Ati Back on top again

[Tempered81]

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3209&p=13


wonder how long it will be til the 9800gx2 comes out

 

[MilkmanAl]

I'm interested to see how the 3870x2's performance shakes out once all the driver issues are addressed (in March?). It seems to be a very promising card even under the current imperfect conditions.

 

[taltamir]

well... the 3870x2 is a crossfire card... So it should be compared to two 3870 cards or to two nvidia cards... but, it does take only one slot... (so it removes one of the many crossfire drawbacks...)

You can't crossfire a 3870x2 with another 3870x2 right now... which, at that price range, means it competes against 8800GT in SLI mode.

Either way I wouldn't be touching it or the GX2 with a 10 foot pole...

 

[imported_Scoop]

I hate it when reviewers bring in the price issue. Like I can get 8800GT SLI for less than one 3870 X2 (440?:450?) so the following statement "the 8800 GT SLI which is a good $150 more expensive than the ATI solution." is majorly false. And the GTS 512 is like 66% of the price of the 3870 X2 here (300?:450?) so it's quite a good deal in comparison.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: taltamir
well... the 3870x2 is a crossfire card... So it should be compared to two 3870 cards or to two nvidia cards... but, it does take only one slot... (so it removes one of the many crossfire drawbacks...)

You can't crossfire a 3870x2 with another 3870x2 right now... which, at that price range, means it competes against 8800GT in SLI mode.

Either way I wouldn't be touching it or the GX2 with a 10 foot pole...

Yep, nice thing about the 3870x2 is it offers CF performance for those with a chipset/board that don't support native 2 card CF. Quad CF (2x3870X2) will still be reserved for chipsets that support CF only though.

One thing I saw in the various X2 reviews was that 2x3870 and 3870X2 aren't always the same in terms of performance, but the X2 tended to scale better than 2x3870 overall. I did see at least one bench where the 2x3870 performed much better than the 3870X2. Seems to indicate that the 3870X2 is a more elegant CF implementation or ATI's X2 driver profiles are a bit further along.

Still, 3870X2 shows little performance gain over a single 3870 and fails to beat a single 8800 in enough games to make it undesirable for me. I'll wait for the next high-end single card solution from ATI or NV.

 

[happy medium]

I see your point. The 8800gt sli is faster(sometimes a good bit) and less exspensive. 440.00$ for 8800gt's vs 450.00 for the x2.

 

[Tempered81]

I would take sli 8800gt over the 3870x2, i already have 1 GT, except i don't have an sli mobo. pfft. theres a guy over at XS who bought two 3870x2's from mwave last week. 500 bucks each. hes running them in quad crossfire with beta drivers. he says it sux

 

[SniperDaws]

You cant compare this card(s) to a 9700pro, its not even in the same league as it, when the 9700pro came out it blew everything out of the water it was a massive leap above the Ti 4xxx series, this X2 is just as slow as any of the shite cards we have at the moment, the new cards need to be a hell of a lot faster to catch my eye.

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: happy medium
I see your point. The 8800gt sli is faster(sometimes a good bit) and less exspensive. 440.00$ for 8800gt's vs 450.00 for the x2.

Yes. But if you don't have an SLI board, this may be worth a look. My only worry would be driver profiles for whatever games.

 

[dennilfloss]

Originally posted by: SniperDaws
You cant compare this card(s) to a 9700pro, its not even in the same league as it, when the 9700pro came out it blew everything out of the water it was a massive leap above the Ti 4xxx series, this X2 is just as slow as any of the shite cards we have at the moment, the new cards need to be a hell of a lot faster to catch my eye.

Maybe the problem isn't the shit cards we have nowadays but the shit (as in poorly coded or optimized) games we have nowadays. I was under the impression a few years ago that every subsequent iteration of Direct X was supposed to make things easier to do for hardware. Still, the cards keep getting faster yet the most recent games run like molasses.

