra. AMD’s providing CrossFire X-compliant cards at much lower price points.