Quote: VR-Zone has learned that the official marketing name for RV670 will be Radeon HD 3800 series. Previously, they are known as Radeon HD 2950 series.

VR-Zone seem to think so. Instead of HD2950's ATi/AMD are moving straight to HD3800's. Seems weird to me, but if it means bigger than expected performance increases I'm happy with it!

Link
VR-Zone : Technology Beats - RV670 is Radeon HD 3800 Series

Sounds interesting. With the latest UT3 beta demo benchmarks, I might be getting a 2600 XT card awful soon.

It's just marketing IMO. ATi's going to be releasing a whole new series of cards, and traditionally that means much more power, because that's what always happens. But in this case I think it's just because they've finally worked out how to create 8-series performance that doesn't require earmuffs.

Nvidia may follow suit - after all, the new 8800 cards are based on the new G9x core rather than an improved G8x core.

Quote: Originally Posted by s1ugh34d Sounds interesting. With the latest UT3 beta demo benchmarks, I might be getting a 2600 XT card awful soon.

Please don't get a 2600XT. It can't even punch it's way out of a Shader Model 3.0 paper bag, let alone handle UT3 properly. Nvidia and ATi are launching a whole slew of new cards late this month, so wait and see what happens.

Quote: Originally Posted by reflux It's just marketing IMO. ATi's going to be releasing a whole new series of cards, and traditionally that means much more power, because that's what always happens. But in this case I think it's just because they've finally worked out how to create 8-series performance that doesn't require earmuffs. Nvidia may follow suit - after all, the new 8800 cards are based on the new G9x core rather than an improved G8x core. Please don't get a 2600XT. It can't even punch it's way out of a Shader Model 3.0 paper bag, let alone handle UT3 properly. Nvidia and ATi are launching a whole slew of new cards late this month, so wait and see what happens.

$125 for GDDR4?

Its not the performance crown i'm looking for, i just don't want to spend too much, and anything will beat my 6600GT's in SLI.

Quote: Originally Posted by s1ugh34d $125 for GDDR4? Its not the performance crown i'm looking for, i just don't want to spend too much, and anything will beat my 6600GT's in SLI.

Meh...it's pretty poor. Generally worse even than an 8600GT. You'd be much better off spending your cash on a Radeon X1950 Pro or waiting for the 8800GT, or 8700 if it ever surfaces.

Overclock3D.Net :: Review :: Asus 2600XT and 2600Pro - ATI mid range performance :: Conclusion

However, I did find this...which is right up your street:



The 2600XT doesn't do terribly, but it's still pretty bad.

Taken from here.

Quote: Originally Posted by reflux Meh...it's pretty poor. Generally worse even than an 8600GT. You'd be much better off spending your cash on a Radeon X1950 Pro or waiting for the 8800GT, or 8700 if it ever surfaces. Overclock3D.Net :: Review :: Asus 2600XT and 2600Pro - ATI mid range performance :: Conclusion However, I did find this...which is right up your street: The 2600XT doesn't do terribly, but it's still pretty bad. Taken from here.

Yes UT3 is showing that ATI/AMD has its place.

Check out an actual GDDR4 review before further comments on on shader 3.0...

Elite Bastards - Sapphire Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB GDDR4 video card review

Quote: Originally Posted by s1ugh34d Check out an actual GDDR4 review before further comments on on shader 3.0...

Touche.

Quote: The only reason you might want the HD 2600XT is for DX10 support but, as this card can barely handle DX9 games, this isn't a valid reason to buy the card.

ATi Radeon HD 2600XT Review | News | Custom PC

I appreciate that not everyone can afford 6 bazillion dollars for a new graphics card, but seriously, ATi and Nvidia fired some serious blanks with their current mid-range output. The new cards should perform a whole lot better. UT3 isn't out for a month anyway.

Quote: Originally Posted by reflux Touche. ATi Radeon HD 2600XT Review | News | Custom PC I appreciate that not everyone can afford 6 bazillion dollars for a new graphics card, but seriously, ATi and Nvidia fired some serious blanks with their current mid-range output. The new cards should perform a whole lot better. UT3 isn't out for a month anyway.

That review was bland, not enough pictures and charts....

Sadly, for my price range, I'd like to take an ATI/AMD card on for fun, see what type of overclocking i can get out of it, and probally make it a TV DVR eventually (did you see those 1080P scores? w00t). B

But for now, I can say, my 6600GTs, do play the UT3 Beta demo (hehehe I love torrents), and besides i played UT2k4 on a Geforce 2 32mb card for months before getting my FX5500.....

In other news, Man i can't wait to see what the 3800 series can do...

CustomPC is crap Reflux, they seem to read the Inquirer for most of there news... And I've also seen HD2600XT GDDR4 cards doing better than 8600GTS's recently.
AnandTech: Unreal Tournament 3 Beta Demo: Top to Bottom GPU Analysis
AnandTech: UPDATED Half-Life 2: Episode 2 CPU and Graphics Performance

Quote: Originally Posted by Zaltan CustomPC is crap Reflux, they seem to read the Inquirer for most of there news... And I've also seen HD2600XT GDDR4 cards doing better than 8600GTS's recently. AnandTech: Unreal Tournament 3 Beta Demo: Top to Bottom GPU Analysis AnandTech: UPDATED Half-Life 2: Episode 2 CPU and Graphics Performance

I see no mention of minimum frame rates...? Do you really want your frames see-sawing about when you're playing something as intensive as UT3? And Half Life 2 - while being a game everyone wants to play, is an unusually optimised engine which is not very representative of current games on the market. And doesn't it traditionally perform better on ATi cards anyway due to Valve getting into bed with them?

