3870 X2 Reviews

[GoThr3k]

From we can see X2 is around GTX level which is fine to be honest.

[H] makes my day every time they review graphic cards

[Eastcoasthandle]

Actually, I hate to tell you but that is plain wrong. The 8-451-2-080108 driver is NEWER than the 8-452-2 driver.

Skymtl,

Whats the deal with this 1.3v?

[malik22]

So do you use 1gb with this card or 512 like crossfired 3870?

[realsmasher]

Actually, I hate to tell you but that is plain wrong. The 8-451-2-080108 driver is NEWER than the 8-452-2 driver.

oh, didn't noticed that... higher number you know

anyway they used newest, that's what i wanted to say.


@ malik22 : 2*512mb on the cards, but effectivly only 512mb to use like all CF/nvidia sli

[SKYMTL]

Skymtl,

Whats the deal with this 1.3v?

No clue but considering there is next to no info in that article, there really isn't much to comment on.

Personally, I think they are trying to say that there will be a new driver released to the public once the card is launched....but in typical VR-Zone fashion, they didn't just come out and say it.

[malik22]

@ malik22 : 2*512mb on the cards, but effectivly only 512mb to use like all CF/nvidia sli[/QUOTE]


Ok thx so how is it performing so well at high res.

[cygnus_x_1]

http://www.overclockersclub.com/revi...d3870_x2/5.htm

reviewd on "Spider Platform" Gigabyte 790FX/Phemon 9600/Vista 32

has trouble keeping up with 8800 GT, GT(G92), & GTX in most of the tests.

also on the [H] review where the newer drivers were concerned, teh ~60% FPS increas was ONLY noticed in the benchmark, not Game play, which [H] tests.

[SKYMTL]

[url]
also on the [H] review where the newer drivers were concerned, teh ~60% FPS increas was ONLY noticed in the benchmark, not Game play, which [H] tests.

I played Crysis on a daily basis while doing the review and the newest drivers DID improve performance in gameplay.

[Monkeywoman]

techpowerup managed to oc the card "The final overclocks of our card are 918 MHz Core (11 % overclock) and 1030 MHz Memory (14 % overclock). Both overclocks are quite nice, I did not expect nearly as much from this card design." looks good

[cygnus_x_1]

I played Crysis on a daily basis while doing the review and the newest drivers DID improve performance in gameplay.

i obviously do not have an x2

dont take this the wrong way, but to put this to rest, can you substansiate the performace improvement on the drivers tested in gameplay?

[metro.cl]

Here is ours:

HD 3870X2 against 8800Ultra
Platform: AMD 790FX Phenom 9900 (ES)
Language: Spanish

http://www.chilehardware.com/Revisio...801281935.html

[SKYMTL]

dont take this the wrong way, but to put this to rest, can you substansiate the performace improvement on the drivers tested in gameplay?

Yes I can. But, will I go through the process of uninstalling the current drivers, reinstalling the old drivers and then reinstalling the current drivers again to satisfy idle curiosity? Probably not unless I have the time....

Take that as you will but I have nothing to gain by telling you that I saw a significant performance increase with the new drivers. 60% improvement? Well, that might be a bit much.....

[munim]

Thanks for consolidating the reviews!

[SKYMTL]

Why has this harping on Anandtech carried over into this thread?

[Marioace]

Here's another

HD3870X2 vs 8800Ultra
Asus P5E (X38) + Intel QX6850 (3Ghz)
ATI Catalyst 8-451-2-080121a
Spanish
http://www.madboxpc.com/contenido.php?id=5590

[FZ1]

another
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/656/1/

[SKYMTL]

Legit Reviews used Cat. 8.1. :O

[SKYMTL]

techpowerup managed to oc the card "The final overclocks of our card are 918 MHz Core (11 % overclock) and 1030 MHz Memory (14 % overclock). Both overclocks are quite nice, I did not expect nearly as much from this card design." looks good

Did they mention what program they used? As far as I know, ATItool is not compatible with the X2 and the CCC tops out at 878.

