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****ATi 3850 & 3870 Ramblings****

williamw11 said:
Looking forward to see what the benchies show. Nvidia need a rival otherwise we're doomed.
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Yeah me too. I'm really gutted though. At the time there was no 8800GT or no HD3850/70 so my 2900Pro seemed a great/not to be missed! buy but I'm lucky if I'll get £130 for the card that I paid £185 delivered for :( (from OCUK so no competitor). Then I'd have to pay another £40-£50 to get this HD3870 so it's not so great for me at the moment but it's just unlucky timing :o.

If these new cards have a good improvement over the 2900 with AA then I might be tempted. If not then I'll keep my card and let it devalue even further. I just got £80 for my X1900XT and PSU and I think my 2900 will go for that second hand (£80 odds) after the release of these cards. I jumped on the wrong bandwagon it seems :mad:.

Gibbo are you under NDA for any benchmarks?. If so then is there anything else you can share with us?.
 
Ok here is my two pennies worth :)

I have tried Nvidia 680i and 650i motherboards and have found the Intel chipset to be more stable in several ways... I currently have a very good P35 board the Asus Blitz Formula and 90% of things woork very well.

Now because i prefer the Intel chipset, SLI is out. Also because i like to run silent the 2900 in xfire was a no go (both noise, performance and power use were the deciding factors). So i have been using an 8800 Ultra Superclocked single card for awhile now.

With the 3870's i think i may get some benifit over the 8800 ultra.
Currently i can just scrape 16k in 3d 2006 with my setup and the ultra very overclocked. Games are very good, except for crysis where frame rates are low at my prefered screen res.

I have therefore ordered 2 of the HIS 3870's with the intention of Xfiring them and hopefully getting 3d2006 of 20k plus.

When these cards arrive, on Thursday, i should be able to give an unbiased opinion between 2x3870's and the 8800 ultra. I am interested in image quality, benchmark speed and real game performance in Crysis etc.

Until Thursday, its all rather finger in the air stuff... but i am optimistic :)
 
Well if you have an Intel chipset with 2x PCI-E then Crossfire is the only way to go surely? Does intel not do SLi?
 
SimonMaltby said:
Ok here is my two pennies worth :)

I have tried Nvidia 680i and 650i motherboards and have found the Intel chipset to be more stable in several ways... I currently have a very good P35 board the Asus Blitz Formula and 90% of things woork very well.

Now because i prefer the Intel chipset, SLI is out. Also because i like to run silent the 2900 in xfire was a no go (both noise, performance and power use were the deciding factors). So i have been using an 8800 Ultra Superclocked single card for awhile now.

With the 3870's i think i may get some benifit over the 8800 ultra.
Currently i can just scrape 16k in 3d 2006 with my setup and the ultra very overclocked. Games are very good, except for crysis where frame rates are low at my prefered screen res.

I have therefore ordered 2 of the HIS 3870's with the intention of Xfiring them and hopefully getting 3d2006 of 20k plus.

When these cards arrive, on Thursday, i should be able to give an unbiased opinion between 2x3870's and the 8800 ultra. I am interested in image quality, benchmark speed and real game performance in Crysis etc.

Until Thursday, its all rather finger in the air stuff... but i am optimistic :)
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Nice one mate.

I have a P5K Delux and depending on your findings might sell the 8800 GT for a couple of these myself :)
 
willhub said:
Well its apparently 2fps slower than the competition,
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Is it, got any links to these reviews, ive only seen that Crysis GPU bench showing it to be 2 frames slower than the GT just in that, and also im well :confused: as well now then, if the 3870 is 2900 performance, and the 2900 gets hammered of the GT, how come the 3870 is only 2 frames slower than the GT, why is the 2900 getting hammered if its the same performance as the 3870, wtf. :confused::confused:

Can't wait for the proper reviews to appear when the NDA's lifted, be great if it is GT performance, some decent competition for Nvidia at last, would also make it GTX performance as well (seen as the GT is), now that would be bang for buck, as the cheapest 3870's are £158.
 
