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Asus EAH3870 TOP gets hefty overclock

by on03 March 2008

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Review: Core running at 851MHz

 

Asus has been kind enough to supply us with a factory-overclocked EAH3870 Top card, one of the fastest cards in its class. Ever since ATI gave a green light on Radeon overclocking Asus had a special model, instantly recognizable thanks to the word “TOP” in the name. This card with the core running at 851MHz definitely earns its name. The stock HD3870 card runs at 775MHz, so Asus did an impressive overclock of 76MHz. Memory overclock, on the other hand, somewhat failed to meet our expectations since it was overclocked to 1143MHz (2286MHz effectively), so it’s just 25MHz over the reference speed.

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Asus kept the reference cooling and the only con of this is its dual-slot width, whereas the card is lighter than you might think. PCB is also a reference design, so the only reason to differentiate between these two versions is a sticker showing characters from Company of Heroes (Opposing Fronts).

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Of course, you’ll find Company of Heroes in the box, but this time around there was no Black Box voucher that AMD offers to its partners selling HD 3870. So, you can enjoy Opposing Fronts, one of the better DirectX 10 games.

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Powering this card is done by a single 6 pin PCI-Express power connector and you can expect your RV670 chip to require up to 105W. Radeon HD 3870 cards use GDDR4 memory, and Asus made sure to point that out on the box.

Another small Asus logo found its place on top of the card, whereas two dual-link DVI connectors and a VIVO port are placed on the I/O side. You can connect your HDTV to this card using a DVI-to-HDMI dongle. RV670 packs an integrated audio controller that’ll enable you to route audio trough the DVI connector and have a hassle-free HD experience.

EAH3870 Top is a DirectX 10 card with DX 10.1 and Shader model 4.1 support. The new PCI Express 2.0 interface is also there, and it’s backwards compatible.

Additional performance is guaranteed, but the comparison graph on the box is a bit too much. You can expect up to 10 percent performance increase and only in rare cases will you get more.

Asus has always shipped their Top cards in large boxes, and it’s no wonder, as those are extremely easy to spot on cluttered shelves. Furthermore, more and more partners do that since it’s provides quite nice marketing.

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Apart from the card and the Opposing Front game, Asus ships a CD/DVD case, DVI-to-HDMI dongle, the usual cables and a CrossFire connector. There’s also some additional software such as Gamer OSD (video recording, screenshot and fps-measuring application), SmartDoctor (graphics card monitoring and overclocking), Asus Splendid video player and Video Security Online, a CCTV app that makes remote viewing of your home possible via Webcams.

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Testbed:

Motherboard:
EVGA 680i SLI (Supplied by EVGA)

Processor:
Intel Core 2 Duo 6800 Extreme edition (Supplied by Intel)

Memory:
OCZ FlexXLC PC2 9200 5-5-5-18  (Supplied by OCZ)
        while testing CL5-5-5-15-CR2T 1066MHz at 2.2V

PSU:
OCZ Silencer 750 Quad Black ( Supplied by OCZ)

Hard disk:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 80GB SATA (Supplied by Seagate)

CPU-Cooler:
Freezer 7 Pro (Supplied by Artic Cooling)

Case Fans:
Artic Cooling - Artic Fan 12 PWM
Artic Cooling - Artic Fan 8 PWM


Futuremarks

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Asus's EAH3870 Top is faster than the reference HD3870 card by about 4%. The new mainstream card, 9600 GT, ended up being slower than HD3870, but Zotac’s overclocked 9600 AMP ran really fast. Radeon HD 3870 has a tough opponent and Asus should reconsider the pricing. In Germany and Austria, this card isn’t  easy to find and the only available card in the time of writing this review cost €200, which is too much even with Company of Heroes thrown into the mix.


Gaming

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The overclocked Asus card running at 851MHz core and 2286MHz (effectively) for memory outperformed the reference HD 3870 by up to 8%. In this game it managed to beat the reference 9600GT by 29 frames, but only on one resolution and no antialiasing.

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Crysis is a scenario where Radeon usually loses, but Nvidia didn’t fare much better, either. Asus EAH3870 proved that it has what it takes to battle overclocked 9600GTs.

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F.E.A.R. didn’t benefit from core overclocking, and it’s obvious that getting better performance would require a memory boost, too. Zotac 9600 GT AMP clearly shows that the game can run better if both the core and the memory are overclocked.

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Conclusion

With EAH3870 Top, Asus proved that the RV670XT chip can be sold at higher speeds. The card runs at 851MHz, which is 76MHz faster than reference, but the memory was overclocked by only 25MHz. However, the GPU overclocked by about 10% still shows some notable performance increase. Compared to 9600GT, EAH3870 Top scores better and you also get Company of Heroes - Opposing Fronts.

Asus kept the reference cooling and design. As soon as the CrossFireX drivers are out you’ll also be able to combine this card with cheaper HD 3850 cards. This is a DirectX 10.1 card with PCI Express 2.0 interface, so you won’t need an upgrade for a long time.

The only downside to this card is the price – it’s a bit too steep considering the performance it offers. For €200 you can find a reference 8800GT card, whereas the reference HD 3870 is priced at €160.


Last modified on 03 March 2008
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