Review of the ATI Radeon HD 3870 Mac & PC Edition
By: Oliver B. (June 12th, 2008)
(Updated June 13th for questions on fan noise.)
(Updated: Aug 14th (More reader feedback on 3870)
Contents:
Introduction
The ATI Radeon HD 3870 PC & Mac Edition is expected to be available for sale by the end of June for a suggested retail price of $219. (They didn't make that date, but as of early August, site sponsor OWC now has the Radeon 3870 card in stock.) As the name suggests it works fine in Mac Pros as well as PCs. The Radeon HD 3870 is ATI's current single-GPU high-end card and their first high-end card available for Macs since the Radeon X1900 XT, which were sold both by ATI (for PowerMac G5s) and Apple (for Mac Pros).
The Radeon 3870 works in both first generation Mac Pros from 2006/2007, as well as the second generation Mac Pros introduced in early 2008. (NOTE: As per the driver installer, the 3870 requires OS X 10.5.2 or later.)
It is a very welcome addition to the rather sparse Mac video card offerings, of which there now are:
(AMD/ATI has a press release on the Radeon HD 3870 Mac/PC edition titled AMD Pushes Mac® Based Visual Computing Beyond HD.)
While the older ATI Radeon X1900XT and the GeForce 7300 GT can still be bought in the AppleStore, I'd recommend against it. They are outclassed by the newer cards and more expensive to boot.
Test Systems:
Mac Pro 2006:
Dual dual-core Xeon @ 2.67 GHz, 6GB of RAM; Mac OS X 10.5.3
Mac Pro 2008:
Dual quad-core Xeon @ 2.8 GHz, 8GB of RAM; Mac OS X 10.5.3 and Windows Vista Business (32-bit)
The Card
Contents of the review sample box:
- The card (duh)
- CrossFire adapter (No OS X support currently, but usable in Windows - see CrossFire info using 2 cards for increased performance)
- Molex-to-6-pin power apapter (not necessary in Mac Pro)
- Power cable for power connector on Mac Pro motherboard
- DVI-to-VGA adapter
- S-Video to Composite adapter for the built-in S-Video port
- Driver CD for Mac OS X 10.5.2 and later (includes driver ATIRadeonX2000* version 1.5.29)
Windows drivers are available online
Contrary to the reference model (PC only) version of the ATI Radeon HD 3870 this edition comes with a single-slot cooler. GPU and memory clocks remain the same though, at 777 MHz and 2250 MHz respectively. The card needs auxiliary power available from one of two power plugs on the Mac Pro mainboard.
The following photograph shows a comparison to two other cards. The GeForce 8800 GT (left) is about the same size, and also uses a single-slot cooler. The previous generation Radeon X1900 XT (right) is somewhat longer due to its fixing frame. (Note that the cooler on the X1900XT is not the original one, but as the original it's a two-slot cooler). All of these cards need auxiliary power, the power connectors are on the bottom right on each card.
Mac Pro 2008: Mac OS X tests
Quake 4 v.1.4.2: A self-recorded netdemo of me running around and shooting in q4dm3 "The lost fleet".
As expected the Radeon 3870 HD improves on the scores of its predecessors considerably, and is over four times faster than the stock card (Radeon HD 2600 XT) at 1920x1200 with 4xAA. At the lowest tested resolution the difference to the other cards its predecessors is much less pronounced.
NVidia's offering is somewhat ahead at the 1920x1200 resolution both with and without AA, however the 4xAA setting does not work (the card does 2xAA instead).
Prey v1.2b 116: A self-recorded demo of me running around and shooting in dmroadhouse "Roadhouse".
It looks like the Radeon HD 3870 has some trouble with prey and is mostly surpassed by its predecessor - the Radeon X1900XT, which is even faster than the GeForce 8800 GT at the smallest resolution. That's strange given that Prey is based on the same engine as Quake 4.
The GeForce 8800 GT doesn't share this weakness, and contrary to Quake 4 the 4xAA setting seems to work.
Unreal Tournament 2004 v3369.2: Tested with Santa Standard Bench.
As this isn't a very new game any more I only tested at the highest resolution possible for me: at 1920x1200. The Radeon 3870 shines in this benchmark and beats all other cards in both FlyBys and Botmatches.
Quake 3 v1.3.2 UB: Included demo "four".
The old-timer among the games tested was also tested at only 1920x1200 with high-quality custom settings. The Radeon 3870 beats its predecessors soundly. Its direct competitor is so close as to call it even.
