R680: AMD ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2

Test Setup

As always, we did our best to deliver a clean set of benchmarks, with each test repeated three times and an average of those results is what we’re reporting here. In the rare case where performance was inconsistent, we continued repeating the test until we got three results that were consistent.

ATI Test System

• ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB – operating at 825/1800MHz using Catalyst 8.1 beta (8-451-2-080121a)
  
• ATI Radeon HD 3870 512MB CrossFire – operating at 775/2250MHz using Catalyst 8.1 WHQL (8-451-071220a1)
  
• ATI Radeon HD 3870 512MB – operating at 775/2250MHz using Catalyst 8.1 WHQL (8-451-071220a1)

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (operating at 3.00GHz – 9x333MHz); Asus Maximus Formula motherboard (Intel X38 Express); 2x 1GB Corsair XMS2-8500C5 (operating in dual channel at DDR2-800 4-4-4-12-1T); Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 200GB SATA hard drive; Enermax Galaxy DXX 1000W PSU; Windows Vista Ultimate x86; Intel inf 8.3.0 WHQL.

Nvidia Test System

• Nvidia GeForce 8800 Ultra 768MB – operating at 612/1500/2160MHz using Forceware 169.28 beta
  
• Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB – operating at 575/1350/1800MHz using Forceware 169.28 beta
  
• BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB – operating at 675/1674/1940MHz using Forceware 169.28 beta
  
• Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT 512MB – operating at 600/1500/1800MHz using Forceware 169.28 beta

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (operating at 3.00GHz – 9x333MHz); Asus Striker II Formula motherboard (nForce 780i SLI); 2x 1GB Corsair XMS2-8500C5 (operating in dual channel at DDR2-800 4-4-4-12-1T); Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 200GB SATA hard drive; Enermax Galaxy DXX 1000W PSU; Windows Vista Ultimate x86; Nvidia nForce 9.46 WHQL.

Games Tested

We used the following versions of the games listed to evaluate the performance of these video cards:

• Crysis, version 1.1.1.5879 (patch 1.1) with DirectX 10 and DirectX 9.0
  
• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare version 1.4 with DirectX 9.0
  
• World in Conflict, version 1.005 with DirectX 10
  
• BioShock, version 1.1 with DirectX 10
  
• Unreal Tournament III, version 1.1 with DirectX 9.0
  
• Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, version 1.4.0