X-bit labs

The Single-Decker Champ: ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 Graphics Card Review (page 11)

Category: Video

by Alexey Stepin , Yaroslav Lyssenko, Anton Shilov

[ 02/18/2008 | 10:44 AM ]

Crysis

The game being too hard at its Very High level of detail, we benchmarked the cards without FSAA to get a more playable speed.

Like in Call of Juarez, the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 has good results, especially at high resolutions. It would be the leader if it were not for its low minimum of speed. Moreover, even two RV670 cores prove to be not enough to ensure a comfortable average frame rate. This game is too hard at its maximum graphics quality settings.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

The frame rate is fixed at 30fps in this game as this is the rate at which the physical model is being updated at the server. Thus, this 30fps speed is the required minimum for playing the game.

It looks like ATI solutions’ dislike of OpenGL applications is still here. The Radeon HD 3870 X2 is as fast as the single Radeon HD 3870, which means that only one of its cores is functioning although CrossFire mode cannot be disabled on the reference Radeon HD 3870 X2. That’s not a complete failure since 35fps is quite an acceptable average speed for this game, yet the gamer may ask for more from a $449 card. Hopefully, this problem will be corrected with driver updates.