Diamond Viper HD 3870

Benchmark Reviews recently reviewed the ZOTAC 8800GT ZT-88TES2P-FSP, NVIDIA's very impressive answer to the ATI HD 3800 series. Though the NVIDIA beat ATI/AMD to market, the 8800 GT release is a direct result of ATI/AMD's HD 3800 series. Today we'll be looking at one card responsible for the exceptional mid-range offering we are enjoying, the Diamond VIPER 3870PE4512 - ATI Radeon HD 3870 PCI-E 2.0 512MB GDDR4 Video Card; ATI/AMD's mid-range card that curiously happens to be their top performing single GPU card.

Diamond Multimedia recently returned to the discrete graphics card market after several years' absence. However, this time around Diamond has decided to go red, becoming an exclusive add-in board (AIB) partner to ATI/AMD. Along with their re-entrance they have also revived their highly regarded VIPER line of enthusiast video cards. Keeping in the Diamond tradition, they have continued to provide their own optimized middle-ware drivers, marking them the only AIB partner to support multi-video card set-ups on competitor chipsets. Diamond has chose a great time to re-establish their brand, jumping on-board with the very popular HD 3800 series GPU from ATI/AMD, bestowing the VIPER name to their flagship the HD 3870 X2.

Featuring AMD's anxiously awaited GPU, codenamed R670, the Diamond HD 3870 boasts leading-edge 55nm technology that coupled with a now fully functional UVD feature to deliver an outstanding visual experience. In addition, ATI's PowerPlay technology also brings greater processing performance per watt with new (to the desktop) energy-saving features. Read on as we take a closer look at each new feature, and show just what makes the Diamond HD 3870 such an attractive mid-range solutions that it sold out practically everywhere for months after its debut.

About the Company: Diamond Multimedia

From Wikipedia:

History - Diamond Multimedia is a company that specializes in many forms of multimedia technology. They have produced graphics cards, modems, sound cards and MP3 players. They were one of the major players in the 2D and early 3D graphics card competition throughout the 1990s and early 2000s.

Diamond Multimedia was merged (after a long-time companionship) with S3, Incorporated in 1999. The merger was mostly due to S3's willingness to expand their trade from simply producing graphics chipsets to retail graphics cards. The act is somewhat similar with the 1999 3dfx purchase of STB Technologies. The merger was hoped to boost the company's overall capabilities by combining the resources of S3 and Diamond, who were quite close partners over the preceding years. Unfortunately things did not go so well. The greatly anticipated S3 Savage 2000 was a failure, and the excitedly growing 3D sound card market nearly fell apart with the loss of Aureal Semiconductor.

With these market failures, the new combined Diamond/S3 company decided to change direction and leave the PC addon-board market. SONICblue was formed. Diamond Multimedia resurfaced in 2003 after the brand and assets had been purchased by Best Data. Diamond again built expansion boards.

From Diamondmm.com

Philosophy - Diamond provides the absolute best quality in advanced graphics, digital television, communications and sound hardware solutions for home and business users, enabling users to create, access and experience compelling new media content from their desktops. Diamond products stand for performance, quality and value.

For the past two decades, Diamond Multimedia has been widely recognized as a pioneer in the graphics, sound and communications industries and as a key player in launching the multimedia revolution. Diamond is a new type of multimedia company that brings all of the differing technologies together under one brand. Diamond Multimedia is partnered with some of the top technology companies, including AMD, as an ATI graphics provider. Diamond products are available to the public throughout North America through retailers, resellers and systems integrators, as well as, top technology product distributors. Corporate headquarters are located in Chatsworth, California.

HD 3870 Package and Contents

The retail box is what you'd expect from a mid-range card without any "bells and whistles", using a basic double carton design that houses the Diamond HD 3870 snugly in foam and a static bag. I have to give "kudos" to Diamond here for not using any garish colors schemes or characters. Sticking to the familiar Ruby personality and using the equally familiar ATI red/black color scheme, making the packaging stand-out while also clear to read and understand.

As a note however, the card is marketed on the retail box as a "Ruby Edition", though the card itself is devoid of any Ruby sticker that typically covers the stock heatsink fan shroud; this oversight is in no way a problem for this reviewer however contradictory it may seem.

