ATI Radeon 3870 HD [u]
June 12th 2008
Macworld reports that ATI announced ATI Radeon HD 3870, which is expected to ship at the end of June for $219. The card works in both v1.0 and v2.0 PCI Express slots, so both 1G and 2G Mac Pro systems are covered.
Features are said to include:
• 512MB of 256-bit GDDR4 frame buffer memory
• 320 stream processors
• 775MHz engine for 70GBps
• (2) dual-link DVI interfaces (ie [2] 30" Cinema Display monitors)
-- (2) cards can drive (4) Cinema Displays
• Designed as a graphics upgrade for Mac Pros
• 3870 runs faster, costs less than the GeForce 8800 GT ($279)
-- Up to 180% faster running Apple's Motion
• Unreal 2004 15% faster
As noted, this card will retail for $217 when it ships at the end of this month.
[u] XLR8 Your Mac has a review of ATI 3870 and their conclusion reads, in part:
The Radeon HD 3870 lags a little behind the GeForce 8800 GT in most games tested - the notable exception is Mac-UT2004. However, the Radeon HD 3870 is roughly 20% cheaper than the GeForce 8800 GT, so unless you want to play Crysis at high resolutions you could consider saving a few bucks.
For non-gaming use it looks like the Radeon HD 3870 is a winner. Even though I couldn't test with Aperture, Motion or Imaginator, I think that the XBench, iMovie and CineBench results were promising. [u]
