Two Sapphire Atomic HD 3870s or One ATI 3870 X2?

[Seraphic]

Hi,

So, which is the better buy? Two Sapphire Atomic HD 3870s in PCIe 2.0 Crossfire or one ATI 3870 X2?

The Atomic comes overclocked at 825Mhz, a great bundle, and the card is single slot, so less heat. Looking at the VGA Charts, it looks like a 825Mhz 3870 is performs near a GTX Ultra (at least in DOOM3), so how would two Atomics perform vs an Ultra?
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=1060&model2=853&chart=288

As for the 3780 X2, there are no benchmarks as of yet (at least that I have seen), but is there a chance that one 3780 X2s could blow two Atomics in crossfire away? The 3780 X2 also is a dual slot card and seems to need a 6pin+8pin, so more heat and needs more power.

There is talk that 3780 X2 will cost $400 to $500, and the Atomics will cost about $260 each. But, this is not taking into account retail markups and price gouging.

What do you think?

 

[Loser777]

I would assume the 3870 X2 would scale better since it's two cores on one PCB though I don't know what a difference that would make.
However, I would wait anyway, maybe some price drops for 3870's after it's released.

 

[badgtx1969]

There is a thread about the benchies that are 'leaking' out:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/247760-33-radeon-3870-17414-3dmarks

The 3870x2 may be better than 2 crossfired 3870s - but these benchmarks may be faked or with unreleased drivers.

 

[bfellow]

3dmark scores are not the best indication if the card is better than the next similar performing one.

 

[vochtige]

when does the 3870 come on the market?

 

[miltoxbeyond]

Single slot cooler does not mean less heat... double slot cooler usually throws the heat outside the case, meaning less heat within the case itself.

Other than that. The X2 would be a better bet, because if crossfire indeed scales well you could get another X2 to do a four "gpu" crossfire config in two slots.

 

[zmanszmail]

does anyone have answers to these.

first does anyone know what happened to the saphire 3870 Model# 100215L the dual slot? newegg got rid of it.

second could you mix one of the new atomics with the first generation 3870?

lastly can you mix manufacturers with the 3870s?

 

[Ilander]

Yes, you can do that. ATI only requires (atm) that you crossfire the same gpu...and there are hints of that going out the window in the near future.

 

[Seraphic]

Does the 3870 scale 1:1? Meaning, is the double the performance when using two in crossfire PCIe 2.0 lanes? If yes, does it perform near a 8800 GTX/Ultra?

 

[Kohlhagen]

I think our GPUs are CPU limited, We can't even use up the PCI-E 2.0 lane.. But 2 of those would make a good run for the money.. Not too much better than dual 8800GTXs.. But we need Toms hardware to get a nice Quadcore @ 4+ghz too give these things the juice to push some nice benchmarks out..