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In the test 15 years ago: The Radeon HD 3870 HD X2 as the high-end price king

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15 years ago, AMD tried to regain the performance crown in the high-end graphics card market with the ATi Radeon HD 3870 X2 (test). For a price of just under 410 euros, the double Radeon was not only affordable, as long as CrossFire worked, it was very fast.

Table of contents

  1. Two GPUs for double the power
  2. Bye, bye, GeForce
  3. Conclusion

Two GPUs for double the boom

On the Radeon HD 3870 X2, ATi installed two RV670 GPUs that communicated with each other in CrossFire mode to increase the card's performance. The RV670 chips were also used on the Radeon HD 3850 and HD 3870 and were manufactured at TSMC using the 55 nm process. Basically the RV670 GPU was the same as the R600 GPU of the Radeon HD 2900 XT with some minor changes and a new manufacturing process.

  1. ATi Radeon HD 3870 X2

Image 1 of 9

Radeon HD 3870 X2 Rear Panel
Radeon HD 3870 X2 Fan
Radeon HD 3870 X2 memory cooler
Radeon HD 3870 X2 slot bracket
Radeon HD 3870 X2 CF connector
Radeon HD 3870 X2 Fan Connector
Radeon HD 3870 X2 cooler backside
Radeon HD 3870 X2 rear without cooler

A PCIe switch from PLX was found on the Radeon HD 3870 X2, which ensured that the two GPUs could communicate with each other. The switch offered a total of 48 PCIe lanes. 16 lanes were used to connect the graphics card to the PCIe slot and 16 lanes each to connect the GPUs to the switch. Since the PCIe switch was a PCIe 1.1 only model, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 couldn't use the newer PCIe 2.0 standard, even though the GPUs themselves would have been able to.

Radeon HD 2900 XT Radeon HD 3870 Radeon HD 3870 X2 GeForce 8800 Ultra Chip R600 RV670 R680 (2 × RV670) G80 transistors ca. 700 million ca. 666 million ca. 2 × 666 million ca 55nm 90nm Chip Clock 742MHz 775MHz 825MHz 612MHz Shader Clock 742MHz 775MHz 825MHz 1512MHz Shader Units
(MADD) 64 (5D) 2 × 64 (5D) 128 (1D) FLOPs (MADD/ADD) 475 GFLOPS 496 GFLOPS 2 × 528 GFLOPS 581 GFLOPS* ROPs 16 2 × 16 24 Pixel fill rate 11,872 MPix/s 12,400 MPix/s 2 × 13,200 MPix/s 14,688 MPix/s TMUs 16 2 × 16 64 TAUs 32 2 × 32 32 Texel fill rate 11,872 MTex/s 12,400 MTex/s 2 × 13,200 MPix/s 39,168 MTex/s Shader model SM 4 SM 4.1 SM 4 Hybrid -CF/-SLI – Amount of memory 512 MB GDDR3 512 MB GDDR4 2 × 512 MB GDDR3 768 MB GDDR3 Memory clock 828 MHz 1,125 MHz 900 MHz 1,080 MHz Memory interface 512 bit 256 bit 384 bit Memory bandwidth 105,984 MB/s ×05,62 MB/s 72,000 MB/s /s 103,680 MB/s

Bye, bye, GeForce

The double Radeon made short work of the competition from Nvidia: the more expensive GeForce 8800 Ultra was left behind in every quality setting. The advantage ranged from just two to 100 percent on average, especially in higher resolutions and with activated anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 was at home. An important limitation was that the titles had to have an optimized CrossFire profile, otherwise the Radeon HD 3870 X2 even fell behind a single Radeon HD 3870.

