3850x2

[bryanW1995]

http://www.nordichardware.com/news,7575.html

looks interesting, but for those of us who have crossfire mobos (or even frankenfire-capable p35 mobos with nod to apoppin) probably not AS interesting.

 

[Piuc2020]

What? Only 256MB of memory? I don't want to give an early judgement but I think that already puts that card in the uninteresting category.

Just see the kind of performance hit the 8800GT gets with only 256MB of memory, it ends up being much worse than the 9600GT when the 512MB version is faster, if they really do that HD 3850 X2 with only 256MB of memory then I fear it might end up being worse than a single HD 3850 so that data can't possibly be right.

 

[Sylvanas]

Originally posted by: Piuc2020
What? Only 256MB of memory? I don't want to give an early judgement but I think that already puts that card in the uninteresting category.

Just see the kind of performance hit the 8800GT gets with only 256MB of memory, it ends up being much worse than the 9600GT when the 512MB version is faster, if they really do that HD 3850 X2 with only 256MB of memory then I fear it might end up being worse than a single HD 3850 so that data can't possibly be right.

Board partners will no doubt slap on 512mb for this card and market it as 'extreme'. Its a neat idea....it all comes down to price...if I can buy one, spend 2minutes OCing I'll have myself a 3870X2!

Heres another idea- perhaps they are transitioning the 3870X2 to GDDR4 or perhaps a PCI-E 2.0 bridge chip and all the excess stock working on GDDR3 will be sold as a '3850X2'.

 

[Piuc2020]

Originally posted by: Sylvanas

Originally posted by: Piuc2020
What? Only 256MB of memory? I don't want to give an early judgement but I think that already puts that card in the uninteresting category.

Just see the kind of performance hit the 8800GT gets with only 256MB of memory, it ends up being much worse than the 9600GT when the 512MB version is faster, if they really do that HD 3850 X2 with only 256MB of memory then I fear it might end up being worse than a single HD 3850 so that data can't possibly be right.

Board partners will no doubt slap on 512mb for this card and market it as 'extreme'. Its a neat idea....it all comes down to price...if I can buy one, spend 2minutes OCing I'll have myself a 3870X2!

Heres another idea- perhaps they are transitioning the 3870X2 to GDDR4 or perhaps a PCI-E 2.0 bridge chip and all the excess stock working on GDDR3 will be sold as a '3850X2'.

Oh yeah in a 512MB configuration it would be great but 256MB would be horrendous.

 

[schneiderguy]

Originally posted by: Piuc2020


Just see the kind of performance hit the 8800GT gets with only 256MB of memory,

g80 craps out whenever the vram fills up, the performance hit isnt as large on r600 cards

 

[AndroidVageta]

No one actually read the specs? The article says and I quote:

The memory buffer will be two sets of 256MB GDDR3 memory running at "only" 1.8GHz.

It will be using TWO sets of 256MB...which means 512MB TOTAL. I knew as soon as I saw people saying its only 256MB that something was not right as 256MB just isn't logical for a graphics card of this caliber.

 

[Sylvanas]

Originally posted by: AndroidVageta
No one actually read the specs? The article says and I quote:

The memory buffer will be two sets of 256MB GDDR3 memory running at "only" 1.8GHz.

It will be using TWO sets of 256MB...which means 512MB TOTAL. I knew as soon as I saw people saying its only 256MB that something was not right as 256MB just isn't logical for a graphics card of this caliber.

2x256mb does not= 512mb frame buffer. Both GPU's can only access a 256mb frame buffer, so its 256mb per GPU. Just like SLI 8800GTX's is not a 1.5GB Framebuffer, its actually 768mb.

 

[betasub]

As Sylvanas states, each 256MB of vRAM is exclusive to each GPU, not shared. The frame buffer is replicated in each exclusive set of vRAM so that each GPU has a working model.

 

[GundamSonicZeroX]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
The answer to a question nobody asked?

...A statement?

 

[AndroidVageta]

Originally posted by: Sylvanas

Originally posted by: AndroidVageta
No one actually read the specs? The article says and I quote:

The memory buffer will be two sets of 256MB GDDR3 memory running at "only" 1.8GHz.

It will be using TWO sets of 256MB...which means 512MB TOTAL. I knew as soon as I saw people saying its only 256MB that something was not right as 256MB just isn't logical for a graphics card of this caliber.

2x256mb does not= 512mb frame buffer. Both GPU's can only access a 256mb frame buffer, so its 256mb per GPU. Just like SLI 8800GTX's is not a 1.5GB Framebuffer, its actually 768mb.

O.K...so whats the difference then? If each GPU renders half the screen then 256MB per GPU is plenty. It may not be shared RAM but if you consider that each GPU is rendering half the screen, then EFFECTIVELY the card is 512MB and should be able to handle high resolutions and high detail textures no problem. If you think about running a game at 1920x1080 because its XFire each GPU will only render at a 960x540 resolution...which 256MB is plenty per core. I mean, 512MB per GPU would be nice and I'm sure it wouldn't be that much more money to manufacture, but its not necessary.

 

[Sylvanas]

Originally posted by: AndroidVageta

Originally posted by: Sylvanas

Originally posted by: AndroidVageta
No one actually read the specs? The article says and I quote:

The memory buffer will be two sets of 256MB GDDR3 memory running at "only" 1.8GHz.

It will be using TWO sets of 256MB...which means 512MB TOTAL. I knew as soon as I saw people saying its only 256MB that something was not right as 256MB just isn't logical for a graphics card of this caliber.

2x256mb does not= 512mb frame buffer. Both GPU's can only access a 256mb frame buffer, so its 256mb per GPU. Just like SLI 8800GTX's is not a 1.5GB Framebuffer, its actually 768mb.

O.K...so whats the difference then? If each GPU renders half the screen then 256MB per GPU is plenty. It may not be shared RAM but if you consider that each GPU is rendering half the screen, then EFFECTIVELY the card is 512MB and should be able to handle high resolutions and high detail textures no problem. If you think about running a game at 1920x1080 because its XFire each GPU will only render at a 960x540 resolution...which 256MB is plenty per core. I mean, 512MB per GPU would be nice and I'm sure it wouldn't be that much more money to manufacture, but its not necessary.

Crossfire/SLI Doesn't necessarily mean two GPU's render half a screen- there are several modes. In most cases, AFR provides the best performance, which alternates rendering of consecutive frames (ie GPU 0 does frames 1,3,5 GPU 1 does frames 2,4,6). So to my knowledge textures are still being loaded into each individual GPU's Vram in which a higher framebuffer would help. Crossfire 3850 256mb is nothing to sneeze at anyway, there are plenty of reviews out there which show it does an excellent job for the price (G80 performance at lower cost).