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Hardware AMD's Radeon HD 3870 X2 Benchmarked
Purav Sanghani - January 22, 2008 4:27 PM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 78 comment(s) - last by SlyNine.. on Jan 26 at 5:18 AM

  (Source: FPS Labs)

  (Source: FPS Labs)

  (Source: FPS Labs)
AMD fits two RV670 chips on its upcoming high-end graphics card to compete with NVIDIA's top dogs

AMD recently took another stab at closing on NVIDIA with the announcement of the R680 processor -- an ultra-enthusiast component assured to woo the headlines of even the most ardent reviewers.

The AMD Radeon HD 3870 X2 is two RV670 GPUs "Crossfired" on a single board, and it is AMD's first corporate-sanctioned attempt at a dual GPU card after the failed ATI Rage Fury MAXX back around the turn of the century. Many would claim the Rage MAXX was too little, too late and too expensive.

NVIDIA showcased its dual GPU offerings more recently with two separate chips on dedicated PCBs, sandwiched to form the 7950GX2. The design worked as two of these graphics cards could be used for a Quad SLI setup, but like the Rage Fury MAXX, the cost/performance ratio just didn't attract sales outside of a few hardcore enthusiasts.

AMD aims to improve its lineup with the Radeon HD 3870 X2.  FPS Labs took the chance to put the card to the test against current generation cards.

In short, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 keeps up with the likes of NVIDIA's 8800GT SLI setup and an 8800GTX single-card setup. It does outshine the rest of the cards on the list in the DirectX 10 Call of Juarez  test, but in little else. The HD 3870 X2 received a 3DMark06 score of 13852 while NVIDIA's 8800GT SLI came in at a close second with a score of 13463.  FPS Labs used ATI Catalyst drivers 7.12.

In the end, AMD looks like it has done a better job with the Radeon HD 3870 X2 than it did with the Rage Fury MAXX as the card's price and performance match up with NVIDIA's latest offerings.  With NVIDIA's newest just around the corner AMD has its work cut out for it.

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 is currently listed at various online retailers for around $400, which is more than the retail price of NVIDIA's 8800GT but well under the $500+ price range of the 8800GTX. 

AMD's embargo ends tonight at midnight, but various other publications that hold no NDA schedules can purchase the card and write about it.

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C'mon guys, this is not good enough!
By Amiga500 on 1/22/2008 7:01:23 PM , Rating: 5
Bottom of the first page in the linked article.

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 on the bench today is a very early sample of the card and the drivers even more so. That’s not to say the numbers you’re about to see aren’t accurate, it’s just we wish we could have tested it closer to launch with proper software support.

Its launching tomorrow - so its safe to assume that this review was carried out quite some time ago. Did it even have the CrossfireX driver?

If your going to quote numbers, you HAVE TO qualify them making clear reference to the (immature) drivers used. Anything else would suggest ulterior motives.




By Amiga500 on 1/22/2008 7:05:09 PM , Rating: 2
Found this:

the driver we managed to download from the AMD ftp was an early build of what we believe wound up being Catalyst 7.12.

The last Catalyst release was 8.1 on the 17th of Jan.


RE: C'mon guys, this is not good enough!
By JSK on 1/22/08, Rating: -1
RE: C'mon guys, this is not good enough!
By Amiga500 on 1/22/2008 7:12:56 PM , Rating: 5
I see numbers HERE on the Dailytech article without any sort of qualification.

As I said - if the numbers are going to be mentioned here, and conclusions drawn, the fact that immature drivers were used simply has to be mentioned.

fps mentioned the drivers, twice. The DT article has not.


RE: C'mon guys, this is not good enough!
By James Holden on 1/22/08, Rating: -1
By StevoLincolnite on 1/23/2008 1:50:20 AM , Rating: 5
Most people who would buy a product such as this are Enthusiasts, thus they generally do keep drivers updated.


