Radeon HD 3870 X2 - Fastest Yet! (ARTICLE BACK UP!) - Page 2

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I wanna support AMD so we don't end up beholden to Nvidia, but it's gonna be hard to get ahold of one of these.

Probably impossible to buy at MSRP.

Not that big.. Around 6"2.
Ryan

I didn't need just page 6 to prove a point - let's break the conclusion down a bit Matron "x"..


Final Thoughts and Conclusions

we’ve seen today is a clear indication that the R680-based video card is definitely superior to the 8800Ultra, which maintains a street price of well over $600. MSRP of the HD 3870 X2 is set at $449 –a bargain considering the HD 3870, essentially half of the X2, goes for about $230.


–the HD 3870 X2 would sell like hotcakes if success was based on performance alone.

To say the X2 is an enthusiast level card would be a drastic understatement.

Our tests have shown that the Radeon HD 3870 X2 belongs at the very top of the graphics performance chart.

The R680-based part is clearly the very best single-card solution available, and will remain there at least until later in the quarter when NVIDIA releases their product refreshes.


it most definitely has earned AMD the graphics performance crown that it has been craving for well over a year now.

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 is an exciting product, not only because it provides incredible performance, but also because it marks the first time that a dual-GPU solution has been implemented successfully to the point where people will actually consider buying this card for reasons other than novelty.

-the next four or five months should mark the return of competition in the high-end graphics market.

Instead of just looking at the pictures, have you tried reading the words?
Ryan

They mentioned they couldn't get a 3870 but made no mention of the Ultra being missing. Did they address it somewhere other than the section about what cards they included?

Really? It takes two ATI cards to break even with an Ultra? Thats pathetic... I think I'll just get the 9800 GTX

Ironnads wrote
I didn't need just page 6 to prove a point - let's break the conclusion down a bit Matron "x"..

Oh how my sides split i see what you did with my username v/funny.
Yea i do it all the time now i come to think of it just pick a random page from within a review and post it.
Why you getting on your high horse for any way. You have no point to prove, you posted a link and i pointed out that it was page 6 which you either did because you are a big ATI fan and wanted to show this card in its best light or you made a mistake when you posted it.
From your manic posting of supporting excerts from ONE Review( which by the way seemed a little biased to me. how so ?
Well lets see when it sucked at Crysis they started crying and blaming the drivers.) I will assume it was the first one.
In whole to be fair i have seen worse reviews as far as being biased goes and it was a good well writen review, I will definatly be visiting the site again.
The card shone in ONE benchmark in ONE review and you seem to have come to the conclusion that its some kind of wonder card, Your being premature. (There's an easy little joke for me there but i will pass)
Im sure that by now you get the point that it is just a single review just chill and wait for some more before hyping up a card that we dont know anything definate about performance wise yet.
If it was a tryed and tested source then yes but lets not jump the gun just yet. I too want ATI to do well but am going to get some more info before making any conclusions.
Matron "X"

Really? 9800 GTX? You have one? I don't see it.

A brief survey of the concluding points as i have already pointed out would give you a completly rose tinted view of what the card may or may not be.
I totally agree that it can only be good news all round. I really want the card to get another good lump of performance when they release it with some decent drivers we need the competition. Im not so sure that its a given that the 9800 will be that much quicker, Probable but not a given.
Sorry if the P6 thing got under your skin but take a step back and look at it from the outside...Hows it gonna look?
Mactronix (sorry i tried it didnt like it going back to the old one )

Possibly, except we know you can successfuly run 2 X2s in Xfire, whereas right not the major delay for the GX2 seems to still hover around fixing QuadSli. So for 'Single Slot' the GX2 may take it, but unless they get the quad SLi working better it may still not dethrone any Xfire X2 combos.

I agree that ATi's not had the experience or the same amount of success, but they've pretty much been consistently improving, whereas you mention the GF7950GX2, but most of it's success has been wasted since the SLi and Quad experience from that card don't apply to the G80 series architecture, as is easily shownby al the problems with SLi combos above 2 cards. I don't expect any more of a big gap from the GX2 than I expected from the X2 and Ultra, I think it'll be similarly underwhelming in the low double digits at best and likely single digit percentage differences in most situations.