The retail package clearly lists the many features of the Diamond HD 3870, with logos for each of the supported technologies. However, there is a logo that appears on the carton that shouldn't. Some readers might be aware of the recent news story reporting that Diamond HD 3850's has the THX logo without any actual support for this feature. It now appears that Diamond HD 3870's have this issue as well. From Diamond: "It came to our attention that the "THX" logo mistakenly has been printed on 3850 box. This mistake happened as result of misunderstanding of former employee. This is to confirm that this product and or any other Diamond's products have ever supported "THX". This mistake has been corrected."

Though not the most complete bundle offered by add-in board partners, the Diamond HD 3870 does provide everything needed for gaming and video playback. Perhaps Diamond's reasons for not including any game bundles or vouchers is answered by their provided xDNA software drivers that allow CrossFire to run on any motherboard with atleast two free PCIe X16 slots. A nice trick potentially saving their customers money in hardware changes that could be used towards games.

Package Includes:

• Diamond VIPER ATI RadeonTM HD 3870 graphics card
• Quick Start Guide
• DVI - VGA adapter
• DVI - HDMI adapter
• Crossfire Bridge Interconnect
• S-video to HDTV (7pin)
• S-video
• Install CD (With CatalystTM drivers' 3D Mark'06 Demo and DVD playback software)

Diamond HD 3870 Technology

Built on the new R670 core the HD3800 series GPU comes in at an industry leading ultra slim 55nm packing with 666 million transistors under the hood. What does this smaller die size means for us? Well perhaps most importantly is price. With their smaller die ATI can produce more GPUs per batch in comparison to their older R600 core (80nm). How could a simple physical reduction in size affect price? Imagine if you will a tray of brownies, if you cut each individual brownie to a smaller size you get a higher yield per tray. This simple higher yield principal ensures more usable chips, which in turn helps to reduce overall cost, thus bringing the HD3800 series down to the current bargain basement price point we have recently been enjoying.

In addition to a lowered price point the physical die shrink also allows for the individual transistors to be packed into a tighter area, 666 million transistors on 192mm² for RV670 versus 700 million on 408mm² for R600. I'll use a brownie analogy again: Imagine the same brownies as before only this time with chocolate chips, now we're going to cut them small again while keeping the same amount of chocolate chips as the larger ones. This engineering feat greatly reduces the electrical impedance of the transistors by shortening the electrical pathways, and allows for the dramatic decrease in power consumption and heat output for the HD3870 (105W peak), to roughly half that of HD2600XT (215W).

With the die shrink ATI/AMD have also borrowed a trick from their Mobility line of Radeons to aid with power draw on the HD3800 series, dubbed PowerPlay. This new built in feature (PowerPlay) dynamically controls the operating frequency and power state of the RV670 GPU, with the ability to seamlessly power down parts of the core when not in use, even during gameplay. These power saving features coupled with a smaller die size will hopefully lead the trend in video processing to more efficient computing as we have recently seen with the CPU.

Included on the RV670 GPU, and now fully functional on all HD3800 series video cards, is ATI's Unified Video Decoder or UVD. UVD is the proprietary video decoding unit from ATI that supports hardware assisted decoding of H.264 and VC-1 video codec standards needed for playback of Blu-ray and HD-DVD media. UVD frees up processor time that would otherwise be spent on software decoding, thus making the HD3800 series with its UVD and low power draw a very attractive solution for home theater PCs builds.

The HD3800 series release also marks the launch of the PCIe 2.0 standard. PCIe 2.0 essentially doubles the bus standard's bandwidth from 2.5 Gbit/s to 5 Gbit/s, meaning a PCIe 2.0 supported connector can now transfer data at up to 16 GB/s both to and from the video card, eliminating any potential bottleneck for years to come. PCIe 2.0 video cards and motherboards are also backward compatible with all PCIe 1.1 devices and most PCIe 1.0 hardware. With the greater bandwidth allowed by PCIe 2.0, ATI/AMD has introduced with the HD3800 series their new multi-video card platform termed "CrossFireX". CrossFireX enabled platforms allow users to link together two, three, and even four video cards on supported hardware.

