3800X2 or 9800X2?

Hi, again...
I'm now here to ask you what is the best buy, paying attention to perfomance and price...

It's best to buy a HD3870X2 or an nVidia 9800X2?

I know that none of them are available for now but I'll buy one of them so, I want your opinion...

Thanks a lot...

^Agreed.

Try $550 or more initially. $450 would be sweet though.

considering the rumors says the 9800X2 will be roughtly the same price as trhe ultra.. I find it insane.. ( 600 USD )

I'm settling on getting the Asus Maximus Formula MB soon and probably overclocking a Q6600 (on air).
So I'll be looking (if it can handle) 2 of the 3870x2 cards and run them both together each at full 16x.

However, for me coming from a P4 3.4 Ghz with X800Pro graphics - I'm sure this will be an enjoyable upgrade experience.

It doesn't bother me much when the Nvidia is faster. It shouldn't affect by personal experience at all, something that we sometimes overlook when we try to upgrade to the best - on paper.

Let's wait and see what the results will be and I'm sure there will be a decent experience available for everyone given their needs.

2 8800 GTS's in SLI > 9800 GX2.

9800 GX2 = SLI on a card.

Edit: AND A SINGLE SLOT COOLING SOLUTION PER CARD!

Lol... I don't know.

The Quad SLI drivers aren't even out. How diminishing are the returns going to be?

Well.. atleast I'll be able to use it as a space heater and cook my eggs in the morning. Multitasking ftw.

It probably will. It will outperform the Ultra (in SLI situations) by 30% and be 2 8800 GTS's smashed together. I'd look for a $600+ price point. It will be nVidia's highend and will kill ATi. And what does nVidia do? Oh that's right.. Price gouge.

So considering the theoritcal performance of single SLI = 80%.. and the real is maybe 20%-40% on average...

The Quad will be a 75-150% improvement over a single card setup. It will cost 4 times as much as a single card setup..

Yea..

Quick random side note.. The guys at Microcenter when I was there just chillin were talking to me and trying to sell me stuff. I know one of the guys that works there and he hooks me up with stuff and lets me pick out Q6600s for my friends (by Batch #, let's me check his stock).

So anyways.. we were standing there and they start talking to me. I talk to the guy and play dumb. Next thing I know he's trying to sell me 2 8600 GTs in SLI because they outperform an 8800 GTS. When my buddy got back I told him about it and found out why. They are commission based, and the 2 8600 GTs were more expensive than a single 8800 GTS. I love crap like that. Actually it pisses me off, because then people get on this forum to cry about low scores and crappy FPS. SLI should be limited to the high end.

ANYWAYS:

I think single slot will perform similarly to regular SLI unless they REALLY optimize the drivers.

I'm not sure to be honest. I can't remember.. anyone remember the 7950 GX2 and if it worked on non-SLI boards?

I think you do.. It's another way for nVidia to force consumers to buy nVidia motherboards. That's another problem I have with them. The nForce 200 chip enables SLI on other boards. A mobo maker dropped it onto an X38 and it didn't work. It's an obvious driver limitation. There have been hacked drivers that enabled SLI in the past.

nVidia should be slapped with a law suit for not allowing SLI on any platform. They tie consumers into their motherboards by only allowing SLI on them.. I can't buy a board based on merit if I want an SLI setup. ATi lets me buy based on merit.

Also Evil, instead of reading reviews, just ask me.

Lol, no problem.

I love Crossfire.



DON'T GET CAUGHT IN IT!

It's better now.. I like it over SLI. I think as far as application goes it's the better solution (not for performance, just for ease).

I know what you mean though.

I have a Crossfire game up in my attic.. It's so awesome.

I ripped the guns off the game a long time ago.

http://www.dollarshops.eu/product_ [...] ts_id/2778

I know Nvidia has high hopes for triple SLI and ATI has hopes for quad Crossfire with 4 3850's but the drivers have to support each game. In the long run, we'll see dual and quad core GPU's that will be supported universally. This whole thing of monster GPU's with high thermals should be as obsolete as Prescott Netburst architecture.

Well, I have an Athlon X2 4600+, but only a 7600GS, so either a 3870 or an 8800GT would work wonders for me. A 3850 would be nice enough. Considering I'll buy two GPU's (my wife wants a 3870), I can't go with two cards of the 3870x2 or 9800x2 class.

They should have done a GPU that's 65 watts and dual core long ago. AMD's 55nm die shrink and Nvidia's 65 helps, but the thermals are still a bit high.

It does affect certain games. On some, ATI is a bit faster, and on others Nvidia, but often the difference between the two are only 10 fps. Crossfire scales better than SLI as well. Those are minor differences that might only affect the twitchiest online shooters, but then bandwidth comes into play and could tank out the slight advantages of a card in that particular game.

I play mostly CRPGs where the framerate doesn't approach the framerates expected in FPS, ie Morrowind, Oblivion, can't wait for the next TES; will also get Hellgate London and The Witcher, plus give LOTR online a try. I also like some RTS and am looking forward to World in Conflict and Supreme Commander. I haven't touched any game past Oblivion in quality because I can't see a 7600gs handling it well enough, so I'm looking forward to ordering our new cards from Newegg on Feb. 1st!

Since I don't have a great graphics card, I've been replaying Daggerfall, it's a great game, it accomplished more in it's generation than Oblivion has in the current generation. I even picked up Dungeon Lords for ten bucks at Walmart just for the heck of it. It has a great vampire quest sequence in town, but the game is buggy and unfinished -- no wonder I saw it at Fry's bundled with Gothic 3. Ubisoft should bundle both with Might and Magic 9.

Yes, we haven't seen much in the way of previews, let alone reviews with real world games. Some people have to order on the first day the card arrives, and they're antsy over the performance, but we simply won't know until the cards have been out for a few weeks with a couple of driver releases. On paper the Nvidia card is faster, but fast is relative to the game played. 20 fps in Oblivion at high settings was fast enough for me, but it won't work for most people in Crysis.

Actually, no, you don't.
The 7950GX2 worked fine on non-SLI boards, and so will the 9800GX2.
That's basically the whole point of it, SLI on one card, with no dependency on chipset support or mutliple PCI-E slots.
For regular dual card SLI, though, an SLI capable motherboard is needed.

Erm.. yes you can? Both of teh cards can be in in quad xfire/sli situations, and beacuse the pre-render limit can now be increased to 4 via DX10, expect some improvements at high resolutions

9800gx2 > 3870x2.

3870 will be ati's 8800ultra rival card, I expect it will do better in most things though.

Consindering Nvidia neve made a succesfull dual gpu card, I would go with the HD3870 X2