The ATI Mobility Radeon 3870

How would this card do with current games? Would it be able to play them on low? How about when it is overclocked?

 

Baka thinks that it can still play some games on low but it still depends on what games. If SniperTNT is thinking Skyrim, MW3 and such, then no. It's probably comparable to some integrated GPU by now Baka thinks but Baka is not sure ._.

For games like portal 2, maybe.

 

You'll still be able to play pretty much any game out there, though you'll have to drop the settings and resolution a fair bit on some of the more demanding titles.

 

Let us not forget that, while the Mobility 3870 is old, it is still a 256-bit GDDR3 card which was nearly within ~10% of the once formidable 9800M GT.

Overclocked, it should not be too far behind the 6750M, though the fact that this 3870 is also very likely to be paired with an outdated Core 2 Duo is going to strengthen it in today's gaming.

 

Well the GPU certainly isnt a problem for current games you just need to play on medium 2X AA at 720p, You just need a high end dual core or a quad.

 

Yea for gaming at 720p you can actually have a lot of settings turned up with that card, overclocking usually put it ahead of the 8800m gtx in games. There are plenty of people playing games on much weaker cards from that generation, think 8700m gt and the like. The mobility 3870 is also faster than the 8800m and 9800m gts variants and outperforms a lot of newer low end cards people enjoy playing games on

 

I had a M9750 w/2GB RAM, T7200, and 3870M, and I couldplay MW2 maxed at 900p and Crysis 2 on Gamer at 900p. Not bad at all, especially since you could probobly get way better performance with a better CPU an 4GB RAM.

 

i had 8800m GTX which is slightly better in performance and i could easy max out many new games in 1080P and other i set to 720P.

I got a 3dmark06 score of 11k and seeing that that the GT555 gets around 9500 you will have no problems playing newer games

 

And also what puts the 3870 ahead of many other cards that you mentioned is that ATI still can support hybrid power, unlike nvidia. I have an m15x and it has hybrid power, but my card only goes up to a certain driver for that and any further the drivers do not work.

ATI drivers+3870+ongoing support+overclock=better performance than what I have now. And my card that I have now (8600m gt) is actually I think starting to crash.

From these two video cards, what would be the best upgrade for games?

1) ATI Mobility Radeon 4850
2) ATI Mobility Radeon 3870

+Both are ATI, which means that they still have driver support for hybrid graphics.
+Both have a really high amount of stream processors, both GDDR3 memory, and have higher Memory and Core clock speeds.
+Both have a 256 memory bus width.
-The 4850 might not work in the Area-51 m15x, plus it has a little bit higher of a power consumption than the 3870, so it might run hotter. By not working I mean that the BIOS might not recognize it.

I think under the idea that the 4850 might not work in the m15x, that I only have one option for an upgrade on a video card. The 3870. Think it is a good choice?

 

The 3870 is a good choice. The 4850 would be a better choice for performance, and I don't doubt the m15x could handle the card heat wise, as it can handle to hotter 280M. If you can take a $100 chance, go with the 4850m.

 

The only problem would be finding one. I can't find one for that price even.
Where did you find one for $100?

ALSO, if I were to find a 3870 SLAVE CARD, would that work in my system even though it does not support SLI? The card is MXM 2.1

System is the: Alienware Area-51 m15x (2009) Ripley model

Someone on these forums said that you would need a Left and Right Heatsink if you were using SLI and the Slave and Master cards.

 

I think you can just use a slave card, though I may be wrong. It'll just show up as a 3870 X2, and then you can flash it to a Master. I don't know for sure, however.

Edit: 4850m for $100. He says its a 4870m, but there were no MXM 2.1 4870m's, and the pic clearly shows it being MXM 2.1. Probobly a typo.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/com...-video-cards-mxm-3-0-6990s-mxm-2-1-4870s.html

 

How would I flash the BIOS to a master card?

Where would I find a VBIOS for that?

 

Actually there was an MXM 2.1 type... Asus W90

 

Then I stand corrected. He does say it is Dell though, so thats why I still think it is a 4850m, as they only used a 4850m, in the M17.

 

I'm still on my Area 51 M17-R1, dual 3870s and all. Not one game I haven't been able to play on medium settings or higher yet (BF3 excluded). Haven't ever had to overclock it and usually the bottleneck of the game is my dual core processor.

(Resolution 1440x900)
MW3 runs with textures native, no AA, shadows turned off, and everything else on/maxed with steady 60 FPS. Turning on shadows nets you just above 40 but can dip especially if your hosting an online match and during some of the campaign set pieces there are hiccups.
StarCraft 2 runs on a mix of medium/high settings.
BF3 runs barely on low, but autosets settings to medium/high. Ingame performance chart pegs the processor as the source of lag.
Arkham City on high with no motion blur or ambient occlusion.

Only using one of the 3870's, 4gb ram, P8400 @ 2.26ghz and I'm chugging along well. Chances are you can run these games on higher settings with a better processor. Pretty much DX9 games run incredibly well on the 3870 still, its the DX10 titles you've got to worry about.

 

If you upgraded to a Q6600 or whatever it is (Never cared too much about C2Q ) in that M7, I'm sure you'd be asle to play BF3 well.

 

So I assume there is really no difference between a master and slave video card if you have a computer that does not support SLI or Crossfire?

Where would I be able to find the latest Video BIOS for the Mobility 3870?