It should be noted here that the HD3800 series also brings support for the incremental DirectX update to version 10.1. Though hyped by ATI/AMD marketing as a selling feature over the competition, the support for DX 10.1 is completely dependent upon game developers to implement. DX 10.1 adds virtually nothing that developers are likely to care about. The spec revision basically makes a number of things that were optional in DX 10 mandatory under the new standard - such as 32-bit floating point filtering, as opposed to the 16-bit current. 4xAA is also a compulsory standard in 10.1, whereas graphics vendors can pick and choose their anti-aliasing support currently. The spec is likely to be ill-received, as not only does it require brand new hardware, immediately creating a minuscule sub-set of DX 10 owners, but it also requires Vista SP1, and developer implementation. As it stands there is only recent driver support for these hardware features, with ATI Catylist 8.3 released just this month.

HD 3870 Features and Specifications

Keeping true to the Diamond tradition of years past, Diamond has augmented their video card releases with a brand of their own optimized drivers. The most notable of these custom drivers is their SLI "hack" dubbed xDNA. xDNA is a sofware based feature that allows CrossFire set-ups on non CrossFire supporting hardware - namely NVIDIA based motherboards.

Microsoft DirectX 10.1 support

• Shader Model 4.1
• 32-bit floating point texture filtering
• Indexed cube map arrays
• Independent blend modes per render target
• Pixel coverage sample masking
• Read/write multi-sample surfaces with shaders
• Gather4 texture fetching

RADEON HD 3800 Series

• Code name: RV670
• Fabrication process: 55 nm
• 666 million transistors
• Unified architecture with an array of common processors for streaming processing of vertices and pixels, as well as other data
• Hardware support for DirectX 10.1, including Shader Model 4.1, geometry generation, and stream output
• 256-bit memory bus: four 64-bit controllers connected with a ring bus
• Core clock: 670-775 MHz
• 320 scalar floating-point ALUs (integer and floating-point formats, support for FP32 precision in compliance with IEEE 754)
• 4 enlarged texture units supporting FP16 and FP32 components in textures
• 32 texture address units (read the details in the baseline article)
• 80 texture fetch units (read the details in the baseline article)
• 16 bilinear filtering units that can filter FP16 textures at full speed and support trilinear and anisotropic filtering for all texture formats
• Dynamic branching in pixel and vertex shaders
• 16 ROPs supporting antialiasing modes with programmable sample patterns (over 16 samples per pixel, including FP16 or FP32 frame buffer formats). Peak performance: up to 16 samples per cycle, 32 samples per cycle in Z only mode
• Up to 8 MRT (multiple render targets)
• Integrated support for two RAMDACs, two Dual Link DVIs, HDMI, HDTV

RADEON HD 3870 Specifications

• Model SKU: 3870PE4512
• Core clock: 775 MHz
• Unified processors: 320
• 16 texture units, 16 blending units
• Effective memory frequency: 2250 MHz (2*1125 MHz)
• GDDR4 memory
• Memory size: 512 MB
• Memory bandwidth: 72 GB/sec.
• Maximum theoretical fill rate: 12.4 gigapixel per second.
• Theoretical texture sampling rate: 12.4 gigatexel per second.
• Two CrossFireX connectors
• PCI Express 2.0 x16
• 2 x DVI-I Dual Link, 2560x1600 video output
• TV-Out, HDTV-Out, HDCP support, HDMI adapter
• Power consumption: up to 105 W

Features:

• Superscalar unified shader architecture
• PCI Express 2.0 support
• 320 Unified Stream Processors
• 256-bit memory interface
• Direct X 10.1 / Shader Model 4.1 / OpenGL 2.0
• ATI Crossfire X Multi-GPU Support for highly scalable performance
• Up to four GPU support with an AMD 790FX based motherboard
• High-speed 128-bit-HDR (High Dynamic Range) rendering
• Up to 24x Custom Filter Anti-Aliasing
• 55nm process technology
• ATI Avivo HD Video and Display Technology
• Game Physics processing capability
• Up to 24X Custom Filter Anti-Aliasing
• Built-in HDMI with Multi-channel 5.1 surround audio
• Support for the ATI Radeon DVI to HDMI adapter
• Unified Video Decoder (UVD) for Blu-ray and HD DVD
• ATI PowerPlay energy conserving technology
• RoHS compliant
• Build in HDCP Support
• Windows Vista^TM 3D environment Support
• ATI Avivo^TM HD Video and Display Technology
• Built-in HDMI with Multi-channel 5.1 surround audio
• Two Dual Link DVI with full resolution HDCP support
• HD video playback
• Full 30-bit display processing
• CATALYST Software Drivers
• Windows Vista^TM 3D environment Support
• Support ATI Radeon^TM DVI-I to HDMI adapter

