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** The Official ATI 3870/3850 512/256mb Review/Overclocking Thread **

Gerard said:
I had 2 2900's and never had to install even one of the hdmi doofer dangles.
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Lol well put!

I am asking this question because when I owned a single HD2900XT I had a few issues with that HDMI woggermabob, even when I choose not to install it? (there was a yellow unknown device in device manager if I didn't install it).

I really like the looks of the HD3850 and HD3870 but I kinda am put off buying any because I don't understand what the heck that HDMI sound card is doing on a graphics card. I just saw an nVidia 8800GT from Zotak that has it onboard too?
 
Big.Wayne said:
I really like the looks of the HD3850 and HD3870 but I kinda am put off buying any because I don't understand what the heck that HDMI sound card is doing on a graphics card. I just saw an nVidia 8800GT from Zotak that has it onboard too?
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whats not to understand, less cabling, sound and video through the HDMI cable
 
Big.Wayne said:
Thats a huge score! I should imagine any game that supports crossfire will fly! :cool:
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just did the bench test in F.E.A.R. with crossfire and got 107fps avg 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF soft shadows on & max settings in CCC. the max fps was over 400 ;)

single card gets 59fps so the crossfire scaling is pretty nice in this one.

my single GTX used to get about 65 with a max o/c not sure if shadows were on or off...a nice jump i would say though. :)
 
Whats the point really? Nice to stick your pc into your downstairs TV and have a laugh, but then you think, why limit the sound to just the tv? You'll have to take an hdmi output from the tv to a receiver to get decent sound, if you have enough money to already have an hdmi receiver that is!

Matthew
 
marscay said:
just did the bench test in F.E.A.R. with crossfire and got 107fps avg 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF soft shadows on & max settings in CCC. the max fps was over 400 ;)

single card gets 59fps so the crossfire scaling is pretty nice in this one.

my single GTX used to get about 65 with a max o/c not sure if shadows were on or off...a nice jump i would say though. :)
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what clocks you running on gpu's ?, that quad @ 3.8 will also be helping a fair bit, cant deny it makes my Ultra SLi seem a bit weak in comparison

in fact my Shuttle x-fire does that as well tbh, I reckon 16.5-17k if I could get a quad @ 3.6 in there, thats only 2k shy of my main rig and considerably cheaper
 
marscay said:
just did the bench test in F.E.A.R. with crossfire and got 107fps avg 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF soft shadows on & max settings in CCC. the max fps was over 400 ;)

single card gets 59fps so the crossfire scaling is pretty nice in this one.
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Well if you pay £300+ you expect to get uber frame rates.

I wonder what the noise level of those two cards under load is like? I read the new cards use half the juice of the HD2900XT and run cooler? dunno if the actual cooler is a better design?

Looks like CROSSFIRE HD3870's are the most affordable 'Extreme' high end gaming setup now?
 
Stephen B said:
what clocks you running on gpu's ?, that quad @ 3.8 will also be helping a fair bit, cant deny it makes my Ultra SLi seem a bit weak in comparison

in fact my Shuttle x-fire does that as well tbh, I reckon 16.5-17k if I could get a quad @ 3.6 in there, thats only 2k shy of my main rig and considerably cheaper
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these cards really fly with some horsepower behind them and a little bit more clock.

if we ever get to bump the volts through bios on these things they will pull some crazy numbers for the price.

mine are running 850/1260 so far, can't change the fan rpm on the 2nd card yet though so that's holding them back from a little more i'd say. haven't really tried maxing out the memory yet.
 
Big.Wayne said:
Well if you pay £300+ you expect to get uber frame rates.

I wonder what the noise level of those two cards under load is like? I read the new cards use half the juice of the HD2900XT and run cooler? dunno if the actual cooler is a better design?

Looks like CROSSFIRE HD3870's are the most affordable 'Extreme' high end gaming setup now?
Click to expand...

fan speed to 40% keeps the first card to ~60c-65c under load @ 850 core, pretty much the same noise as default ...ie only when it hits 45-50%+ you start to notice it.

can't change the fan on the 2nd card yet though which is a bummer, it gets to about 80c under load @ same clocks of 850.
 
OOO.. my new 3870 has been sent today... Can't wait to get clocking (delayed though as it's a crimbo present :D)

Matthew
 
Stephen B said:
its simply a neater option if someone is hooking up to a big telly or projector, which is becomming more common these days.
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Right I see, crikey I know two people who have a media PC connected to a projector, one uses D-Sub and the other uses DVI-D, both use Toslink Optical out for audio.

Will have to look into it a bit more but so far I don't get it. I'm sure if the HD3850/3870 'didn't' have this feature? I would have bought one but as already mentioned it does seem an unneeded feature and I personally had a few problems with it while using an HD2900XT, whether I installed the driver or not.

I hope it doesn't become a common feature and they drop it soon.
 
marscay said:
can't change the fan on the 2nd card yet though which is a bummer, it gets to about 80c under load @ same clocks of 850.
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Oh I see, you can't get full access to both cards while they are configured in CROSSFIRE? So how do you overclock the cards separately?
 
you can overclock both cards from CCC and see temps etc but you can't control the fan through that.

atm the only way to change fans speed is through rivatuner but you can only do the first card.

anyone with 2900 or x1900/x1800 crossfire - can rivatuner work with both your cards?
 
I use ati tools and find that better than rivatuner - I can save profiles and use them whereas with rivatuner it doesn't work.

I'm happy with ati tools :P
 
with these cards, if you ditch stock cooler and unless you have re-flashed and volt modded, (i cant comment on xfire) the CCC seems a capable clocking tool - 860 bug is within ccc range,and most mem runs out before CCC

also, anyone know why i might be getting a healthy 5063 in the SM3.0 tests, but a sorry 2988 in SM2.0? (overall 9066)
 
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