 

[nRollo]

My thought is the 8800GTX is the only "9700Pro-esque" card since the 9700Pro. The 9700Pro had longevity, this card will be the fastest single slot card until the 9800GX2 launches (soon) and be trumped again in Q2 by the next gen cards if you can believe the rumors.

Being the fastest single slot card at some games for a month or two is not "9700 Pro like", IMHO.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: Rollo
My thought is the 8800GTX is the only "9700Pro-esque" card since the 9700Pro. The 9700Pro had longevity, this card will be the fastest single slot card until the 9800GX2 launches (soon) and be trumped again in Q2 by the next gen cards if you can believe the rumors.

Being the fastest single slot card at some games for a month or two is not "9700 Pro like", IMHO.

I'd tend to agree with that, not based solely on performance relative to the competition, but how it so drastically changed gaming experience. In that sense, I'd have to give the edge to the G80 as the level of performance it brought to the table was simply mind-blowing at the time. Not only did it double the performance of any single card solution, it outperformed multi-card configs as well. Biggest difference though imo was that it made high-res gaming a reality at a time when 1680+ LCDs became the standard.

 

[Munky]

Originally posted by: dennilfloss

Originally posted by: SniperDaws
You cant compare this card(s) to a 9700pro, its not even in the same league as it, when the 9700pro came out it blew everything out of the water it was a massive leap above the Ti 4xxx series, this X2 is just as slow as any of the shite cards we have at the moment, the new cards need to be a hell of a lot faster to catch my eye.

Maybe the problem isn't the shit cards we have nowadays but the shit (as in poorly coded or optimized) games we have nowadays. I was under the impression a few years ago that every subsequent iteration of Direct X was supposed to make things easier to do for hardware. Still, the cards keep getting faster yet the most recent games run like molasses.

The problem is we have shit cards. Crysis is not poorly coded, I think many people don't realize just how graphically intensive that game is, and blame its poor performance on bad coding. No, when today's fastest gpu is roughly equivalent to a 1 year old g80, that's when you know we have shit cards.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: Rollo
My thought is the 8800GTX is the only "9700Pro-esque" card since the 9700Pro. The 9700Pro had longevity, this card will be the fastest single slot card until the 9800GX2 launches (soon) and be trumped again in Q2 by the next gen cards if you can believe the rumors.

Being the fastest single slot card at some games for a month or two is not "9700 Pro like", IMHO.

I'd tend to agree with that, not based solely on performance relative to the competition, but how it so drastically changed gaming experience. In that sense, I'd have to give the edge to the G80 as the level of performance it brought to the table was simply mind-blowing at the time. Not only did it double the performance of any single card solution, it outperformed multi-card configs as well. Biggest difference though imo was that it made high-res gaming a reality at a time when 1680+ LCDs became the standard.

Ya, 9700Pro and 8800GTX were the rare inventions that make companies rich and guys like us very happy. Both set the bar for a long time. Probably Voodoo1 before that.

 

[McCartney]

Anandtech is using canned benchmarks. Obviously when put in realworld gaming situations we see it's a different story. It's not the winner anymroe man learn to do some searching

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: Rollo

Ya, 9700Pro and 8800GTX were the rare inventions that make companies rich and guys like us very happy. Both set the bar for a long time. Probably Voodoo1 before that.

Welcome back

 

[AmdInside]

I am a little disappointed....the new card uses two desktop chips and so naturally, it is one hot card since it is cramming two GPUs into one PCB. However, I was hoping they would have created a more elegant design, maybe use mobile variants instead of desktop chips. The card comes close to drawing 300watts of power on full load. That's a lot. Wonder how hot the card gets. Personally, I prefer single GPU cards. I guess multi-GPU cards is going to be more common in the future like multi-core CPUs.

