![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Thursday , November 15, 2007
- Author:
- Brent Justice
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series
The ATI Radeon HD 3800 series graphics cards are here. We will explore performance in Crysis, Unreal Tournament 3, NFS: Pro Street, and TimeShift. We can now recommend two ATI graphics cards for your gaming needs.
Radeon HD 3870
The Radeon HD 3870 is a dual-slot video card, like the HD 2900 XT, but it is actually shorter and has a less hefty heatsink unit. The Radeon HD 3870 measures 9 inches in length, and the 2900 XT is 9.5 inches in length. At 9 inches it is also the same length as a GeForce 8800 GT. What you can’t see in the pictures is the weight difference; the HD 3870 is much lighter than the Radeon HD 2900 XT, but heavier than the GeForce 8800 GT. The Radeon HD 3870 only needs one auxiliary 6-pin power connector while the Radeon HD 2900 XT required two 6-pins or one 8-pin and 6-pin when overclocking.
As you can see, there is a copper heatsink block sitting atop the GPU. This block is much smaller than the Radeon 2900 XT’s. The fan will pull in air, blow it across the double-slot heatsink and exhaust it out the back. The RAM modules and power circuitry are cooled by passive heatsinks only. If you look closely at the shroud design you will find that it actually does not make contact with the vents on the back of the video card, there is a gap and there are also vent slits on the top and bottom of the shroud toward the back. This means hot air will escape into your system. It seems like it would have made more sense to actually make sure the shroud completely ducts air outside the case with full contact between the shroud and the bracket.
Radeon HD 3850
The Radeon HD 3850 is a single-slot video card. The HD 3850 is also 9 inches in length like the 3870 and 8800 GT. The weight is rather hefty for its size, due to the all copper heatsink; it is heavier than the 8800 GT. The Radeon HD 3850 only needs one auxiliary 6-pin power connector as well.
In this design the GPU and memory modules are actively cooled with the large heatsink making contact with both and cooled by the fan. The power circuitry has an attached heatsink as well, but no air moves across it. The heatsink is ducted so that the hot air will be blown toward your side panel in a typical case.