Diamond ATI HD 3850/3870 Review :: Gaming HD 3800 Style

We played and tested the new cards on a few of the latest DX10 games and a few DX9 ones as well to get a better feel of how the cards look and react in various gaming environments. All the other hype we have swallowed lately has come in the pre-release of Crysis. Truth be told I was not impressed in DX9 at all with this game, can anybody say Far Cry rehash? In DX10 things were a bit better graphically, but not enough by a long shot to justify all the hype as the next generation game. I was expecting really quite a bit more to Crysis, as the game in the beginning is so much like Far Cry it was just too much rehash to warrant such high praise. Only later in the game does it get a bit better or really different.

All the other games we played looked and played without error, the drivers for these cards are also immature and will become more robust as they mature, which will mean ever better compatibility and performance in the future. I think the average gamer and user will be sufficiently satisfied with the gaming performance of the 3870, the 3850 is barely enough 3D power to power the latest DX10 titles and is fine for games like Command and Conquer and other RTS/RPG titles like Warcraft or Empire Earth. If you are planning on playing Crysis, Hellgate-London, COD 4 or any other heavy DX10 title or FPS type games in general you will want to stick with the Diamond HD 3870. The 3850 is, what it is, and overall it is a so-so card that is not really all that interesting from a gamers view. We played the games on a variety of resolutions up to 1900

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