512 mb amd radeon hd 3870 online download

ThereвЂ™s actually a fair bit of science going on with the stock cooler on this card. Also, the front heatsink is considerably longer than anything weвЂ™ve seen before and it incorporates a lot of copper, which is heavier than more oft used aluminium. The reason for the extra weight is mainly due to the extra metal used in the cooling mechanism which, unlike the coolers used on nVidiaвЂ™s high-end cards, includes a section of heatsink that covers most of the back as well as the front. At 265mm in length it is as long as an 8800 GTX or 8800 Ultra and with its standard cooler attached it weighs a colossal 1.023 KGs, which is actually significantly heavier than either of the above nVidia cards. The first thing youвЂ™ll notice about the X2 is the size of the card. So, if a brand new chip wasnвЂ™t the solution, how could ATI leverage its current capabilities to create a single competition-beating graphics card? Simple, it stuck two R670 chips on one card and ran them in Crossfire. Also, releasing a completely new chip now wouldвЂ™ve cut into ATIвЂ™s plans for its next generation of hardware and potentially disrupted sales of cards based on what would be perceived to be its вЂoldвЂ™ architecture. The problem for ATI is that modifying or augmenting R670 (the chip at the core of the HD 3870) to make it significantly faster would require a complete redesign of the underlying architecture and for a number of reasons this is something it simply isnвЂ™t in the position to do.ДЄn architectural redesign requires a significant investment in research and design and rushing this would cost large amounts of money and potentially lead to mistakes, which would be even more catastrophic than not releasing anything. The fact this mentality is completely ridiculous causes much frustration for manufacturers and journalists alike but thereвЂ™s nothing we or they can do about it so manufacturers will always seek to gain the performance crown just to convince these people.

Put simply, if someone hears one company makes the fastest card available, theyвЂ™re going to assume the other products the company produces are also the fastest in their respective sectors. Unfortunately, while the big money is to be made in these mid-range (ВЈ50 вЂ“ ВЈ150) markets, something called the halo effect means that having the fastest card available still has significant influence over the general publicвЂ™s buying habits. With decent performance, unbeatable features, and competitive prices these cards made for a worthwhile alternative to nVidiaвЂ™s mainstream and enthusiast products. However, with the release of the HD 3870 and HD 3850 at the tail end of last year, ATI looked to be on the up again. ATiвЂ™s had a rough time of it over the past year or so with every single one of its last generation cards failing to live up to expectations and nVidiaвЂ™s equivalents consistently beating them on performance.

512 mb amd radeon hd 3870 online download