The RV670's Performance

Now let's take a look at some official benchmark results from ATI. Do note that the y-axis of these charts do not start at 0%. As such, these charts present a skewed perception of the results. For more details, read our editorial on such "bad charts".

The ATI Radeon HD 3870

ATI pitted the new Radeon HD 3870 against the older Radeon HD 2900 XT and the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB. Even though ATI will still sell the Radeon HD 2900 XT as a higher-end model, you can see that the new Radeon HD 3870 is as fast, or faster. The Radeon HD 3870 has resulted in the obsolescence of the Radeon HD 2900 XT, no matter what ATI says.

Oddly, ATI neglected to compare the Radeon HD 3870 against its true competitor - the new NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT. For some analysis on its performance against that NVIDIA card, take a look at this editorial.

The ATI Radeon HD 3850

The lower-end ATI Radeon HD 3850 was pitted against the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT and the NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS (overclocked). It's not surprising to see the new Radeon HD 3850 trash both cards. After all, both competing cards aren't spectacular performers to begin with.