VisionTek Radeon HD 3870 X2 Overclocked Edition Review

Testing:

In order to test the VisionTek Radeon HD 3870 X2 Overclocked video card, I'm going to be running it through seven different games and graphics benchmarking programs at four different resolutions. This allows us to gauge how this card does at higher resolutions and common resolutions for some of today's hottest games. Everything is tested at bone stock for the stock testing and then we'll follow that testing by overclocking the card. Also, the VisionTek 3870X2 has a core clock of 840MHz and a memory clock of 960MHz at stock. All of the latest available display drivers were used for all of the cards.

Testing Setup:

• Processor: Intel Q9450 Core 2 Quad 333x8
• Motherboard: Gigabyte X48-DQ6
• Memory: Mushkin XP2 8000 Redline 2 x 2GB 5-5-5-12
• Video Card(s): VisionTek 3870X2 Overclocked Edition
• Power Supply: Mushkin 800watt Power Supply
• Hard Drive: 1 x Seagate 1TB SATA
• Opticals: Sony Dual Layer Burner
• O/S: Windows Vista Ultimate Edition

Comparison Video Cards:

• ZOGIS 9800GTX 
• Asus 8800GTS (G92)
• Asus 8800GTX

Overclocking:

Overclocked settings:

• VisionTek HD 3870X2 850/975

Overclocking a pre-overclocked card? Can it be pushed any further? The answer is yes. It didn't take me long to discover that this video card does not like to be pushed, but I was able to obtain a minimal overclock on the already overclocked beast of a video card. I reached 850MHz on the core clock from the stock frequency of 840MHz, and on the memory I obtained a frequency of 975MHz over the stock 960MHz. It's not much, but we'll see if it gives a performance increase at all.

Benchmarks:

• Video:

1. Crysis
2. Knights of the Sea
3. Bioshock
4. Call of Duty 4
5. World in Conflict
6. Call of Juarez
7. 3DMark 06 Professional