RE: C'mon guys, this is not good enough!
By jazkat on 1/23/2008 1:46:39 AM , Rating: 4
those numbers are not correct, this is:

for the default 3DMark06 test, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 managed to produce a score of 18,467, whereas the 8800 Ultra only musters 14,197. Push the resolution up to 2,560x1,600 and the Radeon HD 3870 X2 scores 12,578 versus 8,746 for the 8800 Ultra.

here is a proper review using catalyst 8.1 with pictures its to english translation via google enjoy:

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-...


RE: C'mon guys, this is not good enough!
By jazkat on 1/23/2008 1:55:02 PM , Rating: 2
i dont think fps is a fake review but they were usuing dated drivers and i think the score isnt that impressive because 7.12 wasnt really taking advantage of the dual gpu, catalyst 8.1 seems to work massivley better and the funny thing is that its been held back because amd wants to create a driver for better performance, so come next week the performance numbers will probably be even better.
another thing to ad is that 3870 at fps is using gddr3 and im sure ive seen some with gddr4?? not 100% tho.
always check the chinese sites because they usually do the reviews/previews before anyone, they do real reviews not just telling lies to make there site look good.


RE: C'mon guys, this is not good enough!
By jedisoulfly on 1/23/2008 2:18:26 PM , Rating: 2
I wonder if in the future we might see a variant with a 512-bit interface (times 2) and up to 2gb of gddr4 mem. probably over kill but if they build it...


RE: C'mon guys, this is not good enough!
By jazkat on 1/23/2008 3:43:28 PM , Rating: 2
the 512-bit interface was overkill for single core gpu's, i think they will bring back the 512-bit interface when they start using multicore gpu's, i dont think it would help much having it on 2 single core gpu's but for multicore they will probably need that extra bandwidth.

does anyone know if r700 will be another dual gpu or multicore gpu????


By DingieM on 1/24/2008 5:57:35 AM , Rating: 2
Multicore.

Single high-end card will use 4x R700 (RV770 presumably) core architecture. Last I read DAAMIT internally tested RV770, which performance is significanlty higher than the RV670.

Like in CPU scenery, multicore a.k. parallelism is the future.
So, not only parallelism in amounts of shader arrays, but also in core chippery.

This HD3870 X2 is a step-up for DAAMIT, the bridge to multicore. By watching news and articles, I firmly believe DAAMIT is much more advanced at multicore/Crossfire than nVidia...


RE: C'mon guys, this is not good enough!
By oopyseohs on 1/23/2008 5:10:50 PM , Rating: 1
You are not looking at the bigger picture... The test system used at the Chinese site was much more powerful than the one used at FPSLabs. That system had a QX6850 running at 3.6GHz, (not to mention 1600MHz FSB), whereas the FPSLabs system was running a QX6700 at stock (2.66GHz, 1066MHz FSB). The memory in the Chinese system is also significantly faster.

You are quoting 3DMark06 scores that are very dependent on CPU frequency, you don't have to look further than overclocking your own system to see evidence of this.


RE: C'mon guys, this is not good enough!
By jazkat on 1/23/2008 5:23:30 PM , Rating: 2
yes i agree with that but both card were benched @ 3.6, i can see your point tho about a lower clocked system.
but fps should have used a mature driver that works better with the card, im just waiting to see the results with the proper driver for the card it should be even more impressive then.


By oopyseohs on 1/24/2008 1:14:31 AM , Rating: 2
Well, the card was tested on their site on December 21-22, so using Cat 8.1 or later was not an option. The review was held back for a full month due to AMD's NDA, and AMD did not provide them with updated drivers while the card was in FPSLabs' possesion.

I just take offense when you say the numbers are "not correct" because they most certainly are reliable and also in-line with what other websites have produced.

I agree with you that the performance will increase with more mature drivers, and IIRC that point is stated multiple times within the article at FPSLabs.


Looks good, but doesn't sound so good.
By cochy on 1/22/2008 7:29:33 PM , Rating: 3
I'm considering this as an upgrade option. However I must admit to being a little scared off by it's ability to drown out a passing train with it's decibels...




RE: Looks good, but doesn't sound so good.
By mooncancook on 1/23/2008 1:32:22 PM , Rating: 2
i'm not too concerned about its noise level but its size. It looks huge. I don't think it'll fit in any of my cases.


