ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 - Fastest Yet! - tomshardware.com

bidermaier · 29 Jan 2008 at 11:16

This card seems really cheap to make, it is a couple of 3850 in the same pcb. They can lower the price a lot and hurt nvidia really hard, even if the gx2 is faster.

It is funny to see how good the 3xxx series are going considering they are based on the awful 2900

queamin · 29 Jan 2008 at 11:24

It is not the same pcb it has more layers

Bleek · 29 Jan 2008 at 11:38

The price performance ratio of the new 3870X2 walks all over nVidia.

This is only positive for consumers, keep it up AMD/ATI!

LoadsaMoney · 29 Jan 2008 at 11:55

bidermaier said:
This card seems really cheap to make, it is a couple of 3850 in the same pcb.

Think you'll find its a couple of 3870's, the clue is in the name.

prosk · 29 Jan 2008 at 12:17

I don't get it. The reviews I looked at (anand and guru3d) show sli>crossfire. Isn't crossfire scalability supposed to be better? I was pretty set on going for dual graphics again, but these reviews put me off. A gts is more than enough.

schumi84 · 29 Jan 2008 at 12:19

Speed wise the SLi is showing faster than xfire, however % increase from having single card to going to dual card, xfire scales better.

LoadsaMoney · 29 Jan 2008 at 12:19

Just found Firingsquads review is up, and its not to flattering imo.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/amd_radeon_hd_3870_x2_performance/

Only 3 games the Ultra is getting hammered in by about 10fps, in some of the others the X2 is hammered of the Ultra by about 10fps, and in the rest the X2 is beating the Ultra by about 1-3fps.

Gerard · 29 Jan 2008 at 12:26

LoadsaMoney said:
Just found Firingsquads review is up, and its not to flattering imo.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/amd_radeon_hd_3870_x2_performance/

Only 3 games the Ultra is getting hammered in by 10fps or so, in some of the others the X2 is hammered of the Ultra by 10fps or so, and in the rest the X2 is beating the Ultra by about 1-3fps.

Another review with random rsults that don't tally with many other reviews. :confused:

prosk · 29 Jan 2008 at 12:27

schumi84 said:
Speed wise the SLi is showing faster than xfire, however % increase from having single card to going to dual card, xfire scales better.

I see, that makes sense. I didn't figure out the percentage increase for the respective setups.

MystaEB · 29 Jan 2008 at 12:35

Gerard said:
Another review with random rsults that don't tally with many other reviews.

Because they all use different settings and resolutions for their tests? I've compared the reviews from HardOCP, Toms Hardware, AnandTech and FiringSquad and the results all seems fairly compliant with each other when you take into consideration they are all using different test setups with completely different settings.

Gerard · 29 Jan 2008 at 12:39

MystaEB said:
Because they all use different settings and resolutions for their tests? I've compared the reviews from HardOCP, Toms Hardware, AnandTech and FiringSquad and the results all seems fairly compliant with each other when you take into consideration they are all using different test setups with completely different settings.

They also test differently with anandtech using recorded demos and hardocp playing through levels in games numerous times.

jrodga2k5 · 29 Jan 2008 at 12:40

Catalyst 8.2 will be interesting since it will come out before the 9800GX2 is released so we will see if ATi can use the next couple of weeks to hammer out a few of those internal Crossfire problems! I do think its a good start though for the card.

Gerard · 29 Jan 2008 at 12:40

Theres meant to be a driver released on the 30th from what ive read.

queamin · 29 Jan 2008 at 12:40

wait until a few have got them on this forum and tested in games on their pc's and see what they get you get a better picture of the card.

queamin · 29 Jan 2008 at 12:41

Gerard said:
They also test differently with anandtech using recorded demos and hardocp playing through levels in games numerous times.

agreed, one spends a afternoon and one spends about a week doing a review

MystaEB · 29 Jan 2008 at 12:46

Gerard said:
They also test differently with anandtech using recorded demos and hardocp playing through levels in games numerous times.

Yeah, as always you just have to take reviews with a pinch of salt and hope for the best.

queamin · 29 Jan 2008 at 12:48

LoadsaMoney said:
He's looking at the reviews with the AA on, like in some of the tests in this one.

Id be looking at that to tbh, if i was buying a dual card, id want it faster than a single card with some AA on as well.

depends on price

pieman109 · 29 Jan 2008 at 12:48

queamin said:
wait until a few have got them on this forum and tested in games on their pc's and see what they get you get a better picture of the card.

Gotta agree with that. Lotsa ppl here have similar systems for a start so it'll level the palying field a bit, also (if they're willing to) they can check certain settings, resoultions, games, etc for others here to get a far better "real world" verdict on these cards

Gerard · 29 Jan 2008 at 13:05

Well this is just friggin peachy, checked on my parcel status and all i see is its arrived at their depot, call them up to find whats up and they say they can't find it but will contact me when they do, either way its not going to be delivered today.

Yet again citylink and their incompetant service, next day delivery guaranteed my ass, they either lose your package or the prat driving the van can't be bothered doing his job and leaves it untill another day. :mad:

I must have had a premonition yesterday when i posted this:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10987249&postcount=642 :rolleyes:

wolvers · 29 Jan 2008 at 13:19

Just read this in the bit-tech review. Interesting comment about developer relations.

Seems they're available for pre-order for 270 squids too. :rolleyes:

I think I'd buy a GTS 512 looking at all the results and the price.

"While the Radeon HD 3870 X2 has the potential to become one of, if not the fastest graphics cards released to date, it’s not something that I can recommend over Nvidia’s current flagship GeForce 8800 Ultra and 8800 GTX cards because it’s only as strong as its weakest link. Sadly for AMD’s graphics product group, that means there’s a long road ahead with driver support for this beast because, even from just looking at current releases, I believe there will be scenarios in the future where CrossFire isn’t as well supported as it probably should be.

There are many ways to look at this and I’m sure the conspiracy theorists are hard at work. Are the developers locking AMD out because they’re working closely with Intel’s and Nvidia’s developer relations teams? Is AMD’s developer relations team helping developers to implement proper CrossFire support? Or is there something else that I’ve missed completely? I honestly don’t know what the situation is, but there are developers which I’ve spoken to in confidence that haven’t heard from AMD for a while.

Ultimately, the long term success of this card is going to come down to AMD’s driver and developer relations teams and how well it gets supported in this year’s crop of new releases. I’m all for faster graphics cards using multiple GPUs, but there needs to be transparency for the gamer to really harness a multi-GPU card’s potential. In the scenarios where the support is there, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 performs very well and it can be looked upon as a match for Nvidia’s now nine-month old GeForce 8800 Ultra, but in the scenarios where there isn’t support, you end up with a card that isn’t even as fast as something that’s nearly half the price."