3850 crossfire -- any words of wisdom?

[sgrinavi]

I was thinking about trying out $300 crossfire set-up in my q6600 system (in my sig) while we wait for the 9800/g200/r700 dust to settle.

Are there any particular problems that I should look out for?
Are the drivers WinXP64 ready?
Should I spend the extra $80 and go for the pair of 3870's?

 

[Sylvanas]

I am running 3850 crossfire with the rig in sig on Vista 64 (16x16 PCI-E 2.0) and have not encountered any major problems so far. I cannot comment on Xp64 with an X-fire setup, but I would be reccommending using Vista 64. What use do you intend to use the system for (games/rez)? If you intend to overclock and you have the extra $$ for 3870 Xfire then there's no reason not to... the 3870's come stock with 1.327v VGPU opposed to 3850 1.214v VGPU so a 3870 will clock higher without any modifications (usually in the 860 range).....I have reached 830 on one of my 3850's however to which I am very pleased. What board do you intend to run them in? For a P35, Apoppin might be better to comment on performance loss of running a 16x 4x setup....from what I remember it's about 15-20% performance penalty for the card running in 4x mode.... this bandwidth penalty can be alleviated somewhat by running a higher PCI-E frequency...although thats not for everyone.

 

[sgrinavi]

Thanks for your response.

On that particular system I do mostly 3dsMAX 9 work, play an occassional game, a little 3d autocad work. It is the quad system in my rig, P5k board. I have seen a few threads on other forums which indicate that the ATI gaming cards do better with those apps.

I have a copy of Vista 64 on the way and may try it in the near future as the dx10 drivers are supposed to be superior for MAX

Is any particular brand of ATI based card known to have issues or, like the nvida cards, are they all about the same?

 

[heyheybooboo]

x4 PCIe1* basicly performs at AGP 8x - don't know how that may affect performance in your case.

I would guess that prices will contine to come down for both the 3850 & 3870. Have you compared GDDR3 v GDDR4 performance? I dont' know about any benchies there.

What about single- or double-slot? Anticipate any heat problems?

 

[Sylvanas]

Originally posted by: sgrinavi
Thanks for your response.

On that particular system I do mostly 3dsMAX 9 work, play an occassional game, a little 3d autocad work. It is the quad system in my rig, P5k board. I have seen a few threads on other forums which indicate that the ATI gaming cards do better with those apps.

I have a copy of Vista 64 on the way and may try it in the near future as the dx10 drivers are supposed to be superior for MAX

Is any particular brand of ATI based card known to have issues or, like the nvida cards, are they all about the same?

All brands are pretty much the same, and like Nvidia, most are based on the reference design. I think that Visiontek, however, has a lifetime warranty on their cards so that's probably where I would go first.

 

[sgrinavi]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo
x4 PCIe1* basicly performs at AGP 8x - don't know how that may affect performance in your case.

I would guess that prices will contine to come down for both the 3850 & 3870. Have you compared GDDR3 v GDDR4 performance? I dont' know about any benchies there.

What about single- or double-slot? Anticipate any heat problems?

My board has a pair of 16x slots so I'm OK on that score; and there is room for 2 dual slot cards (I don't have any other cards installed so I'm good there too}

From the few benchies that I have seen there is only 3% difference (in FPS or 3d06marks) between the crossfire 3850 and 3870. Of course that does not take the better OC capabilities of the 3870 into account, but I don't OC my video adaptor on this system.