 

Latest version? Don't know, but I would ask someone in the AW forums that has an M15 to dump their bios with GPU-Z.

 

And how would this card do with drivers?

Would I have to scramble through all of the ATI drivers looking for the right compatible one, or just install the latest and be done with it?

It's that thing about the switchable graphics. Heard that it only is effective with Nvidia cards where it works up to a certain driver, then either gives you a BSOD or Code 43 when trying to install anything above 186.xx.

 

Just install the latest on the AMD cards. (12.1)

 

Yep, latest drivers are what I use. Have to roll back to 10.8 or older to get CFX support or games crash when launching

 

You might also want to consider upgrading to a Quad core CPU such as Q9100 or better if you can (namely if your hardware/motherboard/chipset supports it).
If you do that successfully, then you will effectively reach mobile SB i5 in terms of performance - which will probably increase your minimum FPS in games as well.
Though if a quad is not an option, then putting a high end core 2 duo inside (unless you already have one) should also increase minimum FPS as well.

The 3870 is a decent gpu (especially if it comes with a 256bit bus).
At 1440x900, it should be able to handle most games at mid to high settings regardless of it's age (you'd be surprised at what older gpu's are capable of).
Alternatively, you can always reduce the resolution on some more demanding games to 1280x800 and ramp up the settings.
Anything in the range of 25 to 30 FPS is playable as far as I'm concerned.

 

That's what I say.

What the heck is CFX?

 

CFX is CrossfireX. Dual AMD/ATI cards. The m15x only has one slot, though, so it doesn't matter. Also, the m15x is not quad core capable.

 

So not only with this card would I be able to install the latest drivers, but also the overclocking speed will have a great effect on performance. I think I made a good choice buying the ATI 3870 over an Nvidia card.

The farthest processor I can do that is compatible is the X9000, correct?
And still, that is a really fast processor, operating at 5.6 GHz with both cores.

Plus, the ATI 3870, with a stable overclock, will still stay cool in temperature because of my cooling pad, the diamond thermal paste, and also the thermal pads on the heatsink.

And for what you said earlier Kevman, I don't think a slave card would differ from a master card in this system because it does not support SLI or Crossfire or whatever it is.

 

I think the fastest processor you could support is the Core 2 Duo x9100. Later graphics cards with master/slave bios are interchangable in slots but I've never heard of it being done with a 3870, should work fine though.

 

Yeah I looked at the x9100, it won't work. My systems motherboard will only support a processor with an 800 Mhz bus speed. That processor, the x9100, is a 1066.

 

Sorry, thought the M15 would pack the same hardware as the M17.

 

Still, the fastest supported by my system being an X9000, it would be a good upgrade from the T8100 for only being 0.26 Ghz slower than the X9100.

As for video cards, the 3870 should definitely work in the Area-51 m15x. It has the MXM 2.1 slot, the correct heatsink, and it is a new card. Plus its ATI, good brand.

QUESTION: What effect does the bus width speed on a video card have on performance? What about the amount of stream processors?

 

^ The m15x is pm965, the m17 is pm45.

They are also manufactured by 2 totally different companies, but that's another story.

The m15x can in fact support a x9100. You can use a wire to downclock it to the max FSB of 800mhz on the pm965 which makes it work at lower than 3ghz stock but it can still be overclocked.

The m17 can support the q9200 and qx9300 Quad cores. You can't really get pm965 to support quads with the same method, at least not yet, and they'd run to hot on the m15x.

The 4870 mxm 2.1 from the Asus w90vp does NOT work on the m15x and I dont think ANY other 4850 or 4870 has been tested yet. Theres no reason to assume it will work, referring back to the fact that the Alienware 4850 or 4870 was manufactured by a different company than the m15x (Arima, not Quanta)

The m15x was sold with the 3870 of course so its not an issue and that would imply the 4870 will work.

Memory bus + type and frequency are what control the total memory bandwidth, this is very important although some cards have stunted shaders and too much memory bandwidth.

It works like this: ddr3 on 256 bit equals X bandwidth. ddr3 at the same frequency on 128 bit equals 1/2 that. gddr5 on 128 bit roughly equals ddr3 on 256 bit, thats why the newest most powerful cards are 256 or 192 bit gddr5.

 

Speaking about doing upgrades, if I wanted to upgrade the screen I have on my m15x, say from a 900p (1440x900 resolution) screen to a 1080p (1920x1080 resolution) screen, how would I take the original out and put the new one in? Technically speaking, how would I disassemble the whole top section of the system?

 

I think you basically have to take the 4 rubber things off the bezel, unscrew the screws, then unscrew the lid, LCD and brackets together from the hinges. THEN unscrew the 8 screws on the sides of the LCD. You might just have to unscrew the first 4 and access the LCD from there... but I think you have to get the 'assembly' out which means unplugging the LCD cable, webcam and antennae from the motherboard. The reason I think this is because I'm pretty sure the hinges do NOT hold up the LCD on their own, they are attached to brackets by bolting to nuts on the plastic lid.

A 1080p LCD wont work though, its 16:10 so 1920x1200p, or 1680x1050p (a very nice medium resolution).

 

ok, so a 1200p screen I meant.

Yeah, I am pretty sure the hinges don't hold up the screen by themselves. It just seems like to disassemble the screen takes a very hard effort.