Page 14 - Conclusion

The Verdict

My conclusion ought to be 100% equal to our reference review, as the product we received from PowerColor obviously matches the reference product 100% in every foreseeable way.

PowerColor's Radeon HD 3870 X2 is an appealing product. When I first learned about the product I was a bit skeptical. See, this card makes use of Crossfire technology and history has proven that on many occasions we ran into issues with Crossfire. So I was a little weary of that. The fact however is, that precisely one game was showing an issue while all are showing off massively increased performance results, so that was quite a positive experience. The one game that had an issue was World in Conflict, the font in the menu was completely garbled making it impossible to select anything. The rest of our test suite games all worked fine and where showing a close to X2 performance increase over the regular HD 3870 graphics card in the highest resolutions. So the name X2 for this product indeed is candid.

Now some additional interesting news; PowerColor is working on a version of the X2 that has a smaller PCB board size, pretty interesting. We hope to be able to have a look at that model as well, as granted, the X2 reference models are quite lengthy.

I am a strong believer for single GPU graphics cards as in the end you will have less compatibility issues. For example, if a new game is released and it's not yet supported .. you'd have to wait until ATI releases a driver that supports Crossfire rendering for that game. Until that time, you'd be utilizing only one GPU. ATI's track record in releasing a new driver monthly however is exemplary. So while I do prefer single card solutions, I must also say that I am really impressed with the X2 in terms of compatibility, stability and performance.

By combining two GPUs the Power Color HD 3870 X2 is faster than a GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB and several cases would be faster than a 8800 Ultra, but these two products are aging. Also we included the results of 8800 GT in SLI, and in pretty much any scenario that setup is faster. But ... GeForce 8800 GT SLI requires an expensive nForce SLI mainboard. The 3870 X2 will work on any PCIe x16 mainboard, which is a clear advantage as in the end this will be the most inexpensive solution. ATI does need to keep it's focus on Crossfire driver development continuously for this to work well and become successful though.

For 399 bucks you'll have 1.3 Billion transistors at your disposal, 1 GB framebuffer (although for Crossfire the memory is cloned in 2x512MB) and a teraflop of computing power ... (this is a small hint to our Folding team) that's pretty impressive. The card is good and pretty in-audible cooling and hey .. I think that prices will come down even further in the weeks to come. So in closing for the HIS Radeon HD 3870 X2 in general; the card offers high-end gaming performance and features for the money, you'll have the new UVD engine on-board and with the help of PowerPlay excellent improved power consumption, especially in 2D (desktop) mode. Expect some reviews soon of these puppies in CrossfireX (4 GPUs) mode as well.

We had very few problems with the product, yet due to the nature of Crossfire and this relatively new concept, do expect to run into some child deceases with it and especially when a new game is released a handicap will kick in, usually Multi-GPU rendering is not supported straight out of the box and require a patch or new driver update.

With this graphics card Crysis became more playable for sure as well, and although on the thin line of acceptable at 1600x1200 we where able to play with High Quality settings. If we look at a slightly older yet modern game like Ghost Recon 2 at 2560x1600 we where playing with a framerate of 50+ FPS with high image quality settings, that's pretty darn impressive.

Other then all this there's nothing else to say. PowerColor offers a classy reference based product which you'll enjoy very much. Expect initial sales prices of 399 EUR / 449 USD which will drop a couple of weeks after volume availability. The card definitely comes recommended. But follow our advise about the power supply okay ?

For more info on PowerColor products, click here.

Game on people.

Hilbert

Radeon HD 3970 X2 1 GB
More info: PowerColorMSRP: 449 USD / 399 EUR
Seek best price on Guru3D.com pricewatch, click here.