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LoadsaMoney said:
Is it, got any links to these reviews, ive only seen that Crysis GPU bench showing it to be 2 frames slower than the GT just in that, and also im well :confused: as well now then, if the 3870 is 2900 performance, and the 2900 gets hammered of the GT, how come the 3870 is only 2 frames slower than the GT, why is the 2900 getting hammered if its the same performance as the 3870, wtf. :confused::confused:
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Just sit tight for the real benchmarks. I'm sure all will be revealed.
 
Rather tempted to get a couple of these and a nice new X38 board just for a change of scenery.

I've been with the same brand of card for too long now(had an 8800 for almost a year now!), i'm running the risk of being called a fanboi and I can't have that :D

Now if the 3870's just drop into the £140 range that'd be nice.
 
LoadsaMoney said:
Is it, got any links to these reviews, ive only seen that Crysis GPU bench showing it to be 2 frames slower than the GT just in that, and also im well :confused: as well now then, if the 3870 is 2900 performance, and the 2900 gets hammered of the GT, how come the 3870 is only 2 frames slower than the GT, why is the 2900 getting hammered if its the same performance as the 3870, wtf. :confused::confused:

Can't wait for the proper reviews to appear when the NDA's lifted, be great if it is GT performance, some decent competition at last, would also make it GTX performance as well, now that would be bang for buck, as the cheapest 3870's are £158.
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Oh dearrrrrrrrrrrrrr

See if I said that I would have got flamed big time. I'll leave the lol 3870 is crap for when its released and if it performs badly, but it sounds like its possible it might be heading for R600 hype and fake benchys etc.. Then 1 month later everyone will be saying oh its much better with these drivers, first ones were garbage.
 
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willhub said:
Oh dearrrrrrrrrrrrrr

See if I said that I would have got flamed big time.
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Eh, im not flaming you, im just as confused as you, if its only 2 slower than the GT (may as well say its on par really), but the 2900 gets hammered, and is same performance as 3870, well odd. :confused:
 
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Anyone got an estimated performance difference of those of these in SLI on a P35 over an X38? Mainly thinking about the second 16x slot and whether the change from P35 to X38 is worth it if buying two of the 3870XT's (probably more motherboard related but wanted to post here in case anyone had the same question).
 
LoadsaMoney said:
Eh, im not flaming you, im just as confused as you, if its only 2 slower than the GT (may as well say its on par really), but the 2900 gets hammered, and is same performance as 3870, well odd. :confused:
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No, I mean if I said what you said I would get flamed and litrally be called an NV Fanboy by a few people :).
 
HeX said:
Rather tempted to get a couple of these and a nice new X38 board just for a change of scenery.

I've been with the same brand of card for too long now(had an 8800 for almost a year now!), i'm running the risk of being called a fanboi and I can't have that :D

Now if the 3870's just drop into the £140 range that'd be nice.
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Well you will be able to see them in action (hopefully) at the LAn on Friday :D

flibby said:
Anyone got an estimated performance difference of those of these in SLI on a P35 over an X38? Mainly thinking about the second 16x slot and whether the change from P35 to X38 is worth it if buying two of the 3870XT's (probably more motherboard related but wanted to post here in case anyone had the same question).
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The P35 and X38 are both dual x16 PCI-e slots and niether can run SLI, you need an Nvidia chipset to run SLI
I am meeting up with a friend on Friday who has a similar setup to mine but with a BFG 680i and SLIed 8800 GTX KO cards, should be a good comparison - The best 3d2006 i have got with his rig so far is 17.5k (thats a dual core cpu at 4.1 ghz and the 8800 GTX's at stock in SLI)
 
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I don't know why it would be exactly the same as the 2900 performance, I'm sure they could have made tweaks to the architecture aswell as just the die shrink.
Just wish it was Thursday so we could find out... Curse you Old Man Time!
 
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