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saphire HD3870, underspec??

bowza

bowza

bowza

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Joined
1 Feb 2007
Posts
241
found a saphire 3870 with specs like a 3850

512MB GDDR3 Memory
- 775MHz Engine Clock
- 1800MHz Memory Clock
- 256-bit Memory Interface
- 400MHz RAMDACs
- PCI Express 2.0 x16 Interface

am i missing something or are these cheap 3870's not real? works out at £85 for a 3870 so am confused.

Thanks.
 
The memory is running slower than it should be. Not sure about the RAMDACs. Maybe it is an overclocked 3850? 1800 is also the memory speed the 1GB 3870s work at.
 
Hi, I have a Gigabyte HD3870 in my machine at the mo and it has ddr3 memory @ 1900mhz instead of the gddr4 normally found on these cards. I don't think that it has too much of an effect on performance as it beats an overclocked 3850 512MB I tried for a short while in 3DMARK 06 by approx 700 points.
Don't know how much the GDDR4 cards would score though, but seems like a good deal for that price:D

Think that the sapphire you have found has a single slot cooler aswell.
 
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Not sure how they can call it a 3870 as the DDR3/DDR4 RAM is the main thing that differentiates the two. It may have a true 3870 binned core, but as the 3850 and 3870 have identical cores it would be more honest to call it an overclocked 3850.
 
bowza said:
found a saphire 3870 with specs like a 3850

512MB GDDR3 Memory
- 775MHz Engine Clock
- 1800MHz Memory Clock
- 256-bit Memory Interface
- 400MHz RAMDACs
- PCI Express 2.0 x16 Interface

am i missing something or are these cheap 3870's not real? works out at £85 for a 3870 so am confused.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

seen those as well - just looks like a 3870 with a bit slower memory- there are all sorts of 3850s and 3870s out there - not bad at 85

link to sapphire gdd3 version:

http://www.sapphiretech.com/uk/products/products_overview.php?gpid=242&grp=3
 
I guess it depends a lot on how well the core clocks. My 3850 does 800mhz, if these odd 3870s can clock higher then they're probably a decent bin.
 
256bit DDR3 @ 1800+MHz really isn't going to slow a 3870 down - unless you have it OC'd past stock 8800GT performance.


As to my card its neither an 8800GS or 9600GSO AFAIK - it has the PN of an 8800GT TOP edition and 512Mb physically on the board - I'm assuming its been laser cut or incorrect firmware. I'm trying to get it RMA'd atm but its a long up hill struggle as their "technicians" don't seem to be able to grasp whats wrong... even a trained monkey could compare GPUZ results ffs.
 
I had a 3850 and 3870, disregarding default clocks there was absolutely no difference between the 2 when clocked the same. DDR4 doesn't do shizzle. Not at 1680x1050 and 4x AA at least..... In crossfire they were crazy fast though
 
Your only gonna run into the memory bandwidth limitations when the card is OC'd to the max and running something like crysis at high detail.
 
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