Mac Pro 2006: Mac OS X tests
1st generation Mac Pro: The same demos as above were run.
The Radeon HD 3870 worked beautifully in the 1st generation Mac Pro, and beats its predecessors by respectable margins.
Mac Pro 2008: Windows Vista (32-Bit) Tests
Half-Life 2 Episode 2 (current of June 7th): HOC demo 1.
The Radeon HD 3870 was slightly ahead at smaller and medium resolutions, but dipped a little at 1920x1200.
Crysis v1.0 (couldn't apply patches): Included GPU_bench.bat in DirectX 9 with 'Very High' On The Cheap settings.
Easily the most demanding game I own. The GeForce 8800 GT has the lead in this game across all resolutions.
Unreal Tournament 3 v1.2: A 90 second FlyBy in vCTF-Suspense.
The Radeon HD 3870 didn't scale at the small to medium resolutions. It did get closer to the GeForce 8800 GT at the 1920x1200 resolution though.
Quake 4 Multiplayer Demo (v1.4.2+): Included netdemo id_demo.ndmo86.
The Radeon 3870 lags the GeForce 8800 without AA, but pulls ahead at the 2xAA and 4xAA settings.
Mac Pro 2008: Mac OS X application and Benchmark tests
Unfortunately I don't own any applications that benefit of the GPU, like Apple's Aperture, Apple's Motion or Imaginator. Instead, I ran Cinebench R10, an iMovie test and XBench's Quartz, OpenGL and a UI Tests.
iMovie: I measured how long it took to import the "Sharkwater" (1080p) video into iMovie HD, where the GPU is involved when creating thumbnails. The scores are 200'000 divided by the time, so a longer bar means better performance.
The Radeon HD 3870 was about 20% faster than the GeForce 8800 GT in this test, and somewhat more than the other contenders. (The actual times were 31, 40, 43 and 39 seconds from left to right.)
CineBench R10:
The CineBench R10 OpenGL benchmark seems to be very light work compared to games. The Radeon HD 3870 had a slight edge.
XBench's (Graphics/UI) Results :
Conclusion
The Radeon HD 3870 lags a little behind the GeForce 8800 GT in most games tested - the notable exception is Mac-UT2004. However, the Radeon HD 3870 is roughly 20% cheaper than the GeForce 8800 GT, so unless you want to play Crysis at high resolutions you could consider saving a few bucks.
For non-gaming use it looks like the Radeon HD 3870 is a winner. Even though I couldn't test with Aperture, Motion or Imaginator, I think that the XBench, iMovie and CineBench results were promising. If you're a pro-App user it looks like this card is for you. (See also reader feedback below from Pro Apps users)
Personally I'm inclined to stay with the GeForce 8800 GT for now, because game performance is important to me. Also I'm quite disappointed that 3D-overrides are no longer included. They provided the very welcome possibility to enable anti-aliasing for older games lacking such a setting in-game, or to force-enable vSync (as I liked to do in UT2004, as it seemed to ignore the in-game setting). To be fair there are no such options for GeForce cards either.
Then again I haven't touched Crysis and UT3 (in Windows) for a while, and even the Radeon X1900 XT was good enough for everything else. I guess I'll see how well the soon-to-be-released Mac version of UT3 is going to run, and decide then.
Notes on Cooling/Fan Noise:
In idle mode, the 3870 fan noise is very unobtrusive, much like the 8800. The 3870 fan did speed up a few times during the 3D benchmarks, at which point in was clearly audible - not nearly as much as the X1900's stock fan though. I did have the Mac Pro's side door open during the tests, and many of the benchmarks didn't have audio, so I think it wouldn't disturb me during gameplay. I can't really say how it would behave with pro apps like Motion of Aperture, but I'd think the fan would stay pretty quiet.
It seems to me that the 3870's fan speeds up earlier than the 8800's, and also slows down again sooner. With the 8800 my experience was that the fan didn't speed up for a long time, until the chip was over 90°C. Then the fan would keep running at increased speed for a while.
Personally I'd have liked if both the 3870 and 8800 had a *proper* dual slot cooler, then fan noise wouldn't ever be an issue. The Zalman VF-1000 (www.xlr8yourmac.com/Graphics/X1900_zalman_vf1000/X1900_zalman_vf1000.html) I'm using on the X1900 for example is pretty much inaudible, even though the X1900 is considerably more power hungry than either the 3870 and 8800.
