Diamond has been making quite the comeback for themselves recently, it's just a shame that ATI is in a slump and falling behind NVIDIA at every turn. The launch of the Radeon 2000 series added a bit of spark to an otherwise dull lineup of cards that were gathering dust on the shelves of many a retailer, but was it enough? It's been just a few short months since the Radeon HD 2900 series launched and now we see ATI once again hitting the competition with their new Radeon HD 3800 series, or as most people know it the RV670 technology. Their has been a lot of circulating hype about this chip as it has been rumored to be the chip to put NVIDIA in their place and once again behind ATI. - Motherboards

Diamond Viper HD 3850/3870 Graphics Board Review

Diamond gave us two cards to look at for this launch, the Radeon HD 3870, which is geared to compete with the GeForce 8800 GT line and the Radeon HD 3850, which is aimed at the GeForce 8600 GTS line. We held this article a day or so longer than the initial launch day as we were trying to get the CrossFire results in, but with the holiday looming we ran out of time and were only able to test the cards in a single card configuration for this first look. So is the new Radeon HD 3800 series up to the game? Or will it still trail behind the competition? We will take a deeper look into the RV670 architecture to find out.

One of the biggest things that has been brought to the table lately is this new DirectX 10 update called DirectX 10.1. This is a sales pitch that everyone has been flashing in front of your eyes to make you sit up pay attention and make you think you need it. Do not be fooled and sucked into this microhype called DirectX 10.1. It is nothing, means nothing and will not even be implemented into games in the next six months to a year. So DirectX 10.1 is being used as a sales strategy and marketing tool by both ATI and NVIDIA and in fairness NVIDIA now supports this stance of DirectX 10.1 being a non concern.

This card was not exactly what we thought it would be, but it is still ATI making headways in the right direction. The RV670 was the most hyped ATI chipset in years and it does have some nice new things that make it appealing to gamers. Is smaller better? If so then the RV670 has something over the competition, as the G92 GPU is bigger by 10nm than the RV670 which is based on new 55nm design instead of the 65nm process that the G92 uses. The most recent trend for GPU's has been to keep getting bigger, but ATI has taken a bold move in pushing 55nm technology forward, which has a few impacts on the industry.

Although the Diamond Viper HD 3870 512MB is not the NVIDIA killer that it was rumored to be it is still a very good card that performs well enough and is priced well enough to still be a viable graphics card solution in the mid-range market. The card performed flawlessly in Windows Vista and played every game we use without error at resolutions of up to 1680x1050, even with the features set to maximum. Priced at around $219, it is at the moment lower than a GeForce 8800 GT the card from NVIDIA at which it is priced to compete with. The GT is faster, and numbers only mean so much after a certain point.

The Radeon HD 3850 however is a different animal altogether, this is a low-end 3D card that priced at $179 competes with the GeForce 8600 series by NVIDIA. To us this card is a waste of time for ATI at this price point, we mean who would not shell out a lousy $30 more for a Radeon HD 3870 card. This card is far from an inferior product to the Radoen HD 3870 and should sell for around $159 at the most to be really competitive. With 256MB of memory and an 700MHz shader clock that is less than half means a serious performance hit when compared to the Radeon HD 3870 with 512MB and shader clock at 825MHz.

The price difference is not suitable for the Radeon HD 3850 when you look at the cards specifications head to head with its own card. Diamond is trying their best to make a stable and aggressive market for ATI, and to their credit they do have an uphill battle in the current scheme of things. There is an upside to this though, you can easily get your hands on a Diamond Radeon HD 3870, but the GeForce 8800 GT is out of stock almost everywhere, and hey it is cheaper. Good job Diamond and ATI, which is giving a good and positive view on the future...