RE: Looks good, but doesn't sound so good.
By 4wardtristan on 1/23/2008 7:21:44 PM , Rating: 2
i only really looked at the first pic after i read your comment...

the card looks friggin massive!!not a chance of fitting in any sub 100$(aud) case...


By jedisoulfly on 1/23/2008 9:15:32 PM , Rating: 2
from the pconline pic its not any longer than the ultra


By feraltoad on 1/23/2008 8:59:42 PM , Rating: 2
Hopefully, Arctic Cooling will come out with a compatible cooler for the dual-chip Atis & Nvidias. I have an Accellero S1 on a 1900xtx and it is very quiet, lets me overclock it, and keeps it cooler than the stock hsf to boot. It's a pity ATi doesn't learn a few tricks from the aftermarket vga cooling manafacturers they'd sell more cards.

Only, if graphics cards really do go multi gpu with the release of D9e and R700, these aftermarket manafacturers are going to have a hard time making a one cooler fits all with multiple gpus in varied places.


Misconceptions abound
By Hieyeck on 1/23/08, Rating: 0
RE: Misconceptions abound
By jedisoulfly on 1/23/2008 1:18:25 PM , Rating: 2
in response to the 2nd part. I'm wondering if the crossfire chipset (p965 and p35 that I can think of) boards with only one pci-e slot would be compatable with this card and allow crossfire? something to look up. might be might not.


RE: Misconceptions abound
By JSK on 1/23/2008 1:24:44 PM , Rating: 5
2. Is wrong. You DO NOT NEED a crossfire motherboard to run this card by itself to full potential.


RE: Misconceptions abound
By jedisoulfly on 1/23/2008 1:26:36 PM , Rating: 2
you are correct I just checked the test setup on the fps review and they used a 680i mobo


Small error
By Jypster on 1/22/2008 6:37:40 PM , Rating: 2
"The HD 3870 X2 received a 3DMark06 score of 13852 while NVIDIA's 8800GT came in at a close second with a score of 13463"

The 8800GT scored 11724
The 8800GT SLI scored 13852




RE: Small error
By teldar on 1/22/2008 6:47:55 PM , Rating: 4
actually, the SLI GT were 13463. The 3870X2 was 13852

T


Regardless
By FITCamaro on 1/23/2008 10:41:10 AM , Rating: 4
$400 for a dual slot card like this, with this kind of performance is unreal. From another review another guy posted, it looks to outshine the 8800Ultra in some places while keeping up in others. And $400 is still cheaper than you can get 2 3870s or 8800GTs for.

I think AMD has a winner of a card here. Especially for people without XFire/SLI motherboards but want that level of performance.




RE: Regardless
By protest the hero on 1/23/2008 2:08:04 PM , Rating: 2
And the 8800GT was supposed to be $225-$250, look what happened to it.


Havent bought ATI since Rage Fury MAXX
By Sunbird on 1/23/2008 11:00:49 AM , Rating: 2
I havent really bought a ATI graphics card since ATI refused to make a XP driver for my Rage Fury MAXX (XP just included a 2 desktop driver). Just a cheap Radeon 9250 with VIVO.

These days their .net requirement still keeps me away, silly ATI/AMD..




By Pneumothorax on 1/23/2008 11:25:29 AM , Rating: 2
I got burned by that fiasco too, so here's hoping AMD/ATI will write drivers for Vista "2.0" for this card.


By vortex222 on 1/24/2008 2:33:07 AM , Rating: 2
you only need .NET for the CCC... i dont bother installing that as i can still configure what i need through other less bloated means.


Apples to Oranges.
By parish on 1/23/2008 1:55:04 PM , Rating: 3
It's interesting to me that they did not compare apples to apples. Why not run the tests using SLI for all the Nvidia cards? Comparing numbers from a dual GPU to a single GPU card is obviously going to be skewed.

Saying "LOOK HOW AWESOME THIS CARD IS!" while comparing it to lesser cards is kinda cheap. I would love to see the results of the GTX, Ultra and 8800GTS were put up against it running SLI.




