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

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• boe - Monday, January 28, 2008 - link

  I really appreciate this article.
  
  The things I'd really like to see on the next is adding FEAR benchmarks.
  
  I'd also appreciate a couple of older cards added for comparison like the 7900 or the x1900.

• Butterbean - Monday, January 28, 2008 - link

  "And we all know how the 3870 vs. 8800 GT matchup turned out"
  
  Yeah it was pretty close except for Crysis - where Nvidia got busted not drawing scenes out so as to cheat out a fps gain.

• Stas - Monday, January 28, 2008 - link

  Conveniently the tests showed how *2* GTs are faster in most cases than X2. Power consumption test only shows *single* GT on the same chart with X2.

• geogaddi - Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - link

  
  Conveniently, most of us can multiply by 2.
  

• ryedizzel - Monday, January 28, 2008 - link

  in the 2nd paragraph under 'Final Words' you put:
  
  Even more appealing is the fast that the 3870 X2 will work in all motherboards:
  
  but i think you meant to say:
  
  Even more appealing is the fact that the 3870 X2 will work in all motherboards:
  
  you are welcome to delete this comment when fixed.

• abhaxus - Monday, January 28, 2008 - link

  I would really, really like to see a crysis benchmark that actually uses the last level of the game rather than the built in gpu bench. My system (q6600@2.86ghz, 2x 8800GTS 320mb @ 620/930) gets around 40fps with 'high' defaults (actually some very high settings turned on per tweakguides) on both of the default crysis benchies, but only got around 10fps on the last map. Even on all medium, the game only got about 15-20 fps on the last level. Performance was even lower with the release version, the patch improved performance by about 10-15%.
  
  Of course I'd be interested to see how 2 of these cards do in crysis :)

• Samus - Monday, January 28, 2008 - link

  Even though Farcry is still unplayable at 1900x1200 (<30FPS) but its really close. My 8800GT only manages 18FPS on my PC using the same ISLAND_DEM benchmark AT did, so to scale, the 3870 X2 will do about 27FPS for me. Maybe with some overclocking it can hit 30FPS. $450 to find out is a bit hard to swallow though :\

• customcoms - Monday, January 28, 2008 - link

  Well, if you're still getting <30 fps on Far Cry, I think you're PC is a bit too outdated to benefit from an upgrade to an HD3870 X2.
  
  I assume you meant Crysis. This game is honestly poorly coded with graphical glitches in the final scenes. With my 8800GT (and a 2.6ghz Opteron 165, 2gb ram), I pull 50 FPS in the Island_Dem benchmark at 1680x1050 with a mixture of medium-high settings, 15 fps more than the 8800GTS 320mb I replaced it with. However, when you get to some of the final levels, these frames drop to more like 30 or less, and I am forced to drop to medium or a combination of medium-low settings at this point (perhaps my 2.6ghz dual core cpu isn't up to 3ghz C2D snuff).
  
  Clearly, the game was rushed to market (not unlike Far Cry). Yes, the visuals are stunning, and the storyline is decent, but I much prefer Call of Duty 4, where the visuals are SLIGHTLY less appealing, but the storyline is better, the game is more realistic, the controls are better, and I can crank everything to max without worrying about slowdowns in later levels. Its the only game I have ever immediately started replaying on veteran.
  
  The point is, no card(s) appears to be able to really play Crysis max everything at 1900x1200 or higher, and in my findings, the built in time demo's do not realistically simulate the games full demands in later levels.

• swaaye - Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - link

  Yeah, armchair game developer in action!
  
  In what way is CoD4 realistic, exactly? I suppose it does portray actual real military assets. It doesn't portray them in a realistic way, however.
  
  Did you notice that Crysis models bullet velocity? It's not just graphical glitz.

• Griswold - Monday, January 28, 2008 - link

  Ahh, gotta love the arm chair developers who can see the game code just by looking at the DVD.