ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2: 2 GPUs 1 Card, A Return to the High End

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• footballrunner800 - Monday, January 28, 2008 - link

  its probably the drivers since Anandtech is still not using x64 and with a 1gb card that gives windows less than 3 gb of usable memory. The review says that AMD came with improvments on the last minute so imagine when they perfect them

• Sunrise089 - Monday, January 28, 2008 - link

  The drivers sure could.

• bill3 - Monday, January 28, 2008 - link

  I wont link the review, doubt it's even possible, but over at the H Brent's review shows the 3870X2 in a much worse light. They show it outright losing to a single 8800GTX in COD4, Crysis, and UT3, while squeaking out a win in HL2.
  
  In the forum review thread when the differences between Brent's review and Anand's was brought up, it was basically claimed by Kyle that Anand's review is illegitimate because he only benchmarks "canned demos" (if you're familiar with H such spiel is nothing new from them). Further Kyle goes so far as to claim "AMD experienced a 60% fps increase in the Crysis canned GPU benchmark, we saw a couple frames a second in real gameplay. "
  
  Kyle also says your COD4 bench, one of the two you guys did that wasn't "canned" and therefore invalid, is also invalid because you only benched a cutscene He hasn't said but I'm assuming the only bench you guys did that meets the Kyle standard would be Bioshock since it is real gameplay timed by fraps.
  
  There are a few platform differences between the reviews, but Kyle has poo-pooed these as not making any major difference.
  
  Thought you guys might be interested..the thread is the 3870X2 review thread at H forums.

• Parhel - Monday, January 28, 2008 - link

  HardOCP is just plain disreputable in every way. Their methodology is nonsense, their reviews are completely inadequate, and they continue to exist only because they drum up fake controversies and attempt to assassinate someone's character every few months.
  
  I'm not exaggerating when I say that I take what The Inquirer has to say more seriously.

• Frumious1 - Monday, January 28, 2008 - link

  I'm just shocked by how many people seem to place any relevance on the HOCP garbage. "It's because we're REAL WORLD and eveyone else is lies and fake stuff!" What a laugh. They play ONE resolution on TWO cards and pretend that's testing. Oh, and they don't use the same settings on both cards, they don't run at the same resolutions as previous reviews, they don't use the most comparable card (8800 GTS 512, anyone?), their testing isn't remotely similar to anything at any other site (hence they can just make claims about how they're doing it right and everyone else is wrong).... I could go on.
  
  Anyway, Anand and crew are best served in my opinion by completely ignoring this childish stuff from Kyle and his cohorts. You can choose: either all of the enthusiast sites except HOCP are wrong, or Kyle is wrong. Ocham's Razor suggests that the latter is far more likely.

• AnnonymousCoward - Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - link

  Yeah, one resolution and one competitor card doesn't say much.

• JWalk - Monday, January 28, 2008 - link

  Yeah, Kyle is currently yelling at people in the forum thread. He has been asked multiple times why Anand, and most other sites, have a completely different view in their benchmarks. (Keep in mind that HardOCP only benchmarked 4 freaking games on 2 cards. According to Kyle, it would have been too much work to benchmark more games or more cards. Awww...not hard work...anything but that. LOL)
  
  Then, he either chants "canned" benchmarks over and over, or he tells the person asking the question to get lost and never come back to HardOCP.
  
  It has even been pointed out more than once that the review sample he received might be the problem. Maybe he should try another card. But he is in full-blown arrogant a$$ mode right now. ;)

• Devo2007 - Monday, January 28, 2008 - link

  Not surprising coming from Kyle -- he comes across that way quite often.
  
  I don't like his reviews much -- not because of the canned benchmarks vs. real-world gameplay they preach about, bur rather the fact that they typically only compare one or two other cards to the one being tested. I have a GTS 320MB, and it would be nice to see whether the GTS 512MB would be worth it. Sadly, no direct comparison was done, because the GTS 320MB doesn't compete with said card.
  
  I generally try to read several reviews to get an idea of a product - one site is never enough for these things. :)

• boe - Monday, January 28, 2008 - link

  Usually the stock coolers are pretty dang loud. I'm wondering if any cooling solutions will be available from zalman, artic or the other standards?
  
  It would have been sweet if there was a db measurement chart.

• Gholam - Monday, January 28, 2008 - link

  GeCube has a version that looks like it has 2xZalman VF900-Cu on it. Custom PCB with 4 DVI outputs too.