BTW, the 3870 is based on a 55nm chip, while the 8800 is based on a 65nm chip. As a result, one would probably expect the 8800 to be more power hungry and to dissipate more heat. I didn't measure this, but it can be seen in other reviews. All of them note that the 3870 uses less power when idle, but under load they don't quite agree with one another - it looks like it depends on the type of load. - Some say the 3870 uses more power than the 8800 under load (revisiting-the-power-consumption-of-the-ati-radeon-hd-3800-series (Ars), http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3151&p=11 - Some say it uses less power than the 8800 under load http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/13603/9, http://www.techspot.com/review/76-asus-radeon-hd-3870/page8.html)
Reader Feedback on the ATI 3870: (FYI - As per the driver installer, the 3870 requires OS X 10.5.2 or later.)
(added 8/14/2008)
"I hate to say it but I'm having to send my HD3870 back to OWC for replacement. It worked like a champ for a day (mows the 7300GT and 8800GT down in Pro Apps), but upon waking it the next morning the video was askew and redraws would leave black spaces or vertical bars. Thinking it was just a random OS or driver issue, I rebooted. The grey boot screen also had vertical, blocky bars and it never got to the login screen (that I could see). The screen went blue and did not change any further. Just solid blue or blue with orange-ish blocks, I left it a few minutes to be sure. Booting into safe mode got me the login box, but the video was still screwy.Tried booting from CD, no difference (eliminating the driver as culprit - although, as I said, the grey boot screen was also screwy). Put the original card back in and it worked fine. Tried the 3870 once more to make sure it wasn't a seating problem and used the other power connector this time... but no change.
Pics here:
(grey boot screen)
(stuck at blue, boxy screen)
(in safe mode)
The card was awesome while it worked and I really hope this is just a fluke. This is the card I've been waiting for and putting the old card back in was heart breaking.
The machine in question is Mac Pro 1,1 quad core (2 x 2.66 dual core) - original video card was (and is again, until I get a replacement) a GeForce 7300GT.
Thanks, Maggie M.
"
I haven't had any other infant failure reports to date so hopefully just bad luck (not a repeat of the last production run of X800s).
(added 8/14/2008 from 8/12 email)
"I dropped some change at OWC and received the ATI Radeon HD 3870 yesterday. Installed it in my (1st gen) MacPro 2006 model (removed that 1900XT that I sent pix of way back, with the Accelero X2 cooler swap) and it didn't work. Well, it did but I didn't RTFM nor install the driver. (Original review above from June notes the box contents include a "Driver CD for Mac OS X 10.5.2 and later (includes driver ATIRadeonX2000* version 1.5.29)") You see, it worked. But on ONE display. I needed the driver to have BOTH 24" LCDs seen.
I did not get a chance to boot from Leopard DVD (my DVD is 10.5.3) but I suspect it will
only show Display 1. (Earlier report below noted 10.5 DVDs boot OK w/3870, where the 8800GT Kernel Panics if booted from pre-OS X 10.5.2 discs)The fan is noticeable, but nothing like the original 1900XT fan. I have that Accelero S1 Rev2 w/o fans to install. It will fit the HD 3870 but will take up the freed slot. (Reader FYI - there's previous article here on Accelero S1 Rev 2 cooler on an 8800GT-Mike)
I wish I had two 30" displays... :)
If you need a Radeon 1900XT or know anyone that needs one...
(he later wrote)
So far, the 3870's worked well with apps and VMWare (I'm running OS X 10.5.4 on one 24" and XP Pro Sp3 on the other 24" screen). Some things I notice in Windows (remaining artifacts when downloads or Avast pop up shows in the right corner) could be VMWare/driver bug. Might be that I am running on ATI but my VM was from a nVidia Dell machine. This dual OS makes one schizo!
-Ed S."
(added 8/8/2008, updated with later notes)
"Just installed mine yesterday in our 8-core Xeon, 8GB RAM, and it blows away the stock card away for video editing tasks. (I asked what the previous card was - he later said his 2008 Mac Pro had the 8800GT card, which is a BTO option - see later comments below.-Mike) In fact, I had to disable OpenGL acceleration in After Effects (latest After Effects from CS3, v8.0.2.) and Motion (v3.0.2) in order to have them work properly, but the ATI 3870 works perfectly. I'd had to turn off real-time updating of video scopes with the previous card, or it would drop frames on playback. Works perfectly with the 3870. It's like getting a new machine.