RE: Apples to Oranges.
By jedisoulfly on 1/23/2008 2:15:01 PM , Rating: 2
I think the they are looking more to the price point. Yes a gtx, ultra or 8800gts(g92) sli setup might be more powerful but at the price point it really is not much of a comparison. The price now competes with some gtx cards and is far less than ultras. the only thing close in price for an sli setup was the 8800gt and even this one card is cheaper in most regards than 2 8800gt cards. Goes back to you get what you paid for.


$270?
By ElFenix on 1/22/2008 5:57:12 PM , Rating: 2
the benchmark link says $449 is the suggested price. where is it $270?




RE: $270?
By bfellow on 1/23/2008 2:13:18 PM , Rating: 2
MSRP is $450. Price gougers will set it to $500-600.


The fine print
By wordsworm on 1/22/2008 8:56:21 PM , Rating: 4
One important detail I didn't know about which would have definitely made me go for ATI/AMD over nVidia is the multi-panel support for x-fire. I'm kicking myself now over that. I wanted to go SLI with 2-4 panels next spring, but because I went nVidia, I can't.

So, in some ways, nVidia sucks regardless of what the benchmarks say. Where is the warning on the bloody package?




Very early drivers also... 7.12's
By JSK on 1/22/2008 6:46:31 PM , Rating: 3
Surely this could be some of the issue thanks in part to quite early drivers. If anything I would expect performance to be better with current drivers and for some of these quirks in the results to be worked out.




Good move for AMD
By dflynchimp on 1/22/2008 7:09:58 PM , Rating: 3
It says that since Vista can support 4-way alternate frame rendering over XP's 2-way limit the scalabiliy for quadfire should be quite decent. If so the at least AMD has a shot for high end performance (not the crown, but enough to be competitive)




You people are missing the point
By Realguns on 1/23/2008 9:35:43 AM , Rating: 3
This is a great card for people like me. I have the Abit P35-E. 1 PCI-e slot. So All I need is this card to crossfire.

Or I can get another motherboard for 200 dollars and another $249 for a 3870 to pair with my existing setup.

Here are the Choices $449 for this card or upgrade my motherboard and add another 3870 ~ $450 to 525 or get an Nvidia Ultra for $500.

And I can sell my 3870 for at least 200 so option 1 is really 249. :)

Way to go AMD/ATi, make everyone think about what to get rather than write you off!




after market coolers
By jedisoulfly on 1/22/2008 8:07:15 PM , Rating: 2
I wonder just how well some after market coolers might fit? sure new water block designs will be needed. It looks like maybe say 2 zalman vf900s just might fit on this together. My vf900 takes up only slightly more room then the stock back bracket on my x1800xt. IT does look like there might be enough space for it between the GPUs. I cant say for any of the smaller coolers but obviously none of the larger coolers would work at all. Also I wonder if the back bracket on that thing is used just for support or is it cooling RAM chips? I'm sure new designs will pop up sooner or later.




Where is SuperTiling
By Slaimus on 1/22/2008 8:21:51 PM , Rating: 2
AFR will always have limitations. When will ATI finally finish SuperTiling that they promised back in the R300 days?




A second opinion...
By Furen on 1/23/2008 1:42:46 AM , Rating: 2
http://www.pconline.com.cn/diy/graphics/reviews/08...

PCOnline uses the catalyst 8.1 driver and performance is a bit better than an single 8800 Ultra. Performance is lower in Crysis (slightly) and Lost planet (r600 sucks at it) but it is competitive or better in the rest of the software used, even when using AA. Power consumption is also like 30W higher but that's not too bad considering the overall speedup.

If these numbers are accurate and reflect performance at launch then I think the ATI team delivered on its Crossfire driver promises.The temperature benchmark is, of course, meaningless, since temperature is affected by the rate of heat removal from the heatsink and the heatsinks on the wo cards cannot be compared to each other. I kind of wish they had done idle power, though.




