Forget nVidia - ATi lovers rejoice!

ebilcake · 20 Mar 2008 at 19:21

Tute said:
Still about £100 less, uses less power, and only takes two slots on the motherboard (three or four in total).

I don't see how, the cheapest 3780's I can see cost around £110, three times that is £330 which only 20 cheaper then the 9800GX2, that price doesnt change much when buying 3870X2+3780.

Plus results like these would really put me off.

queamin · 20 Mar 2008 at 19:41

That fine if you run at that res most don't

RavenXXX2 · 20 Mar 2008 at 19:47

XFIRE scales better than SLI, my ass it does, 9600GT's in SLI kick three 3870's in to touch.

LoadsaMoney · 20 Mar 2008 at 19:52

ATi's doing a cracking job here with pricing, will be selling in their droves, fantastic value, well done ATi, price/performance is what its about.

Lightnix · 20 Mar 2008 at 20:03

Whoo, cherry picked benchmark results.

The 3870 XT at the price it's going to be will certainly put pressure on the 9600 GT and to a lesser extent the 8800 GT.

Gerard · 20 Mar 2008 at 20:12

ebilcake said:
I don't see how, the cheapest 3780's I can see cost around £110, three times that is £330 which only 20 cheaper then the 9800GX2, that price doesnt change much when buying 3870X2+3780.

Plus results like these would really put me off.

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/9800gx2launch_031808044035/16682.png[/img
[img]http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/9800gx2launch_031808044035/16676.png[/img
[img]http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/9800gx2launch_031808044035/16678.png[/img[/QUOTE]

Wow what a very common res to game at... Theres probably a handful of people here that have monitors that support that res and this is an enthusiast site. 19-22" are more common, 24" and above not as many people have them.

Gerard · 20 Mar 2008 at 20:14

RavenXXX2 said:
XFIRE scales better than SLI, my ass it does, 9600GT's in SLI kick three 3870's in to touch.

Its been proven plenty of times it does, also when you go above 2 gpu's the performance increase lessens..funny how you fail to mention that but going by your past rhetoric its expected.

Grumpy · 20 Mar 2008 at 20:46

Well I've just installed a 3870 512mb and it is excellent, this price drop can only enhance ATI's hold in the middle sector of the market.

Not everyone is so pre-occupied with trying to screw 1 extra fps out of a card, most just plug and play at a reasonable price.

ebilcake · 20 Mar 2008 at 21:05

Lightnix said:
Whoo, cherry picked benchmark results.

Ahh yes, I missed out the out where 3x3780 wins in Oblivion, how old is that game?

Gerard said:
Wow what a very common res to game at

How else are you ment to test the performace of these cards? 1280*1024? :rolleyes:

marscay · 20 Mar 2008 at 21:18

Richdog said:
Goodness grief, why are you still allowed to post...

lol

q-f-t

hernaldo · 20 Mar 2008 at 21:34

-iceblade^ said:
so, which means you can essentially get 6 3870s for the price of a 9800GX2??? talk about value...

Yeah I can get 6 old mini cars for £500

Their combined top speed is faster than a Formula 1 level car (even the best ones). They cost more than a £1,000,000 each!!!

Whats a saving!!!

hernaldo · 20 Mar 2008 at 21:38

queamin said:
That fine if you run at that res most don't

I'd expect that anyone buying a GX2 is going to be running at least 1920x1200 and possibly the res thats in those benchmarks.

Also the thing a lot of people don't seem to be getting the X2 cards, most the benchmarks on the net are showing the average frame rate the cards achieve which does look impressive. But you take a look at the minimum frame rate and its usually lower than any 8800 varient.

Minimum frame rate is more important than average for smooth gaming, and crossfire by nature has a very high max frame rate, bumping up the avergage.

queamin · 20 Mar 2008 at 22:02

hernaldo said:
I'd expect that anyone buying a GX2 is going to be running at least 1920x1200 and possibly the res thats in those benchmarks.

Also the thing a lot of people don't seem to be getting the X2 cards, most the benchmarks on the net are showing the average frame rate the cards achieve which does look impressive. But you take a look at the minimum frame rate and its usually lower than any 8800 varient.

Minimum frame rate is more important than average for smooth gaming, and crossfire by nature has a very high max frame rate, bumping up the avergage.

yes and they were on about a bug in the drivers with the minimum frame rate and i am not sure if that still the case or not as i not got a card myself.
He wasn't on about 1920 he posted 2560 charts like i said how many game at that or even got a monitor what can run at that res and all i said

That fine if you run at that res most don't

,if not then the charts at 2560 don't mean a thing unless you got a monitor or getting one in the near future that can run at that res.

schumi84 · 20 Mar 2008 at 22:50

I think that is an bigger incentive for me to get a 3870 to add to the X2, might have to think hard about that next month.

fish99 · 20 Mar 2008 at 22:57

ACESHIGH said:
My understanding is that current ATI cards actually draw less power than their Nvidia counterparts.

-iceblade^ said:
pretty good. the cards aren't high power drawing cards like the 2900XT was... the manual says a 550 Watt 38A on 12 v rail for Crossfire, so you ought to go well on your HX if you decide to use it...

Cheers guys

Gerard · 20 Mar 2008 at 23:00

ebilcake said:
How else are you ment to test the performace of these cards? 1280*1024?

30" res is the highest that most cards can support and is obviously going to be the res that hammers the cards the most. The 3870 is clearly a more value orientated card, bang for buck its good value. Also everyone knows sli and crossfire gains start to taper off once more than 2 gpu's are put into the equation, i find that funny how people "suddenly" forget that when theyre trying to find something to support an argument.

-iceblade^ · 20 Mar 2008 at 23:46

fish99 said:
Cheers guys

Welcome

ebilcake · 21 Mar 2008 at 00:19

Gerard said:
30" res is the highest that most cards can support and is obviously going to be the res that hammers the cards the most.

Exactly, and it's at these settings we see how the cards really hold up which is kind of the whole point in using such a high resolution.

Using a lower resolution like 1280*1028 would be comparable to trying to benchmark a CPU at 2560*1600.

Cyber-Mav · 21 Mar 2008 at 00:40

RavenXXX2 said:
XFIRE scales better than SLI, my ass it does, 9600GT's in SLI kick three 3870's in to touch.

have to agree with you on this, everyone has jumped on the bandwagon saying that crossfire scales better than sli, but every review iv seen now shows that a nvidia card such as the 8800gt or 9600gt may be slower than the 3870xt in single card config but when run in dual card configurations the sli setup always pulls ahead.

crossfire does not scale better than sli, it may have back in the x800/x1* days but not any more.

Gerard · 21 Mar 2008 at 00:43

Cyber-Mav said:
but every review iv seen now shows that a nvidia card such as the 8800gt or 9600gt may be slower than the 3870xt in single card config but when run in dual card configurations the sli setup always pulls ahead.

So you're saying the 3870xt is faster than an 8800gt in single card mode? Ive yet to see ANY review that came to that conclusion.