Do we actually care if the GeForce 8800GT hits 42.6 fps while the Radeon HD 3850 hits 37.9 fps @ 2560x1600 with Unreal Tournament 3?

Doing a benchmark at only 1, and the highest possible, resolution is a flawed review. Most of us don't play at that resolution nor can we since most monitors don't even go that high.

I think whenever the name Crysis comes up, every reviewer feels the need to mention it's 'high requirements.' I'm sort of over it. Yes it has the best looking graphics to date, but it's certainly not VASTLY superior to Unreal Tournament 3 or Call of Duty 4. Like most pc games, it could be a poorly put together graphics engine or bad programming that makes it such a hardware hog.

You also need to stop adding in that the 512meg model is VASTLY superior to the 256meg model. Any search over the web shows the gains to be very minimal.

I've updated this article to fix some botched labels in the TimeShift graph. Should be correct now.

It's hard to justify a purchase without a lifetime warranty. Most Nvidia MFGs have them.

Nice Review. Thank You. Thanks for throwing the older cards in there.

Regarding the cards:

This is why it's best to wait for the refresh. Both these cards as well as the 8800GT are extremely compelling. Given my own 1280x1024 resolution constraints, the 8800GT would be quite excessive. In fact, either of the AMD cards would be more than enough. If I were still into gaming then I'd be gunning for the 3870, no question. It may be too early to say but I think that AMD might have its first compelling product since the x1950pro, CPU products not withstanding. Hopefully these cards will have the staying power of the 9800pro and people can pick one up and keep it as their primary card for the next 2 years.

Regarding the review:

On the one hand I wholeheartedly agree with Vrock about the resolutions used for testing. How many people are out there gaming on a 30" 2560x1600 panel? Then there's the fact that this is a review of midrange cards. If this were a test of high end cards then I could understand using high end resolutions. Maybe it would be best to limit most tests to 1600x1200 (at the most really, since that's probably a higher resolution than most are using) and then run just a few tests at higher resolutions than that if you're trying to make a point.

On the other hand, I don't see the harm in running high-res tests since a card that is playable at those resolutions will certainly be playable at the common resolutions.

In the end I'd urge testing at common resolutions. The reason is that, first off, people have to extrapolate to figure out how the card would perform at their resolution. The second reason is that the high-res tests could cause pronounced differences between the cards that won't occur at lower resolutions and no amount of extrapolation will correct that.

As a final note: I picked a terrible time to quit my gaming past time. Who knows, maybe I should give it one last hurrah.

The 3870s are turning out to be as scarce as the 8800GTs. Where are the many many thousands of these that supposedly were being released in contrast to the supposedly only 40K 8800GTs? The 3870 is a very compelling card for its price, but if it's not available . . .

C'mon AMD, a lot of us are rooting for you, want you to succeed, keep the market competitive, but this is ridiculous. It's just one screw up after another. I can't believe I'm saying this, as I border on being a fanboy (though my last two systems have been c2d). But enough is enough.

Something about this otherwise quality review that bothers me: for the most part, you guys aren't showing results for resolutions that most gamers actually play at. Four megapixel resolutions are nifty and all, but with most folks with monitors running at 1280x1024 or so, it'd be nice to see how the cards perform for them, too. Even 1600x1200 or 1650x1080 is getting on the high side IMHO.

666 million transistors
+ red color scheme
+ DAMIT nick name
= AMD is the devil! OMG!

The best innovation? No more GT/Pro/XT/GTS/PE/GTX/LE/SE guess work. Just one relative number to rule them all. About time.

Erm, I was all for the next gen of the Radeons till I saw the the scant amount of memory on board. My Radeon x1800XT 512 which I'm still useing has just as much memory sa this current card. I'm not all about more memory always makes things faster, but with the current trend of games and things like megatexture comming out I want close to 756/1gb on my next gen card.

512 should be a midgrade variant of the card and they should have something close to 640/756 on the 3870. I guess I'll just wait till a manf releases one with more memory or NVidia relelases a next gen card, which will probably be soon, and probably will smash AMD again. :(

After all they're just catching up at the same time NVidia is about to move on.

It would be nice to know when the next iteration of products are about to be released, even a general quarterly estimate would be nice. Not based on trend (even I can tell NVidia should release another variant soon), but somewhat based on fact.

There is always something better just around the corner, but if I buy this then a week later something better is released it really makes me sad. :'(

Perhaps TR should consider a calendar for hardware releases or general target dates. I know white paper launches, lack of availabilty, and what not. It would be nice none the less.

couldn't you just run steam in offline mode, in order to keep the same settings while testing TF2 or other steam games?

I really like the 3870, but the 3850 is just too hurt by a lack of memory.

512MB really should be standard for any mainstream part at this point. I would never recommend that anyone spending around $200 or more buy a card with only 256MB - relegating them to lower texture quality settings in most new and upcoming games as well as offering significantly lower FPSs in exchange for relatively little savings.