 

[Syntax Error]

ATI barely beat out Nvidia's high-end lineup, and you're calling the 3870X2 the "next 9700PRO"?

lol. :laugh:

 

[rasczak]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
I would take sli 8800gt over the 3870x2, i already have 1 GT, except i don't have an sli mobo. pfft. theres a guy over at XS who bought two 3870x2's from mwave last week. 500 bucks each. hes running them in quad crossfire with beta drivers. he says it sux

beta drivers

 

[Tempered81]

i didnt say "the next 9700pro" in the sub title i only meant like hey, its the good ole days, where ati is on top again. like the x1900xtx-x1950xtx stuff was on top of the 7900gtx for a bit. Just a little while to claim performance crown. not to say whoot whoot smack smack ATI pWNS you or anything like that.

I like nvidia better anyway

 

[Oyeve]

Originally posted by: jpbelauskas

Originally posted by: jaredpace
I would take sli 8800gt over the 3870x2, i already have 1 GT, except i don't have an sli mobo. pfft. theres a guy over at XS who bought two 3870x2's from mwave last week. 500 bucks each. hes running them in quad crossfire with beta drivers. he says it sux

beta drivers

You read my mind.

 

[nanaki333]

fanboys til the end. yeah, cause everybody has an sli capable board and are ready to run 2 video cards. i've always had 2 spots but i'm not going to run dual video cards. the 3870x2 by itself is on top, barely, but on top. stop comparing it as 2 cards. i know i'll be called an amd fanboy for this, so knock yourselves out. even though i've gone from the 7800GTX to 7950GX2 to 8800GTX to 3870X2. i swear, some of you would argue the fact that the world is flat if nvidia would say it was. or you'll get exactly what you want, but then pick it apart. most of you just find a reason to not get something new and great and just nit pick it to death.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Originally posted by: Scoop
I hate it when reviewers bring in the price issue. Like I can get 8800GT SLI for less than one 3870 X2 (440?:450?) so the following statement "the 8800 GT SLI which is a good $150 more expensive than the ATI solution." is majorly false. And the GTS 512 is like 66% of the price of the 3870 X2 here (300?:450?) so it's quite a good deal in comparison.

However, a LOT of people are running Intel CPU's on Intel boards, which means no SLI support. So, I agree that comparing the 3872 X2 to 8800GT SLI is fair, they should also mention that not everyone has an SLI capable board, which *could* end up costing a lot more.

Originally posted by: Rollo
My thought is the 8800GTX is the only "9700Pro-esque" card since the 9700Pro. The 9700Pro had longevity, this card will be the fastest single slot card until the 9800GX2 launches (soon) and be trumped again in Q2 by the next gen cards if you can believe the rumors.

Being the fastest single slot card at some games for a month or two is not "9700 Pro like", IMHO.

I actually agree with you, Rollo. The 8800GTX was shockingly fast and basically caught ATI with its pants down with its brute force of shader power + memory bandwidth.

Then the promised faster 2900XT was an unmitigated disaster: hot, power hungry, noisy, introduced a new power connector yet was still slower than the 8800GTX at the end of the day. I had very high hopes for the 2900XT, and it was a disappointment across the board.

The one area ATI was relatively fair with was the price, but with that kind of power consumption I found the card a total bomb. I wouldn't even pick one up now for cheap.

 

[tuteja1986]

like the X850XT PE Days , Like the X1900XT days

Anandtech is using canned benchmarks. Obviously when put in realworld gaming situations we see it's a different story. It's not the winner anymroe man learn to do some searching

What are you talking about ?... What is realworld benchmark then ? What is canned benchmark :Q

Anyways Computerbase that i personally think, does the best gpu review has the same saying "ATI TAKES BACK THE CROWN".

http://translate.google.com/tr...de%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

 

[bryanW1995]

I think that it is much more reasonable to compare the 3870x2 to an ultra and to xfire 3870's. There are certainly quite a few people who own an 8800gt + sli mobo, but even among hardcore gamers nvidia mobos don't have anything close to the market penetration of the intel four headed monster of 975/965/p35/x38, most of which are at least theoretically capable of xfire.