The other software features are more or less optimized version of already present ATI/AMD standards. That being the case Diamond Multimedia is as far as we know the only add-in boad parter to off such amenities, thus settign them apart and ahead of their peers in our opinion.

Diamond Specific Features:

Radeon HD 3870 Features at a Glance

Video Card Comparison Chart

Diamond HD 3870: Closer Look

Based on the reference design by ATI/AMD the Diamond HD 3870 comes in at 9 inches (22.86cm) in length. Though still a long card, by comparison it's a half an inch shorter than its predecessor the HD2900XT. The only distinguishing visual features that set the Diamond HD 3870 apart from its add-in board peers is the lack of any art stickers on the cooling fan shroud, and the placement of a Diamond logo on the fan. The translucent red acrylic fan shroud gives the card a hot rod look that is sure to please many, and fits right in with the rest of the cards motif of red and black. Common with most reference designs, the construction is top-notch, and though it's likely not going to beat an aftermarket cooling solution the stock cooler needs no set-up, and has the added bonus of reduced mechanical failure and warranty coverage.

The Diamond HD 3870 does away with the dual power adapter scheme of 6-pin and 8-pin plugs, a result of the reduction in power draw due to the die shrink. With the reduced draw the Diamond HD 3870 only requires one 6-pin power plug to feed its 105W peak draw. The power adapter is also conveniently placed along the top edge of the card orientated towards the front of the card; making cable management much easier.

Perhaps one of the most requested features from enthusiasts is to have video card heatsink fans exhaust the hot air from the card out of the case through the expansion slot, as opposed to depending on good air-flow inside the case for exhaust. It seems as though someone at ATI/AMD was listening when they designed the cooling for the HD 3870. Even conscious of the possibility that the vent may be blocked they have designed additional vent holes in the fan shroud to allow warm air to escape despite any obstruction. The cooling solution on the Diamond HD 3870 will take up an additional expansion slot.

Regarding the noise levels of the cooling fan; despite best efforts to drive the card into kicking in the fan at higher speeds it never did, remaining at a constant 30%. With temperatures leveling out at 63c at 100% GPU load with an ambient temp of 21c. At this temperature the fans noise levels were hardly audible over ambient levels. To test at what percentage of fan speed noise levels were audible we used RivaTuner to simulate levels the card would not under normal circumstances use. In our findings at a level of 60% of full speed the cooling fan was clearly audible over ambient noise though still acceptable, with anything over 75% resembling the noise levels of a small vacuum cleaner.

The heatsink fan assembly is the best stock cooling solutions we have seen in awhile on any video card. Utilizing a simplistic design of an all copper baseplate and heatsink with extruded fins, the fins that have a slight curve to help disrupt air flowing over them, thus maximize heat transfer. the fan shroud is made of a sturdy semi-transparent acrylic plastic (red of course) that is held in place with only four spring retention screws, making removal a cinch for those wanting an aftermarket cooling solution.

In addition to the HSF for the GPU, the memory also gets its own heatsink treatment that is separate from the GPU's. This is perhaps the only disappointing aspect of the cooling solution used on the HD 3870 reference design. For reasons unknown to us ATI/AMD chose to use a raised non-contact heat spreader for the memory modules that does not directly touch the memory. Instead, there is thermal foam to create contact between the heat spreader and the memory. There is no way of using the stock heat spreader without thermal pads as ATI/AMD has seen it necessary to make it so the heat spreader is raised above the memory by its very screw mounts. The cooling for the voltage regulators is without this flaw and though it still makes use of thermal foam pads, the heat spreader can and does make direct contact.