Power consumption looks fantastic. I'm really interested to see the HD playback results.

If they can deliver in volume at these prices and the 8800GT doesn't significantly drop in price, they could make some headway in market share and give their stock a needed boost.

Thanks for including the older cards, guys! It's nice to see the advancements in technology and prospects for upgrading spelled out in clear terms. Very helpful.

Importance of DX10.1 pointed out:
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/11/16/why-dx10-mat...

Thanks for a good review Damage. I just wish you would have maintained the same thoroughness of testing shown with ETQW, right through all the other games.

Clearly the 8800gt is a superior card, but when gaming at smaller resolutions like 1024x768 or 1440x900 (yes, it's hard to believe but not everyone has a 22"+ monitor), does it have sufficient edge to overlook the lower price and power consumption of the 3870?

If I read right, the main limiting factor is the 265MB of memory? So the 512MB versions to appear on Newegg solve the problem?

3850 is plenty for people who have 19" monitors or even 22".

Great review, although yeah, I'd like to see results at 1650x1080, I think that's a pretty common rez.
EP

One of the two 3850s is now sold out at Newegg. Edit, make that two of the three.

Given the price/performance I can't say I'm surprised.

I think dismissing DX10.1 is the same as dismissing patches for vista users.

The changes basically fix the bugs in DX10, and therefore I think it will be rapidly adopted by gamemakers, especially since they know nvidia will go 10.1 very very soon, and the move from 10.1 when you already have to deal with 10.0 anyway is much easier than the move from 9 to 10 obviously.
Plus the game makers get pre-releases of DX10.1 from MS and hardware from the big players early.

I'm also going to venture a guess that the people that dismiss 10.1 now will suddenly herald it as very important once nvidia's DX10.1 parts are released.. smoothly forgetting what they claim now.

It seems to me that AMD/ATI have pretty much hit the target with this release. Sure, the high-end board doesn't outperform the 8800GT, and if the expectation was that it would then this is a disappointment. But I think ATI has correctly read the landscape.

The installed base of monitors running at resolutions 1680/1050 and below is substantial. A product that targets that market, in the price/performance gap between the 8600 and 8800, looks very much like a winner to me.

Scott:

Your reviews are always the best written and most entertaining of all of the other sites I check. (Hard/ocp Anandtech cough TOMS and Hexus).
And this was no exception.
I do want to cast a vote in favor of more in depth 16 x 12 res tests that show different graphical settings rather than jumping to uber high resoutions which the overwhelming majority of us can't support anyway. In fact I don't even look at them because they are simply irrelevant to me.
Also, I'd love to see the suggested or required power supply for these just like you did in older reviews so I know whether a PSU upgrade is necessary. What happend to the overclocking section. I really wanted to see if the HD 3850 overclocked would surpass the stock 3870 and 2900xt (and see how much it nullifies it's memory buffer handicap). Ditto on the 3870 ( but to see how much it closes the gap on the 8800 GT).

Hexus made a VERY strong case that NVIDIA is spending some very smart dollars working with game publishers so that they will optimize their hardware:
"NVIDIA has realised this is the case and thrown considerable support - money and expertise - in ensuring that games-engine programmers code for its forward-looking architecture."
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=10415&page=14

I'd LOVE to hear your take on this. Perhaps this means we'll see nice gains as more Driver releases come from ATi?

I'm about ready to buy one of these but can't see any yet. Are they in stock anywhere today? (I just want to support ATI and the diffferences at my 1680 x 1050 22" are negligible VS the 88000 GT.

Edit:
Bought the newegg saphire 3870. May come with Valve's Black Box!

Anyone know when the mobile modules based on the RV670 chip will be released?

Newegg has them for MSRP

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380...

now would this be enough for prices to go down on the 8800GT?

Great article Damage - btw I noticed you were running a PCI-Express 2.0 X38 with the HD 38XX... Can you tell a performance with the new high-speed PCI-Express 2.0 bus or does neither card really utilize that bandwidth at all?

Excellent review as usual, Scott. Many thanks for the hard work.

The 3870 looks like a sweet deal if it is widely available at a fair price.

Also, although the 3870 is a bit slower then the 8800GT, it still comes with the onboard audio controller.

Interesting note:
The review at overclockersclub of the Sapphire HD 3870 states:
" included is a free copy of Steam’s “Black Box” which has games in it such as Portal, Team Fortress 2, and Half-Life 2: Episode Two."

(cue the late night info-commercial voice)
"NOW HOW MUCH WOULD YOU PAY?"

If the card is available, priced well, performs close to a 8800GT AND Includes the "black box," I am not sure I see a reason NOT to get it.

5-10fps less than gt but nearly $100 cheaper than 8800gt at the moment. If they keep the prices down they can surely take a big chunk in the midrange market.

Hey Damage, the TF2 benchmark is missing the score for the Radeon 3870.

Also I would like a follow up review on the video capabilities (picture quality and cpu utilization) between the latest GeForce and Radeon cards.