HIS Radeon HD3870 Review & Crossfire Performance Preview

Additional Testing


Overclocking….the sky is the limit

Considering the core is already pushed to 777Mhz while the memory is operating at 2252Mhz (DDR) I wasn’t expecting much in the way of an overclock. I was wrong.

Overclock speeds

Core: 860Mhz
Memory: 2748Mhz

Using the Catalyst overclocking utility I was able to push this card far beyond what I thought I would be able to. While an overclock of 83Mhz on the core is nothing to write home about, it was the 496Mhz overclock on the memory that left me staring in awe at the screen.

Overclocking this card was not without its trials though. While the core was stable at 860Mhz, when I pushed it to 861Mhz the system would hard-lock right after pressing the “test” button in the Catalyst Control Center. Thus, I do not think that heat has anything to do with the overclock but check back soon when we test overclocking with a different cooler.

Let’s see how this card performed when overclocked.

Performance Tests

3DMark06 Professional


It looks like the HIS HD3870 is now challenging the 8800GTX for overall supremacy on our 3DMark06 graph.


Lost Planet: Extreme Condition



My God does this thing fly when it is overclocked, doesn’t it?


Prey



Even though the HIS card does not come close to the beastly speeds of the 8800GTX in Prey, its scores increase by about 15% over HD3870 stock speeds.