The vRAM and GPU of the Diamond HD 3870 utilize the same basic layout as the previous generation with the exception of the mounting bracket around the GPU. Here is also seen the dual CrossFire connectors implemented, that until the release of CrossFireX was of no use on Intel chipsets - only one connection being necessary for standard two card set-up. With the release of Catalyst v8.3 there comes CrossFireX support that enables any HD 3800 based video card to be paired with another to take advantage of the dual connectors.

Diamond HD 3870: Detailed Features

The reverse side of the Diamond HD 3870 is thankfully devoid of any memory chips, with each of the eight 64MB BGA chips of GDDR4 memory located on the front. As a result there is no need for any form of cooling plate such as found on the HD2900XT. The only retention mechanism is the four post backplate with spring retention screws.

Here is the marvel behind Diamonds HD 3870 the RV670 GPU manufactured with 666 million transistors at 55nm by TSMC. This is a retail sample, and the only significant numbers we can discern are the manufacture date - week 44 of 2007. The accompanying 64bit BGA GDDR4 memory chips are manufactured by Samsung and carry the model number K4U52324QE-BC08. With 0.8 ns latency, that equals 1250MHz (2500 MHz effective).

Remember that the memory on the Diamond HD 3870 is clocked at 1125. This means the memory onboard is under-clocked a full 125MHz (250 MHz effective), leaving plenty of room for memory overclocking.

Regarding overclocking; The Catalyst Control Center's Overdive feature allows for automatic overclocking via the Auto-Tune option. However, we still prefer a more hands on approach to overclocking and recommend RivaTuner for its low level driver independent clock adjustments, and its more complete hardware monitoring.

Using RivaTuner's monitoring software we see the stock cooling set-up on the Diamond HD 3870 does an adequate job of maintaining the idle temperature below 50c with an ambient room temperature of 21c. This is of course at a lower core operating frequency, referred to as 2D clocks. However, there is virtually no noise from the fan at idle.

As we turn things up we noticed a strange issue. Despite even 100% load on the GPU the fan never spun up beyond its constant 30% duty. However, even at a steady 30% the cooling was sufficient enough to keep 100% GPU load temperatures around 63c, a testament to the smaller manufacture process.

Now that we know a little of the workings of the Diamond HD 3870, let's see what AMD/ATI's lattest GPU can do when we put it through the rigors and run some benchmarks.

Video Card Testing Methodology

Testing Methodology:

For testing we used an Intel E6600 as our base processor as it's a CPU that reflects a vast majority of Core 2 Duo systems at the present. With its wide range of multipliers (6x-9x) the E6600 can easily can achieve 3.0 Ghz at a FSB of 333. The E6600 has a stock FSB of 1066; though compatible with a 1066FSB the ASUS P5K3 Deluxe motherboard we used for testing has been designed for a FSB of 1333. To remedy this we raised the FSB to 333 leaving the multiplier and voltage at default. This is essentially a free 25% overclock anyone with this set-up can benefit from, allowing everything in the system to run at stock values. Placing our mainstream E6600 CPU on par with the more expensive E6850's performance.

For our operating system (OS) we chose a fresh install of Windows XP with Service Pack 3 RC1 (SP3). Microsoft's Service Pack 3 rolls out some new features; however, it is essentially a cumulative update for all of Microsoft's hotfixes and updates. Although we had the option to test on a newer OS, we wanted the results to reflect better with real-world users, and according to a recent survey more than 90% of users still run Windows XP. Since most gamers and enthusiasts are still using Windows XP, it was decided that DirectX 9 would be used for all tests.

Every test was conducted at the following resolutions: 1920x1200 (24" widescreen LCD) 1600x1200 (20.1/21" Standard LCD's), 1280x1024 (19" Standard LCD), and 1024x768 (17" Standard LCD). Each test was run after a system restart, and the first benchmark for each test omitted. This process proved extremely relevant to testing, especially in games such as World in Conflict and Crysis, as the first run served to cache maps; with subsequent tests performing better than previous ones. Each test was run in succession three times to gain an average reproducible result.

Each benchmarks used was selected to represent a different gaming engine technology and graphic rendering processes, and we feel that this battery of tests will best serve to provide the diverse range needed for gauging performance.