Octal Crossfire
By murphyslabrat on 1/23/2008 9:57:12 AM , Rating: 2
Ok, for catalyst 9.x, I want driver support for octal crossfire on these things. We have the quad 16x PCI-E slots on the upcoming product line, and we now have dual GPU cards.

Sure, it wouldn't scale very well, but sure as hell it'd make a great marketing gimmick.




A sad and depressing day
By Serafina on 1/22/08, Rating: -1
RE: A sad and depressing day
By Brandon Hill (blog) on 1/22/2008 5:51:24 PM , Rating: 3
I thought you were joking until I actually looked it up. WOW!

He's the new Joker in the Batman movie, right?


RE: A sad and depressing day
By Serafina on 1/22/08, Rating: -1
RE: A sad and depressing day
By akugami on 1/22/2008 6:17:59 PM , Rating: 1
Yes, he's the new Joker. In the previews he looks freaky as heck as the Joker. Sad to see an actor go.

Apparently he OD'd on drugs for those too lazy to look it up. His housekeeper found him in his bedroom naked with pills scattered around him.


RE: A sad and depressing day
By JSK on 1/22/08, Rating: -1
RE: A sad and depressing day
By dflynchimp on 1/22/2008 7:06:37 PM , Rating: 2
eh...that has to be the most morbid and sick joke I've ever heard...unless it's true...still sick...


RE: A sad and depressing day
By JSK on 1/22/08, Rating: -1
RE: A sad and depressing day
By DigitalFreak on 1/22/08, Rating: 0
RE: A sad and depressing day
By JSK on 1/22/2008 9:29:38 PM , Rating: 2
His family and the cops are now saying it wasn't a suicide but a accident. not sure how they are ruling that before an autopsy though.


RE: A sad and depressing day
By Captain Orgazmo on 1/22/2008 9:47:03 PM , Rating: 2
Of course the family is going to try and spin it to look like an accident, but it's pretty hard to accidentally swallow a bottle of sleeping pills (unless you are an imbecile, in which case, I nominate him for a darwin).


RE: A sad and depressing day
By JSK on 1/22/2008 9:48:41 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
TMZ has been contacted by a rep from Heath's family. The cops told the family Heath's death was accidental and there is no evidence to support the buzz that he may have committed suicide.


RE: A sad and depressing day
By dflynchimp on 1/22/2008 10:12:24 PM , Rating: 1
Apparently he spent alot of time prepping for the role of the joker, emersing himself in a pretty crazy lifestyle to get into the mood. Wikipedia has it that he had trouble getting enough sleep during production. Chances are he wanted to get a good dose of sleep in post-production, and simply overdid it.


By therealnickdanger on 1/23/2008 8:33:38 AM , Rating: 2
He should have just used WaitMate.


RE: A sad and depressing day
By murphyslabrat on 1/23/2008 1:32:55 PM , Rating: 2
It wasn't an accident or suicide, that was the Dark Knight's justice in action.


RE: A sad and depressing day
By Proteusza on 1/22/2008 6:01:25 PM , Rating: 2
Yes, very sad to hear that, my sympathies to his family.

The benchmarks for this card were strange - sometimes it stole the show, sometimes it didnt fare so well. I'm guessing at least a few of the games are CPU limited, and a few more have driver issues.

That being said, does anyone know whether it is possible to CrossFire two of these things? Lets assume I have a nuclear power plant to power the rig.


RE: A sad and depressing day
By KingstonU on 1/22/2008 6:31:40 PM , Rating: 3
Actually Expreview show it beating the 8800 Ultra by a significant margin but with only slightly more power consumption: HD3870 X2 platform = 334W, 8800Ultra platform = 303W.

http://en.expreview.com/?p=219#more-219

And yes the death is unexpected and sad.


RE: A sad and depressing day
By cochy on 1/22/2008 6:32:22 PM , Rating: 2
The weird benchmarks probably have to do with the fact that this is a Crossfire solution. Crossfire like SLI does not show linear performance gains across the board. Some games perform much better in Crossfire or SLI while others don't. It's software limited not hardware in this case.


RE: A sad and depressing day
By dragonbif on 1/22/2008 6:49:08 PM , Rating: 2
Yes it is a sad day...