[mascaras]

its seems the GDDR3 used on this cards top at ~955mhz in all reviews

However the memory is 1.0ns (rated 2ghz) ,maybe they tightened the timings .......


regards

[Monkeywoman]

Did they mention what program they used? As far as I know, ATItool is not compatible with the X2 and the CCC tops out at 878.

"At the moment there is no public overclocking software available other than what Overdrive in Catalyst Control Center offers. For our testing we used a combination of ATITool, 3DMark and internal AMD overclocking software. Both cards were set to the same clocks which is the recommended way to achieve optimum performance."

[Tonucci]

Geez, whats with the MIN FPS being like single 3870 in many games while MAX FPS skyrocket ? MIN FPS is all i care...

[Eastcoasthandle]

Geez, whats with the MIN FPS being like single 3870 in many games while MAX FPS skyrocket ? MIN FPS is all i care...

There is still however one outstanding issue with the 3870 X2 which cannot be put to the side. In many tests within this article you will notice that the minimum frames per second figure seems out of line with the rest of the results, ATI had the following comment on this issue:

“In most circumstances we would expect the minimum frame rate found on the ATI Radeon HD 3870X2 to be equal to, or better than an ATI Radeon HD 3870. However, there are conceivable circumstances in which the minimum frame rates of the ATI Radeon HD 3870X2 could be lower. The most obvious case where the ATI Radeon HD 3870X2 could have a lower instantaneous frame rate would be if an application uploaded new information (such as textures or vertex data) to the graphics accelerator during rendering. In this situation the ATI Radeon HD 3870X2 driver has to duplicate the uploaded data, copying the data to each of the GPU frame buffers, which naturally takes more time than uploading a single set of data for a single GPU graphics accelerator.

These circumstances should be rare in practice - as a rule applications try to avoid uploading data during rendering as much as possible as such uploads are known to cause inconsistent frame rates.

An important thing to remember is that if a slow frame is caused by data being uploaded, then the effect will be seen across all graphics accelerators (graphics accelerators with multiple cores will just be affected to a greater degree). The visual result would be a small stutter, probably for a single frame, and if this stutter is noticeable on a ATI Radeon HD 3870X2 it is likely to be noticeable on a single GPU graphics accelerator as well.

In most situations low frame rates are caused by a heavy rendering workload, resulting in low frame rates that are generally seen for an extended period of time. Under these circumstances an ATI Radeon HD 3870X2 will shine, delivering a significantly higher frame rate than a comparable single GPU graphics accelerator thanks to its superior rendering power.”

This seems a fair and honest explanation from ATI, however we do feel that it is worth pointing out that even if single GPU cards are affected by the same issue, our testing shows that it is never to as dramatic an extent as the X2. As a result, when we compare this product to a single core card this has to go down as a failing...

On three of the games in this review the X2 suffered drops in performance which were more extreme than the comparison products and this is something ATI need to work on. There are two ways we can see this being handled; the first is through driver optimisations which can hopefully minimise this issue as much as possible on existing games. The second is for ATI to work with game developers and ensure that games are designed not to expose this issue...

Source

[darkorb]

same thing happened witht he phenoms, alot of mixed reviews about it

[SKYMTL]

"At the moment there is no public overclocking software available other than what Overdrive in Catalyst Control Center offers. For our testing we used a combination of ATITool, 3DMark and internal AMD overclocking software. Both cards were set to the same clocks which is the recommended way to achieve optimum performance."

Great....overclocking with utilities which aren't available.

I have yet to see one of these cards above 875Mhz which most topping out at 855-865Mhz.

[Tonucci]

Thanks man.

Ouch, they sound like it isnt something that can/will get fixed....who knows.

MIN FPS like single 3870 is very disapointing...just when power becomes crucial, the difference betwen playable and unplayable, we get $200,00 performance.