Sapphire’s Radeon HD 3850 Ultimate and 3870 Atomic

After suffering through most of 2007 without a compelling mainstream lineup to counter NVIDIA’s GeForce cards in the $150-$300 range, AMD-ATI is finally back with a pair of GPUs that have everyone buzzing: the Radeon HD 3850 and the Radeon HD 3870.

Sapphire 3850 Ultimate (top) and 3870 Atomic (bottom)

Sporting codenames like “Gladiator” and “Revival”, the 3850 and 3870 came at just the right time for AMD; many gamers were disappointed with the performance of previous mainstream offerings like the GeForce 8600 GTS and Radeon HD 2600 XT, opting instead to stick with more powerful existing DX9 cards like the Radeon X1950 Pro. Since they are largely based on the R600 graphics core first used in the Radeon HD 2900 XT, the 3850 and 3870 are much more capable performers than the Radeon 2600 series were – the Radeon HD 3870 actually performs on par with the 2900 XT, yet sells for nearly half the price, meanwhile the Radeon HD 3850 runs anywhere from 25-40% faster than the GeForce 8600 GTS!

The 3850 Ultimate and reference 3850 board

Sapphire 3870 Atomic and reference 2900 XT and 3870 boards

The biggest competitor by far to the Radeon HD 3850 and 3870 is the GeForce 8800 GT, but cards based on this GPU sell for more than the Radeon cards, and can still be hard to find at MSRP to this day. While NVIDIA and their board partners are having a tough time keeping up with GeForce 8800 GT supply, cards based on the 3850 and 3870 are plentiful, although admittedly the 3870 has been selling above MSRP for weeks now.

Sapphire Atomic and AMD 3870 reference board

With the initial GPU launch now behind them, AMD’s board partners are now focusing on their 2nd generation Radeon HD 3850 and 3870 cards. Many of these newer Radeon boards ship with custom cooling and/or higher clock speeds than the early 3850/3870 cards that were released last year.

Sapphire is one of the first out of the gates with cards that fit in this category. Today we’re taking a look at their flagship Radeon HD 3870 card, the Sapphire HD 3870 Atomic Edition, and their high-end Radeon HD 3850 board for silent PC fans, the Sapphire HD 3850 Ultimate Edition. Both of these cards take a dramatic step beyond the basic Radeon cards designed by AMD. Let’s start by taking a look at the Ultimate board first!