The review pits the 3870 in a head to head matchup with the 8800 GT - guess who wins.. ah crap

Quoted from the review at Legion Hardware:

"Well there you have it, another disappointing release from AMD/ATI. Although they have managed to undercut Nvidia by reducing the cost of the Radeon HD 3870 by around 12% when compared to the GeForce 8800 GT, we found that on average it was 22% slower. So then in terms of value the GeForce 8800 GT looks to preserve its position as the best value high-end graphics card ever released. The GeForce 8800 GT has proven to be a strong performer, as has the entire GeForce 8800 series ever since it was first introduced over a year ago now."

Here is the link:

http://www.legionhardware.com/docu [...] id=703&p=0

Third time today... BAD DRIVERS

This is so disappointing a result. I really held out hope for this card.

Maybe, maybe not. The ugly part is, once AMD gets the driver fixed and closes in on the competition, said competition releases something better, faster, cheaper.

The real deal I want to see is the quadfire vs. tri-SLI.For the folks who wants just the one card,its a toss up between the 8800gt and the 3870.The gt is good for right now,but I do believe the 3870 will be faster with a few mature drivers.However for the people how want more than just one card or thinking about a GTX or GTX SLI.I want to see if AMD mate the 256 bus's to form x4 bandwith or smoething really crazy.They have been hyping the spider platform and thats what I want to see.

why couldnt the stupid 3870 outperform the 8800gt? bastards cant learn to write drivers.
i know people who have worked at ATi and they tell me that they dont treat employees well, not surprising why the drivers are ALWAYS bad. I'm primarily a Linux user, and windows is nothing more than a game console to me, having said this, ATi doesnt even acknowledge linux exists. there excuse for linux drivers are so bad, that people on linux use other 3rd party open source drivers instead.

nvidia is the most deceitful company i've seen (2nd is Creative), with all this under cutting quality to hit fps, but they can really write DAMN GOOD DRIVERS. On every platform too.

i'm so lost in the middle of all this at the moment. ughh i was like 2 clicks away from buying 2x 8800gt's and then change my mind.

if your reading this ATi, give us a card that out does the 8800gt by 25% for 25% less.
and if your reading this Nvidia, stop fuking hot wiring your drivers to produce higher frame rates

Cruise, you know what they say, "damned if you do, damned if you don't".

You can always buy a Matrix video card.

only heard that from House

What this really boils down to is ATi basically charging you a premium up-front, and improving performance later with drivers. On the other hand, with the notable exception of Vista drivers, Nvidia's almost always has solid, reliable performance out of the gate, and lesser, incremental improvements in later driver releases. This fact is what makes me hesitant about purchasing any ATi products. I think they should be coming out with better drivers AT RELEASE, instead of 5-7 months later. 'Cause if big N can do it, there's no reason that they (ATi) can't, except being lazy and/or stupid.

I just want to have Legion show me where these GT cards are that are only 12% more than their expected $240 for the HD3870?

The link on their page to the $269.99 Amazon GT says "This card not yet available", their next price is over $300.
Which make it a 25+% price premium for 22% performance.
So it seems well priced for now, until the GT comes down in price.

some other reviews:
http://www.hothardware.com/article [...] 0/?page=12

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=482

Realize that theres a flip flop of sorts here as well. The 880gt is HOT running. Limits the OC potential. Of course you CAN put a after market cooler on it, tho thats just MORE money. Itll be interesting to see an optimised driver for this card. Oh, the 8800gt is LOUD too

Isn't cat 7.11 due out soon, it's half way through november already?

Usually more towards the end of month. Maybe itll coincide with the 38xx release?

Interesting development in the Legionhardware review, it seems like there's some fudgey numbers in there;

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=44484



Perhaps the title of this thread is referring to the review and not the card.

This is a CONTINUOUS retarded move from ATI, which as a business owner p!$$3$ me off.

AMD: "So here's what we do. Make a competitive gfx card, but rush it to market before we sort the drivers out. Then... once news has filtered down that its slower than the competition, and generally has a bad name, we can release the best drivers making the card truly competitive!"

U are a fkn GENIUS Hector!

Not even animals are such dumf*ks!
If ur dog jumps on ur couch and u belt it, it only does it 2-3 times, then it goes "hmmm i go there i get pain, so lets not go there"

I was thinking of AMD's fab process last night. Its like renting vs buying a house. Sure if u rent ur ahead for awhile. Once u get a mortgage down a little its great. Rent just goes up and up.

Guess whos renting.

uhhh...AMD has their own fabs for producing their cpu's, i think ATI does/did have their own fab at one time...i could be wrong.. BUT how many smart people do you see buy a new house when their facing bankruptcy if they dont stop bleeding hundreds of millions of $$?.
i do kind of agree with you tho to see the balance sheet even out would take many a year you know building a fab, buying equipment,hiring employees, re fitting equipment etc.
AMD needs short term solutions to their money crisis way more then something that would take many years to yield a decent return for them. Then again why not just pay them money to make it then AMD/ATI dont have to worry about a whole heap of things other then is it going to be on time? IMHO

Just throwing in my own 2 cents I guess, but I am finding it hard to believe such sweeping differences between reviewers of these new cards. Case in point:

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/34861/118/

Seems nothing but praise from TG here. And the previous review calls these new cards another huge AMD dissapointment. Personally I think all these people who are so eager to get benchies out, are making some critical errors which are fudging numbers.

Just my 2 cents.

Wait till the 8800GT's start failing because NVIDIA clocked them way past sane ... to rain on ATI's parade.

Wait till some of the overmarket cooling systems start getting bolted on RV670 ... since it is on a cooler running process I'd imagine it should overclock well.

The TGDaily benchies were obviously put together quickly.

Lets see what the overclocker community can do with it first.

I never run any card I have stock ... except the 7900GT I bought once ... couldn't overclock that 10 Meg.

Bet the 8800GT is in the same boat as the RV600's - too hot for single slot cooling like the RV600 was too hot for Satan.

Don't get me wrong ... I like NVIDIA cards ... a move from 7 series to ATI or 8 series NV cards is something I am still chewing over.

Thoughts anyone?

Ok. So I have read and skimmed alot of the posted reviews on these 2 cards and personally came up with a few conclusions.... Fell free to chime in and set me