Reviews for the ATI 3870 X2 come out

[photon]

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3209&p=1
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTQ1NCwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

This is kind of continued from Nehkara's computer build thread, but didn't want to derail that.

Interesting launch, looks like it's fairly smooth. Price point is about right for the card it seems, which is also nice to see (hopefully the days of $700 video card launch prices are dead).

300W power draw under full load though, that's pretty insane. Though I guess it's less than a true SLI/Crossfire system would be.

EDIT: Lol and still gets crushed by Crysis.

[Hack&Lube]

[H]ardocp's review is especially poor on the card because they don't use any benchmarks, only real-world gameplay.

The Anandtech shows better performance and Tom's Hardware seems to show it doing well in Crysis, beating all the other cards in contrast. Read all three to get a better overall picture.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/01/28/ati_r680_the_rage_fury_maxx_2/

[Regorium]

About what I expected. Slightly faster than the 8800 Ultra, draws a ton of power, is extremely loud. Since it's only 7-10% faster than the 8800 Ultra at top resolutions, I expect the 9800 Ultra to take back the crown using a single GPU solution in a couple months.

The one surprise is the attractive price. $450 for a top of the line video card is excellent for the consumer. I was expecting $550-$600 for it.

[Nehkara]

About what I expected. Slightly faster than the 8800 Ultra, draws a ton of power, is extremely loud. Since it's only 7-10% faster than the 8800 Ultra at top resolutions, I expect the 9800 Ultra to take back the crown using a single GPU solution in a couple months.

The one surprise is the attractive price. $450 for a top of the line video card is excellent for the consumer. I was expecting $550-$600 for it.

That wouldn't really make much sense. The HD 3870 is $240. The HD 3870 X2 could not be priced more than $480 or people would just buy 2 3870s and run them on crossfire.

That said, it is nice to see that the fastest video card currently on the market is $450.

[Vulcan]

It's at $480 for an HIS card at Memory Express. Prices could be high because of supply and demand.

Here's a Canadian review which gives an impressive 3DMark 06 score.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/4236-ati-radeon-hd3870-x2-1gb-review.html

[Bobblehead]

[H]ardocp's review is especially poor on the card because they don't use any benchmarks, only real-world gameplay.

The Anandtech shows better performance and Tom's Hardware seems to show it doing well in Crysis, beating all the other cards in contrast. Read all three to get a better overall picture.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/01/28/ati_r680_the_rage_fury_maxx_2/

I like [H]ard's way of reviewing video cards.

And the power requirements are a bit lower than the 8800 at idle and a bit higher at load.

[Regorium]

That wouldn't really make much sense. The HD 3870 is $240. The HD 3870 X2 could not be priced more than $480 or people would just buy 2 3870s and run them on crossfire.

That said, it is nice to see that the fastest video card currently on the market is $450.

Well, if you buy 2 3870's, you'd have to get a crossfire enabled motherboard for one which adds to the price (perhaps another $100?). Also for people just looking to upgrade from an older PCI-E card, this would be the top of the line solution as most motherboards don't have two PCI-E slots and aren't crossfire enabled.

Personally I like single card solutions far better than either SLI/Crossfire and would easily pay a 50-100 dollar premium for the X2 over 2 3870's.

[Hack&Lube]

I like [H]ard's way of reviewing video cards.

And the power requirements are a bit lower than the 8800 at idle and a bit higher at load.

There's a big debate right now, even Anandtech's guy posted an article arguing against the [H]ardOCP method. In many ways, how they do "highest playable settings" is very subjective. I think people prefer empirical numbers.

[Bobblehead]

There's a big debate right now, even Anandtech's guy posted an article arguing against the [H]ardOCP method. In many ways, how they do "highest playable settings" is very subjective. I think people prefer empirical numbers.

Sure, but the average person probably couldn't tell the difference between that and lower settings. Like HDTV - I'd be willing to bet 90%+ of people couldn't tell the difference between 1080i and 1080p, so people wanting empirical numbers to compare them may be true, but does it really matter? If I don't have a big monitor, should I care if a card doesn't play on 1920x1200 at max settings?

When it comes to gaming, all I really care about is if game X is playable with a card. I don't really care if my card has an average of 3 fps less than another card; I couldn't see the visual difference if I tried. As long as it works. I think that is what [H]ardOCP is getting at. I still read numerous reviews to get an overall picture, but at the end of the day all that really matters is if the card will do what I want it to do.