PowerColor's HD 3850 Xtreme 512MB faster than 3870 ?

shabby

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
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Unless it has the same gpu/mem clocks as the 3870 then no, the 3850 ships with much slower ram so even with some overclocking you wont hit the same speeds as the 3870.
 

taltamir

Lifer
Mar 21, 2004
13,576
6
76
3850 is the EXACT same gpu only with a slower clock and less ram...

The extreme 3850 version has boosted the ram to the same amount as the 3870... and OCed it a little, but it is still a little slower then the 3870...

If it scored a little better on a test then either:
1. They mixed up the cards names
2. They had background processess messing up the tests
3. They did not perform enough repetitions... there is an aspect of "luck" to it. 100 passess will give you 100 different (but very, very close) results on the same test.
 

shabby

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
5,782
45
91
The 3850 has 1.66ghz memory and the 3870 has 2.25ghz memory, hardly the same.
 

taltamir

Lifer
Mar 21, 2004
13,576
6
76
mmm... oh right, it has half the internal memory bandwidth... even MORE of a reason why the 3850 should not be faster... Now on old games at LOW resolutions the extreme edition is 0.1% slower... which opens up to 10% slower on higher res and the like... but it doesn't change the fact that it will always be slower.