However your "Oh yea, and ATI is screwed" is a little off. The card did vary well in almost all the test but laged a bit on Crysis, but what card dosent? It's min FPS are really good when compared with other card and even beats out the 8800 GTX, GT (2.0) and GTS (2.0) in alot of tests.

"The HD 3870 X2 received a 3DMark06 score of 13852 while NVIDIA's 8800GT came in at a close second with a score of 13463."
Ummmm that should be the score of 8800GT (2)SLI, the single 8800GT got a score of 11724.

The cost of a 3870 X2 is about $449 and the cost of the 8800GT used in the test is $289 so do the math on that. Also the test were done on a motherboard that only has PCIx 16x 1.1a and not 2.0 but if you are looking to upgrade a 16x the info is good to know.

Also yes you can Xfire this card however you can only do 2 cards and not 4 sorry. If you look at the picks you can see the one Xfire conecter on it.


RE: A sad and depressing day
By dflynchimp on 1/22/2008 8:19:38 PM , Rating: 2
two of these is still technically four gpu cores. Quad-fire in every sense.

Anyways, I'm not complaining. The card looks promising, anything to bring competition to the board is good news


RE: A sad and depressing day
By dragonbif on 1/22/2008 9:46:44 PM , Rating: 3
Also from what I have seen over at AMD and other places if the manufacturer wants to they can put 2Gig of memory on these things and there are rumors that they may do just that. That would be something to see, for some computers there would be 4Gig of memory on their GPU's and only 2G of system lol.


RE: A sad and depressing day
By RjBass on 1/22/2008 11:34:57 PM , Rating: 2
Well then I guess it would be even on mine. I have 4gb of DDR2 800 in my XP Pro x64 rig.


RE: A sad and depressing day
By jedisoulfly on 1/23/2008 1:13:00 PM , Rating: 2
the systems specs on the FPS page say vista only


RE: A sad and depressing day
By ajfink on 1/22/2008 11:41:00 PM , Rating: 2
That sounds like overkill.


RE: A sad and depressing day
By ajfink on 1/22/2008 11:41:28 PM , Rating: 2
The 2GB of vram, that is.


RE: A sad and depressing day
By murphyslabrat on 1/23/2008 1:39:41 PM , Rating: 2
No, for some companies, it would be a money-saver. With some CAD applications, among other things, the 2GB actually helps. In this case, the company would be paying out $500-$700 for a dual GPU setup, instead of $2000-$2700 for a single GPU with 2GB.


RE: A sad and depressing day
By s12033722 on 1/23/2008 12:32:52 PM , Rating: 3
That would be a really bad idea - 2 GB of RAM on your videocard would limit you to 2 GB of system RAM on a 32-bit machine. 2x 2GB cards and you could only use it on 64-bit OSs. The way Windows uses the upper memory area to address VRAM is annoying.


Too little, too late.........
By kilkennycat on 1/23/08, Rating: -1
RE: Too little, too late.........
By DingieM on 1/23/2008 4:10:27 AM , Rating: 3
Hello...wake up dude!

The next gen graphics *core* chip RV770 of DAAMIT is already taped out and put to the test initially. Initial performance scales it 50+ % above a single RV670 chip used in the HD 3870. Now the next high end *card* is going to use 4 of those RV770 babies. Mainstream will use 2 for example.
Its not to know if they are going to press 2 RV770 into one chip package or not but that is minor detail.
The core RV770 is much improved on the texture processing work, its got DX10.1 which has 1 major advantage in lighting and speed up of rendering with shader use.
In potential, DAAMIT can reach 2 teraflops with this new high end card. They all put it to multicore hence the importance of HD3870 X2.

And by the way, DAAMIT overtook nVidia on the thermal characteristics. Long time nVidia had the upper hand, now they are second place. And the gap has widened with the HD 3870 X2...its thermal output stays way cooler than the nVidia offering that will follow.
Almost all parts on the latest DAAMIT GPU cards are digital, that can not be said with nVidia cards. Digital is the way to go. Very fast overclocking and downclocking i.e. adaption to power usage.

