Performance in Synthetic Benchmarks

Futuremark 3DMark06

3DMark is an overclocker’s favorite tool and boasting with a new record-breaking score is something what every overclocker loves. We are not into any records and our results are modest. However, the modified Radeon HD 3870 takes third place among the tested cards. It might be even second if it were not for the dual-processor Radeon HD 3870 X2 that is obviously unrivalled. Let’s check out the individual tests now.

High frequencies are good but the faulty design of the RV670’s texture processors is a negative factor. As a result, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 enjoys but a small lead while the overclocked Radeon HD 3870 can’t match the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB.

It’s different in the SM3.0/HDR tests that require all the computing resources the GPU has. The overclocked Radeon scores only 232 points less than the GeForce 9800 GTX while the Radeon HD 3870 X2 leaves Nvidia’s solutions far behind, winning by nearly 2000 points.

As we said above, the RV670-based solutions can’t show their best in the SM2.0 tests due to the faulty design of their texture-mapping units. The overclocked Radeon HD 3870 is barely faster than the reference card and is inferior even to the GeForce 9600 GT. It overtakes the latter in the second test, but that’s all it can do.

The results of the SM3.0/HDR tests are much brighter for ATI. In both tests the modified and overclocked Radeon is as fast as the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB and but slightly slower than the GeForce 9800 GTX. This would be good if the card could run in such a harsh mode continuously. Alas, these results are of purely theoretical interest.