Tom's Hardware > Forum > Graphic & Displays > Graphics Cards > Will any of ATI's Partners be making HD3870x2 cards with GDDR4?

Will any of ATI's Partners be making HD3870x2 cards with GDDR4?

Forum Graphic & Displays : Graphics Cards - Will any of ATI's Partners be making HD3870x2 cards with GDDR4?

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hcforde   01-22-2008 at 04:20:12 PM

Will all HD3870x2 cards be Gddr3 while the HD3870 single GPU config has Gddr4? Why did they decide to do give the x2 card slower memory? Any info on this?

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spoonboy   01-22-2008 at 04:49:06 PM
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Could be a heat issue with higher spec rams on the x2, or maybe ati found out that ram speeds arent that important in crossfire setups and so dialled things back, making the power consumption figures and price look a little better.

There might be some looney version come out with say 875mhz cores and 2gb ddr4 at some outrageous price. Could see some pretty creative air coolers from different manufacturers (dual fans, loud colours that kind of thing lol).

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mactronix   01-22-2008 at 04:55:58 PM
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They have done it before on the Gemini cards they droped from Gddr3 to Gddr2 so i would think its a heat/power thing like spoonboy says.
Mactronix

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gpippas   01-22-2008 at 07:07:39 PM
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Spoonboy

Looney version running at those speeds? What I would like to see is a 1000mhz core and 2gb gddr at 2800mhz. Warning will eat your dog if you left together in a room. Now that would be a looney version.

hcforde
They probably will but it will likely have very little performance increase over the standard gddr3 version.

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spoonboy   01-22-2008 at 09:36:48 PM
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@gpippas - lol i meant there might be a factory oc'd version with too much ram to use, slightly bumped clocks and a LOONEY price tag. Looking forward to the english language benchmarks, it might sound bad but i just trust them more lol.

Message quoted 1 times
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thepinkpanther   01-22-2008 at 10:25:29 PM
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gddr3? phew! i felt like killing myself after buying a 3870 to find out the same day that the 3870x2 was comming out!

------------------------------ why have sex when u can play computer games?!?
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gpippas   01-22-2008 at 11:15:03 PM
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spoonboy wrote :

@gpippas - lol i meant there might be a factory oc'd version with too much ram to use, slightly bumped clocks and a LOONEY price tag. Looking forward to the english language benchmarks, it might sound bad but i just trust them more lol.



Normally the highest oc'd ATI cards come from HIS. They are ATI's equivelent of EVGA but they normally have a reasonable price. But you are right there is always 1 company that does something silly for very little performance and charges through the roof for it.

I agree I don't trust those benchies very much. I think they give a good idea but nothing solid. Even then when all the english benchies come out I will read the various different ones rather than trust a single 1.

thepinkpanther
You do realise the that the performance difference between a 3870x2 and a 3870 will be almost double. gddr3 and gddr4 makes very little performance difference. The performance difference comes from having 2 RV670 cores.

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mactronix   01-22-2008 at 11:31:37 PM
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Doesnt latency come in to it here if its on the same board as opposed to a different slot that will also be in only x8 or x4 on most boards then it kinda cant not be faster ...Can it ?
Seems to make sense to me.
Mactronix

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gpippas   01-23-2008 at 12:15:42 AM
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Found this

http://www.fpslabs.com/reviews/vid [...] -x2-review

First review I have seen in english. It looks very promising. If everybody recieved their samples when this reviewer did some of the results might be a little off because they were using a beta of CCC 7.12 which for Crysis especially will make a bit of a difference.

Interestingly CCC doesn't view it as an Xfire setup but as a single card. It is also apparently very noisy so it will be interesting to see if any of ATI's partners can make it a bit quieter.

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spoonboy   01-23-2008 at 11:37:03 AM
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Nice find, I will have a look a it in a bit. Just found this:

http://www.vr-zone.com/articles/AS [...] /5525.html

Its an asus version, 2 cooling fans and a slinky black cooler. Worth the extra over a vanilla x2 if you haven't got company of heros but wanna try it out.

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gpippas   01-23-2008 at 11:46:09 AM
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A dual fan solution like that should be quieter than the reference fan.

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hcforde   01-25-2008 at 04:24:34 AM
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That ASUS card looks like something that would go into a heavy duty industrial machine!!! I love ASUS though, I have 3 of their Workstation MB's

I just remembered that I bought an ATI X1900xtx the xt version was $100 cheaper. All I really got was bragging rights. Probably the same with DDR4 memory on these. It would be more hype than performance. The biggest reason I bought it was that it was the only thing Compusa was carrying and I got it on the day of release. I wanted it so bad I drove to their distribution center (200 miles away) to get it.

gpippas, Thanks for reminding me that the extra cost would not be linear in a cost performance ratio.

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gpippas   01-25-2008 at 01:06:03 PM
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^^^LOL.
Your mad.
I have never gone for the very top product in anything. I know how the buisness world works and the top product is the profit maker, because despite the huge increase in price it cost little or nothing extra to produce. Car manufacturers make very little on selling a standard car. They make lots of money on the extras. BMW charges £80/$160 for the ashtray in the dash.

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