Using GPU-Z (a utility available for free from our affiliate website techPowerUp!) we can verify the internal specifications for the Diamond HD 3870.

Benchmark Applications

• 3DMark03
• 3DMark05
• 3DMark06
• Lightsmark 07
• Cinibench Release 10
• Call of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare
• World in Conflict v1.0.0.5 Performance Test (Very High Setting)
• Crysis v1.1.1.5879 (High Settings, No Anti Aliasing)
• Half-Life 2 Episode Two with Steam build date Feb. 07, 2008
• Supreme Commander - Forged Alliance

Test Setup:

• Motherboard: ASUS P5K3 Deluxe Wi-Fi-AP Intel P35 Chipset (BIOS 810)
• Processor: Intel E6600 Core 2 Duo 2.44GHz ~1.3v (9x333MHz FSB) 3.0Ghz
• Cooling: Zalman CNPS8700 LED
• Memory: 2 GB (1,024 MB x2 modules) Patriot PC3-15000 DDR3 @ 1333Mhz
• Video: Diamond Multimedia VIPER HD 3870 512MB @ Stock w/ ATI Catalyst v7.12
• Audio: Sound Blaster X-Fi
• Hard Disk: 2xWD RAPTOR 74GB 16MB Cache Raid 0 10,000rpm, 1x WDC WD4000AAJS-00YFA0 (372 GB, IDE)
• Optical Drive: SONY DVD RW DRU-830A SCSI Cd-Rom Device, HL-DT-ST DVD-ROM GDRH10N (16x/48x DVD-ROM)
• Enclosure: Ultra m998 Aluminum Mid-Tower ATX Case ULT40069
• PSU: Ultra X3 1000 watt modular cables
• Operating System: Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3, v.3264 with IE7 (OS Version 5.1.2600 WinXP Retail)

Test Tools

• ATITool v0.27 Beta 3 - Graphics Card Utility for NVIDIA/ATI Products
• RivaTuner v2.06 - Graphics Card Utility for NVIDIA/ATI Products

Test Results: Games

Crysis uses a new graphics engine: the CryENGINE2, which is the successor to Far Cry's CryENGINE. CryENGINE2 is among the first engines to use the Direct3D 10 (DirectX 10) framework of Windows Vista, but can also run using DirectX9, both on Vista and Windows XP.

Roy Taylor, Vice President of Content Relations at NVIDIA, has spoken on the subject of the engine's complexity, stating that Crysis has over a million lines of code, 1GB of texture data, and 85,000 shaders. To get the most out of modern multicore processor architectures, CPU intensive subsystems of the CryENGINE 2 such as physics, networking and sound, have been re-written to support multi-threading.

As one of the most demanding titles currently available, Crysis is a great example of what modern video cards can do. The Diamond HD 3870 definatly holds up in lower resolution gaming, though once we passed 1280x1024 that drastically changed with average FPS dropping by almost 26%. Though classically anything under 30 FPS has been considered un-playable, Crysis maintains a smoothness never befor seen at such low FPS; a credit to the game developers. FPS aside, the game-play was beautiful at higher resolutions with vibrant and stunning details.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is the latest action-thriller from Infinity Ward, the creators of the Call of Duty series. Armed with an arsenal of advanced and powerful modern day firepower, players are transported to treacherous hotspots around the globe to take on a rogue enemy group threatening the world. As both a U.S Marine and British S.A.S. soldier fighting through an unfolding story full of twists and turns, players use sophisticated technology, superior firepower and coordinated land and air strikes on a battlefield where speed, accuracy and communication are essential to victory.

Since CoD4 contains no built-in benchmark, we measured frame rates with FRAPS while playing through the same sequence to attain reproducible results. We chose the beginning cut scene where the player is transported through the city in a car. Throughout the scene there is heavy combat involving multiple AI units mixed with the beautiful cinematic shots the game is popular for. The results were consistent and accurate, despite the inaccurate methodology.

The Diamond HD 3870 handled Call of Duty 4 very well never dropping below 50 FPS, even at 1920x1200.