IMO, if there are lots of conflicting reviews of a piece of hardware it's usually not very good. I mean, how many polarised reviews can you find of the Core architecture?

Regardless, I am very interested to see if ATi will create an absolutely solid mainstream solution with the introduction of the 3xxx-series. And by solid, I mean 6600GT solid.

Quote: Originally Posted by Zaltan CustomPC is crap Reflux

I've been saying that for the last few years to no avail

Quote: Originally Posted by reflux I see no mention of minimum frame rates...?

Average frame rates shows which cards are more consistent over a test... Thats more important than see the performace peaks in my opinion.

Well....VR-Zone has a thread with some HD3870 benchmarks up, and a photo of the card. Apparently it runs much cooler than the GeForce 8800-series and consumes a hell of a lot less power than the HD2900. It's capable of scoring around 13,000 in 3DMark 06, so it should be a decent rival for the 8800GT.

Quote: Originally Posted by s1ugh34d $125 for GDDR4? Its not the performance crown i'm looking for, i just don't want to spend too much, and anything will beat my 6600GT's in SLI.

I think you place to much emphasis on memory speeds..all the memory bandwidth in the world does little good when the GPU core can't use it all...most of OC experience shows GPU speed to be the real framerate booster more so than ram speed, GPU performance hardly is ever bottlencked because of it.

Typically low end and midrange cards are so nueterd through lack of shaders or crippled by 128bit that it realy makes little difference in framerates.

The 8800GT did have a few tricks up it's sleeve to overcome the 256bit interface as to not loose much performance over there big brothers, but I think that's cause the 256 bit is actually wide enough to handle the data transfer, where typically 128 and 64 bit is just to way too narrow for anything made in the last few years.

I don't want a rival card.

I want a card that completely destroys the competition.

honestly, I'm once again disappointed with amd/ati. I had my hopes that this card would be alot faster. Initial tests indicate that an 8800gt outscores it in 3dmark 06, but the 3870 does run significantly cooler and quieter. I wasnt expecting this card to take the performance crown, but it seems at this point that it can hardly stand with the 8800gt, much less touch the GTX or Ultra. Now i am aware that ati has the r700 in the works...but that wont be out until atleast q1 2008, and of course you can bet that nvidia will have a next gen card in the works. The hd3870 is now the fastest card offered by ati, and it cant even beat the budget card by nvidia. I'm no fanboy, but thats bad for all of us consumers when there isnt enough competition at the high end. The only thing that even makes me consider using Ati cards is the x38 crossfire support because I'm not a fan of nvidias 680i/780i for dual graphics card solutions.

Of course there is still hope that these will overclock well or maybe new catalyst drivers will help.

Cards are out:

Components » Graphics and Video » ATI HD 3800 Series - Overclockers UK

The 3850 is coming in at £123, and the 3870 at £158. Very decent pricing IMO. The mid-range seems to be what it's all about these days.

I saw that page on OcUK a couple of hours ago but it didn't have any products on it! £123 for the PRO is nice! And when you minus the obvious "we're OcUK and we get everything first so its gonna cost you more" markup that should result in about £105 at other stores. Also they seem to always get HIS cards early, they must have some deal going on there...

A review of the HD3870XT...
IAX Tech -- Computer Hardware Reviews, Overclocking, Information

Quote: Originally Posted by reflux Cards are out: Components » Graphics and Video » ATI HD 3800 Series - Overclockers UK The 3850 is coming in at £123, and the 3870 at £158. Very decent pricing IMO. The mid-range seems to be what it's all about these days.

They hit the beach early, so that's a good sign.

Also, whoever was mentioning that drivers may help improve performance ... that's a very likely situation. Remember how the 2900s were doing when they were first introduced? They've improved significantly since the newest drivers were released. If we see the same performance improvement from the 38xx line, then we've certainly got something good to taste.

And, yes, mid-range does seem to be where it's at, these days. I think ATi and nVidia are beginning to realize that we can't drop $500 every six months just to upgrade, particularly for hardware that isn't really meeting the needs of the latest games (how will Crysis run on these cards? I haven't read the performance reviews, yet.)

anyway ... where's my AGP version they promised me???



-godling

Quote: Originally Posted by godling Also, whoever was mentioning that drivers may help improve performance ... that's a very likely situation. Remember how the 2900s were doing when they were first introduced? They've improved significantly since the newest drivers were released. If we see the same performance improvement from the 38xx line, then we've certainly got something good to taste.

Thats a good point. ATI have been rubbish recently with release drivers recently, I blame AMD.

The last thing I will say on the matter is this... HD38** are meant to be a new high midrange card from ATI, and as far as I know they still have R680 cards in the works (most likely as HD39**).

OK one last point... ATI have picture quality on there side too.
XtremeSystems Forums - View Single Post - HD 3800 Info: HD 3850 & 3870 Revealed !!

PPPS In house ATI results, nice comparisons with 2900XT and 3850/70. Looks like 3870 is better at DX10 at least!
techPowerUp! News :: AMD Internal Benchmarks Show HD 3850 Supremacy