New graphics cards coming from ATI this Christmas - HD3800 series DX 10.1 compliant

[William]

Tom's Hardware has a new article up on ATI's new HD3800 series of graphics
cards. See at:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/29/amd_hd_3800_to_support_dx_10/

They are to be the first DX 10.1, 55nm and FourWay GPU supported cards out.

Highlights:

Full DX 10.1 compliant
Mid-range priced, between $150-250 units.
Two, three and four-way CrossFire under Vista
Hardware acceleration of HD DVD and BluRay movies
New Shader Model (SM)
128-bit texture format filtering
64-bit integer pixel blending
much more.

First card out the door that meets mandatory standards for 10.1
certification. (so far)

William

 

[First of One]

Interestingly, Tomshardware's Chinese site has more information. This
article from *9 days ago* already reports DX10.1 and Shader Model 4.1
support, along with photos of the HD3870 and HD3850.
http://www.tomshardware.com/cn/119,news-119.html

The HD3850 has a single-slot cooler; wonder if it will perform competitively
against the 8800GT.

 

[William]

The HD3850 looks good to me. How soon can I get my hands on one?

It's interesting you referenced a Chinese site. Back when I did video
production design and service, I subscribed to JEI - Japanese Electronics
Industry. A magazine that gave me a 1 to 2 year jump on what was coming out
on the US industry. It cost a lot of money to have it flown to me monthly,
but it was worth every penny to get it. I always knew what the sales people
from Matsuhashi (Panasonic - JVC-many others) and Sony were going to be
pushing that year. It blew them away. Fun for me. Now it's all on the net.
If you know where to go.

That web site is fun, a mixture of Mandarin and English. I love the tables
and photos. Thanks for the link.

I believe from Tomshardware's article, the 3800 series will perform about
2/3 the capability of the 8800 GT series. For around $200 and DX 10.1
certified, it sounds about right for me. We shall see, I don't trust
Tomshardware posts so much anymore, I got burnt on a mobo they were hawking
a year ago.

William

 

[William]

FoO:

I just came across an article on the GeForce 8800 GT on ExtremeTech. Most
interesting. The article does not compare it against the ATI HD3800 series
as of yet. See at:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2209197,00.asp

Looks impressive, but I do not see any DX 10.1 support. Nice price, in the
$250 range. It will be interesting to see how the 8800 GT and the HD 3850
compare.

Later

William

 

[First of One]

What ATi needs to do is to get the hardware AA resolver working again (which
it may well do with the 55 nm die shrink). The current HD2K series take a
much larger hit with AA enabled than the previous X1K series did.

In any case, even if the HD3850 turns out to be slower than the 8800GT, it
can still force 8800GT prices even lower than the current $260-280 range. A
good thing for the consumer.