just arrived..my personal review of 3870x2

Buckster · 25 Feb 2008 at 00:07

must be surely ?

I was running 4xFSAA and 16xAF at 1900x1200 for the Witcher - with solid 40 odd fps

vs my GTS which was struggling with x2

no way it can be doing that good performance with only one GPU could it ??

ozzaman · 25 Feb 2008 at 00:52

Well the second Riva tuner graph shows the core as idle, with a lower temp too. I reckon ive got the right program + config, so is there anything i should be looking for when i check next time?

pieman109 · 25 Feb 2008 at 05:39

Can someone post a link to, or even email me, a version of this AMDGPU overclocking app that actually works and doesn't fail on me whenever I try to overclock by even 1 mhz. I've tried a couple and get this failure thing all the time. Also, I assume this proggie overclocks both core and sets of memory, I've read that rivatuner only doe one set of hardware.
Cheers

ozzaman · 25 Feb 2008 at 19:11

I think im getting powerplay issues in the Witcher, the frame rate drops sharply etc. Is there a bios fix for this, because i can find one for the 3870, but not the X2.

Buckster · 25 Feb 2008 at 19:16

wow - setting fan to manual makes quite a difference

set to 35% - which is just as good as silent in my PC

idle GPU temp went from 61C to 43C !

quite a difference !

Buckster · 25 Feb 2008 at 19:32

got a problem with setting up Rivatuner to do automatic fan settings ....

so I've set up a profile for Fan @ 35, 45, and 55% ... fine

but Fixed fan only works on one GPU ... if you change it on the other it makes no difference to the fan speed.

fine - but this means that you can only vary the fan speed dependant on one GPU temp,not the other, so this means that one GPU could be getting very hot, and the fan will still be fixed at lowest setting

any ideas please ?

thanks, Mark.

perox · 25 Feb 2008 at 19:33

Yeah I noticed that as well. 35% is too loud for me though and anything lower isn't really worth it.

Renegade87 · 25 Feb 2008 at 19:49

HighlandeR said:
Am considering the gecube 3870X2 but how noisy are you guys finding it in idle/windows ?

Is it similar to a GTX noise level ?

Cheers

idle its slient id day, tbh i think the fan is barely on and if it is about 5% speed. Even underload its pretty quiet consdiering there are 2 cores in there

ademcg · 25 Feb 2008 at 19:49

How do these cards fair in COD4?
I will be gaming in 1680 x 1050 with as much detail as possible.
Will it be better than my current 8800GT ?

Buckster · 25 Feb 2008 at 19:50

very very quite in auto mode

just changed my fan to 45% for gaming - which whillst you can hear is not annoying

difference in load temp

from 81C

to 54C !!

eek

perox · 25 Feb 2008 at 19:56

ademcg said:
How do these cards fair in COD4?
I will be gaming in 1680 x 1050 with as much detail as possible.
Will it be better than my current 8800GT ?

I'm finding the X2 better than my GTX in CoD4 for sure. There is a driver bug at the moment which makes the card go into low power 3D clocks with CoD4 when your first load a level. Once you've been in game for about 10 seconds it will go into high power 3D. This only happens in SP for me though, its not an issues in MP.

But yea, it's a step up from a GTX so it should be even better from a GT.

Coolasmoo · 25 Feb 2008 at 21:09

perox said:
I'm finding the X2 better than my GTX in CoD4 for sure. .

I have a 8800GTX in another system and they both run 1920x1200

Cod 4 runs the same in both systems, but the grass levels slow down more with my X2 than the GTX, This maybe drivers or the 2D bug but time will tell i suppose

Gerard · 25 Feb 2008 at 21:11

The only time i see the 2d bug (in cod4) is when im o the ghille mission and the the snipers opening a door to that church thing after you get past the first couple of guys. Momentary thing though lasts maybe 6-7 seconds.

ozzaman · 25 Feb 2008 at 21:53

I think i remember also, that when i had the X2 overclocked via CCC to the max that it would allow, the 2d bug popped a lot more often especially in Crysis.

Buckster · 25 Feb 2008 at 21:55

could it be a heat thing ?

perox · 25 Feb 2008 at 22:07

Well the bog level I noticed to be particularly demanding where you are fighting in the actual bog and my GTX used to drop to around 30-35fps where the X2 stays at around 40-45fps. That's one of the main areas where I notice the card to be a lot faster.

ozzaman · 27 Feb 2008 at 00:10

Just thought i would ask quickly, does that german bios editor basically fix the powerplay issues, i cant seem to find the link that says one way or the other. Anybody have experience of it?

EDIT: I think i read somewhere that rivatuner can fix the issue as well, is this true?

HeX · 27 Feb 2008 at 09:24

ozzaman said:
Just thought i would ask quickly, does that german bios editor basically fix the powerplay issues, i cant seem to find the link that says one way or the other. Anybody have experience of it?

EDIT: I think i read somewhere that rivatuner can fix the issue as well, is this true?

I used the bios editor to set my low power 3d clocks to the same as my full 3d clocks using that bios editor then reflashed my card, and it worked a treat, pretty much every problem I was having with the card.

Also took the opportunity to flash the card to 850/950 stock which was nice

spicypixel · 27 Feb 2008 at 10:06

ozzaman said:
Just thought i would ask quickly, does that german bios editor basically fix the powerplay issues, i cant seem to find the link that says one way or the other. Anybody have experience of it?

EDIT: I think i read somewhere that rivatuner can fix the issue as well, is this true?

Rivatuner can fix it by setting a fixed value clock for the card and stopping it from scaling down.

HeX · 27 Feb 2008 at 10:44

Only problem with Rivatuner is that it also sets *** high clock in 2d mode as well so the card gets toasty and noisy. Also I found it a bit hit and miss with clocking the second GPU.

Sometimes it would clock both, othertimes it seemed to just clock one.

Or one core in 2d mode would be 300Mhz and the other 825...

Hence I just bit the bullet and went for the BIOS flash.