Charts

Performance rating – 1280×1024

Unit: Percent Performance Rating – 1600×1200

Unit: Percent Rating – 1280×1024 4xAA/16xAF

Unit: Percent Rating – 1600×1200 4xAA/16xAF

Unit: percent Rating – 1280×1024 8xAA/16xAF

Unit: Percent Rating – 1600×1200 8xAA/16xAF

Unit: Percent Performance Rating – 2560×1600

Unit: Percent Rating – 2560×1600 4xAA/16xAF

Unit: Percent Rating – 2560×1600 8xAA/16xAF

Unit: percent

In the B grades it looked rather moderate. Under load, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 was almost three times as loud as a Radeon HD 3870 and consumed around 50 percent more energy. If that wasn't enough, overclocking could increase the performance by a further 10 percent – with a correspondingly negative impact on the volume and power consumption.

Charts

Volume

Unit: dB(A) Power consumption

  • Last:
    • ATi Radeon HD 2400 XT179
    • Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT182
    • Nvidia GeForce 7600 GT193
    • Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT203
    • ATi Radeon HD 2600 XT (3)205
    • Nvidia GeForce 7900 GS206
    • Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS209
    • Nvidia GeForce 7950 GT216
    • ATi Radeon HD 2600 XT (4)217
    • ATi Radeon X1650 XT221
    • ATi Radeon HD 3850231
    • ATi Radeon X1950 Pro238
    • Nvidia GeForce 7900 GTX243
    • Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT248
    • ATi Radeon HD 3870252
    • Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 320264
    • Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS267
    • Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 512268
    • ATi Radeon 2600 XT X2 (3)269
    • Nvidia GeForce 7950 GX2281
    • ATi Radeon X1950 XTX290
    • Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX300
    • Nvidia GeForce 8800 Ultra334
    • ATi Radeon HD 2900 XT351
    • ATi Radeon HD 3870 X2374

    • Unit: Watt (W) Temperature

  • Last – Chip:
    • ATi Radeon 2600 XT X2 (3)55< /li>
    • ATi Radeon HD 2400 XT63
    • Nvidia GeForce 7900 GTX63
    • Nvidia GeForce 7900 GS66
    • ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT (4)67< /li>
    • ATi Radeon X1950 Pro69
    • Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT69
    • Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS69
    • Nvidia GeForce 7600 GT70
    • Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 32071
    • Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS72
    • Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT73
    • Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX80
    • Nvidia GeForce 8800 Ultra80
    • ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT81
    • ATi Radeon HD 3870 X281 measured in the CCC!
    • Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 51283
    • ATi Radeon X1950 XTX84
    • ATi Radeon HD 387088
    • ATi Radeon HD 385089
    • Nvidia GeForce 7950 GT90
    • Nvidia GeForce 7950 GX291
    • Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT93
  • Last – Back:
    • Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT41
    • ATi Radeon HD 2400 XT45< /li>
    • ATi Radeon 2600 XT X2 (3)47
    • ATi Radeon X1950 Pro51
    • Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 32051
    • Nvidia GeForce 7600 GT52
    • Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS52
    • ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT (4)54< /li>
    • Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT54
    • Nvidia GeForce 7900 GTX55
    • Nvidia GeForce 7900 GS56
    • Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS58
    • ATi Radeon X1950 XTX67
    • Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX67

      • < li class="chart__row">ATi Radeon HD 2900 XT68

  • ATi Radeon HD 387068
  • ATi Radeon HD 3870 X268
  • Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 51268
  • Nvidia GeForce 8800 Ultra68
  • ATi Radeon HD 385069
  • Nvidia GeForce 7950 GT72
  • Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT73
  • Nvidia GeForce 7950 GX274
    • Unit: °C Overclocking

    Unit: frames per second (FPS)

    Conclusion

    Overall, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 was a successful graphics card despite its weaknesses. Aside from the typical multi-GPU ailments such as micro-stuttering, high energy consumption and volume, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 offered better performance than a GeForce 8800 Ultra, which costs 100 euros more. Those who weren't bothered by the multi-GPU disadvantages found a very attractive offer in the HD 3870 X2.

    In the category “In the test 15 years ago” the editors throw a look at the test archive every Saturday since July 2017. The last 20 articles that appeared in this series are listed below:

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