3870XT

[Demoth]

People are making too much from a few rumors. Leaked specs are never accurate for ATI as they take a while after each release to even get decent drivers working. The 3870 should basically be a debugged 2900XT on a 55nm die. The 2900s should never really have been developed on 80nm, just too much power draw and heat. If it wasn't released so late, the 2900XT and the handful of 2900 Pros are a good match against the first ed. 8800s. AMDs design shows promise in certain high texture games of the kind we should be seeing more of in the near future. AMDs drivers for the 2900 series are still not optimized.

If the 3870 is priced under $300, I think we are in for some good times for the majority of us mid range buyers. I'd expect the 3870 to be neck in neck with the revised 8800GTS and beating it heavily in certain future games.

In the near future, Nvidia needs to redesign their whole platform, AMD is already set for the next few gens with this platform. You can quote me on this, there will be a total shift in the performance king inside of 2008.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Demoth
In the near future, Nvidia needs to redesign their whole platform, AMD is already set for the next few gens with this platform. You can quote me on this, there will be a total shift in the performance king inside of 2008.

Out of curiousity, why does nVidia need to re-design their entire platform, when ATI still can't release a faster card than the 8800GTX, an entire year after it was released? Sure, the 3870 looks like a great midrange card, but let's check the facts here:

1. If AMD is *lucky*, they will match intel clock-for-clock with their new 790 CPU chipset.

2. Phenom may scale well with a new revision, perhaps even well enough to match the Penryn.

3. AMD will, in all likelihood, remain uncompetetive in the high-end, both for CPUs and GPUs.

4. AMD will be forced to slash prices (and lose more money) because of #3.

 

[Oyeve]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: Demoth
In the near future, Nvidia needs to redesign their whole platform, AMD is already set for the next few gens with this platform. You can quote me on this, there will be a total shift in the performance king inside of 2008.

Out of curiousity, why does nVidia need to re-design their entire platform, when ATI still can't release a faster card than the 8800GTX, an entire year after it was released? Sure, the 3870 looks like a great midrange card, but let's check the facts here:

1. If AMD is *lucky*, they will match intel clock-for-clock with their new 790 CPU chipset.

2. Phenom may scale well with a new revision, perhaps even well enough to match the Penryn.

3. AMD will, in all likelihood, remain uncompetetive in the high-end, both for CPUs and GPUs.

4. AMD will be forced to slash prices (and lose more money) because of #3.

5. AMD will go out of business and declare bankruptcy. FTC sues Nvidia for being a monopoly. We all lose. J/K of course (I hope)

 

[sisq0kidd]

Originally posted by: Sylvanas
*insert speculation on a rumour*

*insert rebuttal, generic competition is good comment, and questioning of sexual preference*

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: sisq0kidd

Originally posted by: Sylvanas
*insert speculation on a rumour*

*insert rebuttal, generic competition is good comment, and questioning of sexual preference*

you forgot references to fornication with a parental unit.

 

[swtethan]

I HEARD it was a 4 graphics core on one chip running at 6watts and all you needed to power it was a hampster running on a wheel. There are rumors also floating around that there will be a rat edition that overclocks like hell also.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: swtethan
I HEARD it was a 4 graphics core on one chip running at 6watts and all you needed to power it was a hampster running on a wheel. There are rumors also floating around that there will be a rat edition that overclocks like hell also.

nah, it uses a trapped singularity in a microdimension to speed up time to near infinity allowing their cheapest card to max out the FPS for any game ever made at any setting desired... oh and I almost forgot... it runs on ambiant mana requiring no electricity and generating no heat/noise.