(replies to my questions on his previous card/mac pro model, etc. Here's Apple's Mac Pro (2008) page showing the available graphics cards (std ATI 2600 is top pix, then Nvidia 8800GT, then the (expensive) Nvidia Quadro FX 5600). I asked if the system was a 1st gen Mac Pro (base card was 7300GT IIRC) or a 2008 Mac Pro (base card is ATI 2600, with Nvidia 8800GT as an option)-Mike)
The page about the Mac Pro (2008) graphics card shows the one we were using in the center, the black NVIDIA with the white "arrows" - GeForce 8800GT. (8800GT card is a $150 BTO option now (was $200 option originally) on the current (2008) Mac Pros.) The Mac was purchased a month ago, brand new from Apple. (And we have the hardware raid card as well, with 3 drives in a Raid 5 configuration.)
I had problems with the card from Day One. (It was about a month or so, as we had planned to get the new ATI card as soon as we could.)
...on the ATI, everything works as expected (and as it used to on my old G5).
The NVIDIA gave OpenGL errors in After Effects if I enabled OpenGL, and it would not play HDV video in the timeline of Final Cut Pro and at the same time display real-time videoscopes, without dropping frames. (Which the old G5 could handle.) Does NVIDIA simply not have good drivers? Or Apple not know how to work with them? Strange.
I'm running 10.5.4, with no Software Updates outstanding.
Hope that helps!
(He later wrote)
Still loving the new 3870 card... It really makes the 8-core machine feel like it's working at full capacity. I'm having to get a new license for Nuke and can't wait to try that out. (I love Nuke... only problem is that it was originally designed for film work and doesn't handle interlaced video as well as Motion or AE. But it's a killer program and I think it will fly on 8 cores.)
-Wayne F."
(from 8/6/2008 mail - updated 8/8)
"Today I got my ATI Radeon 3870 512MB PCIe card for Mac Pros from OWC. I was the one who had sent you pictures and story about upgrading my Nvidia 8800 GT with the Accelero S1 Rev 2 cooler. Well I had to sell it. The card ran great for games, but I totally locked up my computer. I could not boot off of any CD's or DVD's. I couldn't use My Techtool Pro 4, or Diskwarrior. It wouldn't even let me boot off my OS X 10.5 DVD. Every time i tried to boot off of a disk I would get kernel panic, and it would ask me to restart my computer. (Sounds like the same thing I saw years ago when I got the Nvidia 6800 Ultra for my G5 Tower - it required a later OS X version (w/driver update/support) to boot without a kernel panic. My original G5 restore DVD and others would Kernel Panic on boot with the 6800 card installed, due to a lack of driver support for it. (Although G5 was still under warranty and card bought direct from Apple, I was not able to get them to send me an updated G5 restore Disc.) Apple says the 8800GT requires OS X 10.5.2 (w/Leopard graphics update) or later.-Mike)
I found threads in the message boards at apple's support site that talked about the problem:
1.) Mac Pro not booting from CD's using 'C'
2.) Can't boot from installation disk
Well about the ATI Radeon 3870, it runs perfectly. Doesn't get hot at all, very cool to the touch. Also for what ever reason computer seems more snappy. I don't know why but it does. Stock cooler is very nice on the ears (very quiet) and seems to blow enough air to cool the card. I think due to its 55nm GPU, it's nice and cool. Well I just wanted to pass on the great info about this card.
For anyone looking to upgrade their Mac, I would recommend this over the Nvidia 8800 GT anytime. I guess I am not speaking as a hard core gamer, but I still play my games that are offered for the mac and the 3870 works great! I attached scores (zip file) from both xbench and geekbench (zip file) so you can how the card ran. To my surprise my scores went up in both tests so I am very happy.
(I wrote John to ask if there were any problems seen booting from his restore DVD (or Leopard install DVD) with the 3870 card installed. I had also asked about his Mac Pro series - 2008 or 2006/7 model, although the 3870 card works in both.-Mike)
I have a first generation mac pro 2.66GHz model. When I had the 8800 GT I could not boot off both the restore DVD and also my OSX 10.5 disk I had. With the new 3870 I am able to boot from all disks including the system restore disk as well as the OSX 10.5 disk. Hope all this helps your readers.
Thank you, John W."
Despite the above (no KP's on disc boots), OWC wrote (and added to their 3870 product page) you need OS X 10.5.2 or later for general use (acceleration, full driver support, etc.) - the driver installer mentions this but it was missing from the original ATI product page. (I wrote ATI about that and they are adding it to the requirements list.)
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