World in Conflict uses the latest version of Massive's proprietary Masstech engine taking advantage of DX10 technology and features advanced lighting and physics effects, and allows for a full 360 degree range of camera control. World in Conflict is a late Cold War real-time strategy game with a strong focus on unit tactics, action, team play, and destruction. Players take on a specific role commanding air, armor, infantry, and support units to form a combined arms force against the enemy. By controlling key strategic points on the map, you sway the battle in your favor. There is no resource-gathering, so every second not spent fighting the enemy over a piece of land is a second wasted.

World in Conflict appears to be severly CPU bound even at lower resolutions, though performace was still very good with all settings at their highest with the average FPS never dropping below 40 even at very high resolutions.

Half-Life 2: Episode Two is the second installment in Valve Corporation's series of episodes for Half-Life 2. Continuing with Valve's method of orienting each episode around a particular theme or set of technologies, Episode Two focuses on expansive environments, travel and less linear play. Following the closing events of Episode One, it sees Gordon Freeman and the series' other major players moving away from City 17 to the surrounding countryside. Only minor game engine updates have been added to Episode Two, such as motion blur and improved facial expressions on character models.

Episode Two as with all the previous titles based on the Half-Life 2 engine always seem to fair well with ATI/AMD hardware. There appears to be no exception here as the Diamond HD 3870 chews up everything the game has to throw at it. Even at 4xAA the Diamond HD 3870 manages a very respectable 60 FPS average at 1920x1200.

Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance is a standalone real-time strategy game expansion to Supreme Commander, developed by Gas Powered Games and published by THQ, and is the second title in the Supreme Commander franchise. Forged Alliance adds new gameplay features to the game, with several new units for the three pre-existing factions, and is further optimized for increased performance in response to issues with the original. To put it lightly, Supreme Commander is one of only a handful of games that can manage to bring modern high-end systems to their knees.

Forged Alliance is yet another game that is severly CPU bound, as can be seen by the very low minumum FPS, and the consistent maximum FPS results between 1024x768 and 1280x1024. Though the minimun FPS are nothing to write home about, the average results show the Diamond HD 3870's ability to keep the game playable, though only a faster processor is going to help raise minimum FPS at this point.

Test Results: Synthetic Benchmark

As a note here on synthetic testing: Though they are not represenative of any actual gameplay these artificial tests do offer an equal testing ground for apples-to-apples comparison of similar hardware set-ups. However, their results should always be taken with a measure of healthy skepticism.

3DMark03 is a collection of 3D tests. These include a set of four game tests; these are the only tests used to calculate the overall 3DMark03 score. The benchmark also includes a set of CPU, feature, image quality, and sound tests. Each of these tests measures specific 3D-related functionality, but their result is not included in the overall score. They do not fall into the target usage, but are included to allow the user to evaluate these features. The CPU test is a convenient way to measure the performance of the CPU for typical 3D usage. The feature tests isolate the performance of key 3D features primarily relating to shader technologies. The next set of tests is an exciting new addition to 3DMark: the 3D sound tests. These evaluate the impact of 3D sound sources on 3D graphics performance. The software also includes a set of much-improved image quality tools. These provide a powerful way to ensure integrity of the graphics hardware.

3DMark05 is concentrated on measuring the performance of the DirectX 9 generation of 3D hardware using the technology of next generation games. Earlier 3DMark versions have usually been launched with the introduction of a new Microsoft DirectX version and with the introduction of a new hardware generation. This has somewhat limited how much 3DMark has utilized the new hardware features. At the time of this writing, DirectX 9 was introduced some years ago, and there is now DX9 generation hardware available all the way from the very high end to value and mobile parts. 3DMark05 can thereby utilize the features of DirectX 9 to a 100%. In fact, DirectX 9 hardware is required for every game test of 3DMark05, resulting in the ultimate tool for DirectX 9 hardware performance comparison.

3DMark06 is the most recent addition to the 3DMark franchise. This version differs from 3Dmark05 in a number of ways, and includes not only Shader Model 2.0 tests, but Shader Model 3.0 and HDR tests as well. Some of the assets from 3DMark05 have been re-used, but the scenes are now rendered with much more geometric detail and the shader complexity is vastly increased as well. Max shader length in 3DMark05 was 96 instructions, while 3DMark06 ups that number to 512. 3DMark06 also employs much more lighting and there is extensive use of soft shadows. With 3DMark06, Futuremark has also updated how the final score is tabulated. In this latest version of the benchmark, SM 2.0 and HDR / SM3.0 tests are weighted and the CPU score is factored into the final tally as well.