 

[ronnn]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Out of curiousity, why does nVidia need to re-design their entire platform, when ATI still can't release a faster card than the 8800GTX, an entire year after it was released? Sure, the 3870 looks like a great midrange card, but let's check the facts here:

1. If AMD is *lucky*, they will match intel clock-for-clock with their new 790 CPU chipset.

2. Phenom may scale well with a new revision, perhaps even well enough to match the Penryn.

3. AMD will, in all likelihood, remain uncompetetive in the high-end, both for CPUs and GPUs.

4. AMD will be forced to slash prices (and lose more money) because of #3.

Hell of a jump from the op of wondering. :laugh: We all wonder about the future and hope we are not going to a one company society - is possible of course.

 

[Demoth]

This article gives a pretty good run down on the tech differences of each platform.


http://techreport.com/articles.x/12458/1


ATI's heavy advantages in shader processing and its tessellator will become more and more apparent over time. Limiting the R600 now is the 80nm die. ATI should benefit far more with their design with the drop from 80nm to 55nm over Nvidia's 90 to 65 revision. The drop to 55nm will allow for much higher clocks and additional hardware features on this GPU to fix the AA problem at higher resolutions. ATIs design was a bit ahead of it's time, but is built from the ground up for DX10. Nvidia will have to redesign to keep up with future revisions.

Call it wild speculation or talking out of my a&&, but looking at certain benchmarks leads me to feel ATI will have the performance crown within 2008 with a cheaper to produce GPU.

 

[SickBeast]

This thread is going downhill...too many neffers. You know who you are! :Q

 

[ronnn]

Was a neffer thread (whatever that means).

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: ronnn

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Out of curiousity, why does nVidia need to re-design their entire platform, when ATI still can't release a faster card than the 8800GTX, an entire year after it was released? Sure, the 3870 looks like a great midrange card, but let's check the facts here:

1. If AMD is *lucky*, they will match intel clock-for-clock with their new 790 CPU chipset.

2. Phenom may scale well with a new revision, perhaps even well enough to match the Penryn.

3. AMD will, in all likelihood, remain uncompetetive in the high-end, both for CPUs and GPUs.

4. AMD will be forced to slash prices (and lose more money) because of #3.

Hell of a jump from the op of wondering. :laugh: We all wonder about the future and hope we are not going to a one company society - is possible of course.

I'm still wondering about the 3870.

Do you disagree with any of my points above? I love AMD; I'm still clinging to my Opteron 165 and do plan on buying a cheap Phenom to feed my CPU fanboy-ism (yes, I admit to being an AMD CPU fanboy...for now).

 

[spittledip]

AMD was quiet about their AM2 CPUs before launch and have been pretty quiet about every launch since.. and every launch has revealed products that are inferior to the competition. The quiet is a bad sign I think. I have all AMD parts myself though so i am not biased against AMD. Just judging from al recent behavior of AMD

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: spittledip
AMD was quiet about their AM2 CPUs before launch and have been pretty quiet about every launch since.. and every launch has revealed products that are inferior to the competition. The quiet is a bad sign I think. I have all AMD parts myself though so i am not biased against AMD. Just judging from al recent behavior of AMD

Yes and the recent rumours substantiate this. AMD needs a culture-shift. Their engineering department needs to be re-vamped, or else needs more say instead of the marketing department (I'm not quite sure what their problem is TBH).

 

[biostud]

This is pretty much the same situation as pentium D vs Athlon X2.

 

[BadRobot]

Its rumored to have laser beams.

 

[Munky]

http://forum.beyond3d.com/show...1089184&postcount=1103
http://forum.beyond3d.com/show...1089187&postcount=1104
Supposedly these are the 3800 series marketing slides from AMD. If these are true then it looks like the rv670 is clock for clock on par with the r600... which means it will be slower than the 8800gt. Also of interest is the reference to the 3870 X2 high end successor to the 2900xt, which is disappointing new too because I was hoping for a single gpu card.

 

[spittledip]

Originally posted by: munky
http://forum.beyond3d.com/show...1089184&postcount=1103
http://forum.beyond3d.com/show...1089187&postcount=1104
Supposedly these are the 3800 series marketing slides from AMD. If these are true then it looks like the rv670 is clock for clock on par with the r600... which means it will be slower than the 8800gt. Also of interest is the reference to the 3870 X2 high end successor to the 2900xt, which is disappointing new too because I was hoping for a single gpu card.