Don't bet too much on nVidia this time. They made a good G80 generation, but that was *history*.


RE: Too little, too late.........
By bfellow on 1/23/2008 2:02:33 PM , Rating: 2
Thermal output you mean ATI has hotter temps and higher wattage?

2900XT was hotter than 8800GTX
I have a 3870 and its also hotter than 8800GT. I get max temps of 90C due to weak fan BIOS.


By weskurtz0081 on 1/23/2008 5:54:25 PM , Rating: 2
Hold on a sec here. You are saying that the glitch in the bios causing the fan to run under 30% under load means the card uses more power? I am sorry, but that makes no sense. Any card with a fan running at 30% or lower at full load will run hot, trying doing it with your GT.

The facts are, under full 3D load the 3870 uses a FEW more watts than the GT, and less than all the other Nvidia 88XX cards. Under full 2D load it uses less power than almost ALL of the Nvidia 88XX cards from the 8600GT up, and it also uses less power idling than any Nvidia based card from the 8600GT up.

So, while the 2900 was a power hog, the 3870 has pretty much even the field if not turned the tables on Nvidia.


By weskurtz0081 on 1/23/2008 5:54:42 PM , Rating: 2
Hold on a sec here. You are saying that the glitch in the bios causing the fan to run under 30% under load means the card uses more power? I am sorry, but that makes no sense. Any card with a fan running at 30% or lower at full load will run hot, trying doing it with your GT.

The facts are, under full 3D load the 3870 uses a FEW more watts than the GT, and less than all the other Nvidia 88XX cards. Under full 2D load it uses less power than almost ALL of the Nvidia 88XX cards from the 8600GT up, and it also uses less power idling than any Nvidia based card from the 8600GT up.

So, while the 2900 was a power hog, the 3870 has pretty much even the field if not turned the tables on Nvidia.


RE: Too little, too late.........
By parish on 1/23/2008 2:14:02 PM , Rating: 1
Don't bet on Nvidia? I guess you don't get around the net much? I doubt that anyone over at NV got up and said "Oh no were doomed!" when word leaked about this new ATI card. I suspect it was just the opposite and they held a meeting and decided to push forward with yet another product to kill ATI. Only the next few months will tell for sure, but I will be betting on Nvidia based on history.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/01/05/exclusive_n...


By jedisoulfly on 1/23/2008 4:11:45 PM , Rating: 2
Although I don't doubt the new NV offerings will "most likely" be better than ATI's. Pictures don't mean anything without specs and benchmarks to go with them. Also the 7959GX2 card was not SLI in one card so I wonder if since this is basically the same setup (2 PCBs sandwiched)if the 9800GX2 will be either. I have no idea though I'm only speculating. The display port and HDMI ports look promising though.


RE: Too little, too late.........
By just4U on 1/23/2008 9:32:45 PM , Rating: 2
I find this part of the thread rather funny. While I am not totally sold on either Nvidia's or Ati's X2 offerings .. the to little to late suggestion is interesting.

The 3850 - 70 lineup is cause for major concern with Nvidia. While those Red Hot GT's have been flying off the shelves their competing product from ATI has also been hard to keep in stock and if I am not mistaken there was accually more supply of those cards then the GT.

You can't count either company out. Not when they are realeasing good products. Ati had no answer to the 8800 line back last january. To Nvidia's credit they released one helluva GPU. Slightly different story this winter as both companies are nearly at par performance wise and "BOTH" have very nice cards on the market..

While I don't have a preference in either GPU maker.. Both companies have impressed the hell out of me lately. So much so that I've pulled out my wallet and ponied up on some of the latest GPU's.....

By BOTH companies!


RE: Too little, too late.........
By SlyNine on 1/26/2008 5:18:58 AM , Rating: 2
I remember when the 9700PRO came out , It took how long for Nvidia to catch up. In stressful situations the 9700pro could beat the TI4600 by around 4x or more. I dont think the 8800GTX bested the 1950XT by quiet as much.

Somehow Nvidia survived.


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