Lightsmark v1.3 is a relatively new 3D benchmark focusing on lighting effects and performance, released for free by Czech software author Stepan Hrbek. This OpenGL 2.0 optimized test runs a flyby scene featuring real-time global illumination, color bleeding, penumbra shadows and displays the average FPS as an end result.

Cinebench 10 is a real-world test suite that assesses your computer's performance capabilities. MAXON CINEBENCH is based on MAXON's animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON CINEBENCH runs several tests on your computer to measure the performance of the main processor and the graphics card under real world circumstances. The benchmark application makes use of up to 16 CPUs or CPU cores and is available for Windows (32- and 64-Bit).

Final Thoughts: Diamond HD

The Diamond HD 3870 impressed us greatly; it provides a better gameplay experience than its predecessor the HD 2900XT and features roughly half the power consumption of its predecessor with performance to match. All while coming in at less than half the price makes the HD 3870 a truly desirable upgrade for many, including myself. Adding in Diamonds optimized software, xDNA, which allows the hardware to be run in CrossFire on competing chipsets, only furthers the appeal. That's a pretty good deal in our book.

Right now the HD 3870 offers the best value on the planet when it comes to 3D gaming cards. You won't be disappointed in its performance, and you won't be disappointed in the cost. This was a reference-clocked video card; we can imagine how much faster it will perform given a little overclocking. With prices for the HD 3870 series in the sub-$200 range you just simply cannot go wrong with the Diamond HD 3870; a solid choice in video card value.

Radeon HD 3870 Conclusion

The retail package of the Diamond HD 3870 is devoid of garish fantasy characters or color schemes, while maintaining all the relevant product details in an easy to understand way. The only issue is the unforgivable error that denotes false THX support. This is something that should never happen on any product, especially one of this caliber.

With its red and black motif and translucent fan shroud the Diamond HD 3870 goes for the hot-rod look. However, following the reference design the credit here really goes to ATI/AMD for making a card that looks the part.

Regarding construction; as the design is merely follows the reference from ATI/AMD it is to be expected that only a top-notch job would be done, and Diamond follows through here. All of the components are high-grade and well put together. As a note on quality the 512MB of GDDR4 memory used here is made by Samsung with a latency of 8ns - which is not cheap.

Functionality and value here are closely tied to each other. With respect to performance, this mid-range offering from ATI/AMD easily redefines the market as the Diamond HD 3870 (SKU 3870PE4512) competes with and often beats its high-end predecessor in many areas. However, the real appeal here is the Diamond HD 3870's price point. With a recent slash in prices, the MSRP of the HD 3870 went from $245 to $189. And with a little searching can easily be had for very close to that.

I personally think what AMD/ATI and their add-in board partners did here with respect to the HD 3800 series video card is nothing short of amazing. Returning performance to the mid-range video card market with these new affordable GPUs that finally leave us with a feeling that you're getting something for your money, whereas mid-range GPUs of recent history seemed to just give mediocre performance with an equally mediocre price.

Pros:

+Very Attractive Price to performace
+Low Power Consumption
+Low Noise Cooling that Exausts Warm Air from the Case
+Diamond Optimized Drivers
+Performance to Match Higher Cost Video Cards
+Support for the new PCIe v2.0 and legacy support for v1.1
+Functional UVD Processor
+Diamond xDNA Driver Software - CrossFire on non AMD/Intel Chipsets

Cons:

-Potential Fan Throttling issue
-Inaccurate Product Information on Retail Box (THX Support)
-Non-Contacting Heatsink on memory
-Recent Retail Availability and Subsequent Price Gouging

Ratings:

• Presentation: 8.50
• Appearance: 9.00
• Construction: 9.00
• Functionality: 9.25
• Value: 9.50

Final Score: 9.05 out of 10.

Excellence Achievement: Benchmark Reviews Golden Tachometer Award.

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