Sapphire Atomic HD 3870 X2 Video Card Review
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To make the comparison between Atomic HD 3870 X2 and the other video cards we included in this review easier, we compiled the table below comparing the main specs from these cards. If you want to compare the specs of Atomic HD 3870 X2 to any other video card not included in the table below, just take a look at our NVIDIA Chips Comparison Table or on our AMD ATI Chips Comparison Table.
The official core clock for Radeon HD 3870 X2 is 825 MHz, while its official memory clock is 900 MHz. Atomic HD 3870 X2 comes factory-overclocked, with its two GPU’s running at 857 MHz and its memory running at 927 MHz. As you can see, this is far from being a big overclocking. Since we hadn’t any other Radeon HD 3870 X2 available we couldn’t see how fast this overclocking made this card to be compared to the standard HD 3870 X2.
Sapphire Atomic HD 3870 X2 uses Samsung K4J52324QE-BJ1A GDDR3 chips. These chips officially support a clock frequency of up to 1,000 MHz. As mentioned on this video card they run at 927 MHz, so there is a tight 7.9% headroom for you to overclock the video card memories still maintaining them inside their specs. Of course you can always try pushing memories above their specs, but it isn’t guaranteed that the overclocking will work.
| GPU | Core Clock | Shader Clock | Proc. | Memory Clock | Memory Interface | Memory Transfer Rate | Memory | Price |
| GeForce GTX 280 | 602 MHz | 1,296 MHz | 240 | 1,107 MHz | 512-bit | 141.7 GB/s | 1 GB GDDR3 | USD 649 |
| GeForce 9800 GX2 | 600 MHz | 1,500 MHz | 128 | 1,000 MHz | 256-bit | 64 GB/s | 1 GB GDDR3 | USD 470 – 550 |
| GeForce 9800 GTX | 675 MHz | 1,688 MHz | 128 | 1,100 MHz | 256-bit | 70.4 GB/s | 512 MB GDDR3 | USD 270 – 355 |
| Sapphire Atomic HD 3870 X2 | 857 MHz | 857 MHz | 320 | 927 MHz | 256-bit | 59.33 GB/s | 1 GB GDDR3 | – |
| Radeon HD 3870 | 776 MHz | 776 MHz | 320 | 1,125 MHz | 256-bit | 72 GB/s | 512 MB GDDR4 | USD 150 – 200 |
Some important observations regarding this table:
- All these video cards are DirectX 10 (Shader 4.0).
- The memory clocks listed are the real memory clock. Memory clocks are often advertised as double the figures presented, numbers known as “DDR clock.”
- GeForce 9800 GX2 and Radeon HD 3870 X2 have two GPU’s. The numbers on the table represent only one of the chips.
- All video cards included on our review were running at the chip manufacturer default clock configuration (i.e., no overclocking), except Sapphire Atomic HD 3870 X2, as already explained.
- Prices were researched at Newegg.com one day before this review was published. The price for GeForce GTX 280 is the maximum suggested retail price (MRSP) set by NVIDIA.
- We couldn’t find Sapphire Atomic HD 3870 X2 for sale. This model will be more expensive than cards from other vendors based on the same GPU because it features water cooling. Just for you to have an idea, prices on the regular Radeon 3870 X2 are quoted between USD 315 and USD 405.
Now let’s go to our tests.