The video card war
is still alive and well, but it appears that AMD/ATI have conceded the high-end
market to nVidia and instead have focused their efforts on the mid-range
market. While some may see this as an omission of defeat,
others will see it as a smart business move. More consumers
buy the mid-range cards versus the high-end ones. Let’s face
it, not all of us can afford a top of the line video card.
When it comes to the mid-range card, AMD/ATI has one of the best GPU’s, the 3870. Sapphire has taken the 3870 up a notch by
incorporating their custom Vapor-X cooler along with a very nice
bundle. Let’s see how well Sapphire’s 3870 Toxic card stacks
up against a couple of mid-range cards from nVidia.
Specifications and Features
Chipset: Radeon HD 3870
Engine Clock: 800 MHz
Video Memory: 512MB DDR4
Memory Clock: 2.3 GHz
Memory Interface: 256-bit GDDR4
512-bit Ring Bus Memory Support
Bus: PCI-Express x16 (Support PCI-Express
2.0)
RAMDAC: 400 MHz
Stream Processors: 320
Connectors: Dual DVI (Support Dual VGA);
TV-out (HDTV ready)
Support HDCP - High-bandwidth Digital
Content Protection
Integrated HD audio controller with
multi-channel (5.1) AC3 support
Up to 24x Custom Filter Anti-Aliasing (CFAA)
for improved quality
Hardware processed 1080p video playback of
Blu-ray™ and HD DVDs
Support Microsoft DirectX 10.1, Shader Model
4.1 and OpenGL 2.0
The memory silkscreen is very difficult to read.
Here is the number in case you are really interested,
K4U52324QE-BC08. This is a GDDR4 part that is spec'd from
Samsung to run at 1200MHz. Sapphire has the Toxic card's
memory clocked at 1152MHz, so that should leave us with a little
headroom for overclocking.
The video card war
is still alive and well, but it appears that AMD/ATI have conceded the high-end
market to nVidia and instead have focused their efforts on the mid-range
market. While some may see this as an omission of defeat,
others will see it as a smart business move. More consumers
buy the mid-range cards versus the high-end ones. Let’s face
it, not all of us can afford a top of the line video card.
When it comes to the mid-range card, AMD/ATI has one of the best GPU’s, the 3870. Sapphire has taken the 3870 up a notch by
incorporating their custom Vapor-X cooler along with a very nice
bundle. Let’s see how well Sapphire’s 3870 Toxic card stacks
up against a couple of mid-range cards from nVidia.