True, however, it still puts pressure in the market even if it sells for $100 above MSRP.

Even if this is the lame way of pushing competition forward it should at least push a response from nV, whereas sofar there's been nothing.

Actually no it shouldn't change other than consolidate, displayport should be backwards compatible with all previous connectors (edit: except TV out), although audio over HDMI is a different story. AMD/ATi, intel and nV al have been showing off their displayport enable models for the past year or so. To me it's perfect for laptops, and should reduce form factor issues, bu sofar there's only 3 soon to ship monitors that support the standard, so it's not going to force anyone to adopt it, you'll just be glad if you do get the option.

yep so true 3870 has this as rumors report

Well need more detail, but supposedly the X2 runs Xfire across the board between the chips, and equally supposedly the GX2 will run the SLi using a combination connector and the PCIe lanes, just like the GF7900/7950GX2.

It may be more elegant, and also allow different combinations, but I doubt either will be 'limited' at their internal bridge points either by latency or bandwidth.

You probably would be better off with TWO 1KW PSUs nyways, but really, anyone who is looking for such an insane PC wouldn't bat an eyelid at buying 2 PC Power & Cooling PSUs and then rewiring their house to deliver the amperage to the socket to drive them.

Yeah exactly.

Of course the person could always just pop out the 15 amp fuse/breaker and replace it with a 20-25 amp one like someone here suggested last year.

( PS to those reading, don't do that! )

As funny as it seems the most power draw in my house is my entertainment unit, and almost always has been (D'oh! the Dryer and Oven don't count cause they're on 250, yeah that's it ) so adding an HTPC to the mix really wouldn't be a surprise. I bet electricians get this type of request more and more nowadays with 7-15 speaker setups with massive plasmas, X360+PS3+Wii etc.

If I were building a house ground up, I'd probably run at least 2 separate 20 amp 4 socket (or 2x2) outlets to my A/V setup with one for audio one for video (reduce loop noise separating them).
Heck I just helped a friend install a server rack in his basement for his A/V system and wired home. So I'm sure electricians would've laughed more 2-3 years ago, but likely by now this is becoming quite common.

These are just the beta drivers also.

549? marike think! why would AMD sell the 3870x2 for $549 when 2 3870 can be had for $230 or 460 dollars?

Can you provide a link for the specs of the 9800 GTX or when it will be released? Or do you mean the G100 (the new GPU entirely) that will be released this summer?

ATi is moving to a new idea, dual GPUs. Kind of like we saw in the CPU market. They can't compete with a single GPU and they scale much better than nVidia, so why not?

The card is great, and it performs just fine (the drivers aren't even out, it used drivers that don't even support it).

Obviously they are opinions, and I didn't call you stupid for wanting a 9800 GTX. All I'm asking is where is it? I heard rumors, but nothing solid, and nothing in writing from nVidia, and the rumors were disproved a while ago that the 9800 GTX is actually the 9800 GX2.

I dunno, naturally you would expect this card to be aimed at the ULTRA. ATI's top end card vs Nvidia's top end card. I'm not trying to be an ass but can you please enlighten us on what there target is?

I was referring to the HD3870 like LAN_deRf_HA not the X2 (as he mentioned using two of ATIs top end cards). If the HD3870 was aimed at the ultra, it would get the pricetag to boot. It's aimed at the GT, while the X2 would be more a GTX/Ultra competitor. Sure the Ultra performs better, but it also costs 2.5x that of a 3870 (in australia anyway, up to 3x).

Phenom had potential too

price/performance:
3870x2 > 8800 ultra

Oh no, that means $170 for aus.

I believe the article said that there is a crossfire chip that connects the GPUs together, but I guess we wont know for sure until the article is back up. Maybe someone else can comfirm reading that.

Release date pushed into next week (28th or 29th) I read somewhere today. Driver issues.

No idea.
9600GT delayed a bit too.(2/21)?

They both don't want to screw up the releases with iffy drivers I guess.