R680XT =2x RV670
Radeon HD3870X2 also called R680 is a card based on two RV670 cores that is also used on the HD3870 and HD3850 single cards, the RV670 core is manufactured with a 55nm process witch among others gives lower power consumption and with this also less heat. A single HD3870 uses around 105w witch is half of the R600 core, and the lower power consumption on the RV670 cores was probably one of the conditions for putting two GPU´s on one PCB and not have to assemble a humongous air cooler.
The HD3870X2 is an astonishing card with some pretty amazing specifications, this card has two cores both clocked in 825 MHz witch is a bit higher than the single HD3870 card. The memory’s on retail HD3870X2 is clocked in 900 MHz, now HD3870X2 uses GDDR3 memory’s instead of GDDR4 and because of that also lower frequencies. HD3870X2 have 640 steam processors, 32 texture units and 1.3 billions transistors etc, it supports DX10.1, Unified Video Decoder, Shader Model 4.1 etc. For the two cores to work together properly ATI/AMD have linked them together with crossfire technology, in between the cores a PEX 8547 chip is placed. This chip is a direct link between the two cores, it also connects the other RV670 core to the PCI-E bus on the motherboard.
HIS Radeon HD3870X2
HIS HD3870X2 comes in a pretty normal sized package with about the same shape and size like their regular HD3870 card, the package is black with some patterns on the front witch gives a nice visual look, there is also some information about the card in the box on the front. On the back of the package there is more information about the card and accessories, here you can also find the specifications. There is also written on the back what kind of hardware and software this cards needs to work properly.
Under the cover cardboard you will find the graphic card together with the accessories packed in a see through plastic box, the plastic is also shaped after the card and helps to keep it still. For the accessories the plastic is also shaped but like small slots instead, this way everything is separated from each other. Exactly like for the HIS HD3870 ICEQ3 is this a very genuine package that will keep the card safe even when handled very hard.
The first thing that hit me when I picked up the HIS HD3870X2 was the weight and length of the card, even if I had read a lot of reviews and already know this it was still really hard not to be astonished. The length of PCB on the 3870X2 card is 26cm and the weight is somewhere around 1kg, now the PCB is not much heavier than on any other card, it’s the cooler that carry most of the weight The cooler is a dual slot solution and is somewhat similar to what ATI/AD has used on their earlier high end models, now there is a couple of big different, size and weight. Also, this one has to keep two cores cool instead of one.
To operate the HD3870X2 two power connector is needed, one 6 PIN PCI-E and one 8PIN PCI-E. Now the card will work fine with just two 6 Pin PCI-E connectors but with this setup the overdrive software wont be working. So to over clock the card a 6 and 8 pin PCI-E connector has to be used.
There is one crossfire contact on the HD3870X2 witch makes it possible to run Quad Crossfire with two of these cards, on most of ATI/AMD´s newer models there is two crossfire contacts and then possible to connect three cards, but on HD3870X2 one of these is already in use to bridge together the two cores, and this will limit this model to quad crossfire. Now I believe that this should be enough for most people anyway.
Bundle:
HIS have bundles both some regular accessories but also some nice extra stuff that can be really useful, first the regular accessories like DVI-VGA adapter (two), one DVI HDMA adapter, TV out cable, drivers and other software for this card and off course a manual. You also get a crossfire bridge that can be used to connect two HD3870X2 cards, ass usual this bridge is soft and fits great on most motherboards.
With this card HIS have also bundled a special screwdriver/tool This is first a screw driver with interchangeable stifts, but it also has a water level and a flash light. The light is also placed in the same direction as the stift on the screwdriver and will light up the area you work in, this can be very useful when working in a dark chassi etc.
It can be written so much about this card, but just so I wont be to much text I stop here and show some pictures of the card instead, and for them who wants more specific info on the card there is some great reviews out there.
I also want to say that English is not my first language so this text can be full with spelling mistakes and grammar errors, this text is also translated pretty much directly from my Swedish review and can therefore have some wrong sentence structure etc. But I hope that it will be understandable anyway.
Pictures
The box that the card comes packed in is very much similar to the package for HIS regular HD3870 card.
On the back of the package you can find some information and spec about their HDD3870X2, there is also a couple of icons from hardware sites who have given HIS awards of diffrent kind.
Among the bundled stuff you can find a screwdriver that can also be used as a waterlevel and flashlight
This tool can be great to find when working in a dark chassi or similar, i have actually already used it a couple of times.
HD3870X2 is a very impressive card, it weigh over 1kg and is around 26cm long. This is absolutly one of the biggest cards i have tried.
Results:
Unfortunately i haven’t had the time to really test this card in al the applications yet, but i will do that later this week and will then post the results. I have tested some 3D Mark application and some over clocking but nothing serious yet just out of the box tests. But like i wrote, more serious benching will come later.
System:
Intel QX9650
ASUS Maximus Formula
HIS HD3870X2
Crucial BallistiX 8500
Silverstone Olympia 1000W
HD3870X2 is here completely out of the box. No tweaks or anything else that will improve the results is made.
3D Mark 06
3D Mark 05
3D Mark 03
Memorys overclocking, 1017Mhz.
More overclocking and results will be posted later this week.
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Originally Posted by jonbass
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