No, it's not such a bad thing as long as one doesnt care about the performance crown. You get a cooler card plus decent performance and low watt usage with a double slot cooler on the 3870. if they price those right they could be nice.

 

[taltamir]

according to those slides you are looking at the 3800 being an X2900XP performance level at a 150-250$ price range... and the 3870 being a duel gpu 3800 (which is rumered to be priced at 700$)...
AND according to the last slide, quad card support for crossfire...

So you could get 4 X2 cards and have 8 gpus... although I doubt there will be working drivers for this for a long long time...

All this useless development into more and more cards in parrallel is just detracting from their development where it counts. In single card performance and cost.

 

[DaveBC]

I don't know about you guys, but its been a long time since I've seen such an home run in the $200 range of cards. Kinda reminds me of the Gforce 2Pro/Ultra days and the Radeon 9700Pro. Those were killer performers for $200 to $300. Then soon after that the prices went crazy!

So, even without much "competetion" from AMD/ATI we (the consumer) are getting quite a treat with the 8800GT IMHO.

I'm gonna buy 2 of em... Because I can!

Edit: Sorry for the off topic guess I got caught up in the moment. I hope the 38xx offering bring additional value and competition.

 

[Demoth]

Everything is still pure speculation to this point. However, one thing should be apparent. Wait a few more weeks before pulling the trigger if shopping in the $200-$300 range. Not only would you save $50 from the current 8800GT gouging feeding frenzy, but it is possible the ATI offerings will give better performance in Crysis and other heavily textured games (even if still playing in DX9).

Speculation is always fun and one can potentially wait forever to buy something when something else always seems to be just around the corner. However, when your talking a few weeks for a known top performing/mid priced release, your best bet is to wait and see some real benchmarks on offical drivers.

There are two possible reasons ATI is being tight lipped. One is, yes, a 20% performance deficit compared to the 8800GT despite their best efforts. However, another reason is a edge in DX10 on in-house drivers and keeping quiet so Nvidia dosen't up the performance of the revised 8800GTS/GTX. The closer they are to release, the harder it will be for them to get something different to market to compete.

The 2900XT is a very nice card, but it draws way too much power and is too expensive. If the new release is similar with much reduced power draw/heat and in the $250 range, it's looking pretty nice. Any improvements to AA and overclock ability would put it over the revised 8800s.

 

[bryanW1995]

my big problem is probably the same that many users have: I got a p35 mobo b/c that was the best board available. At the time I wasn't thinking about sli/xfire so it was nbd. Now that I might consider 2 gpus, I'm stuck either going to an inferior 680i mobo and selling my current rig or waiting a month or more for 780i to release and paying an arm and a leg to upgrade to one of them. The reverse is true on amd systems as the sli mobos are the top of the line with them. Something tells me that won't be the case with am2+...

Basically, it is one gpu or xfire only for me. If I get one gpu and 8800gt kicks 3870's a$$ for a similar price then there is only one option for me. If 3870 is significantly cheaper and close in performance then it might be fun to go xfire.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
my big problem is probably the same that many users have: I got a p35 mobo b/c that was the best board available. At the time I wasn't thinking about sli/xfire so it was nbd. Now that I might consider 2 gpus, I'm stuck either going to an inferior 680i mobo and selling my current rig or waiting a month or more for 780i to release and paying an arm and a leg to upgrade to one of them. The reverse is true on amd systems as the sli mobos are the top of the line with them. Something tells me that won't be the case with am2+...

Basically, it is one gpu or xfire only for me. If I get one gpu and 8800gt kicks 3870's a$$ for a similar price then there is only one option for me. If 3870 is significantly cheaper and close in performance then it might be fun to go xfire.

i determined to go crossfire when i picked my MB in April ... i was pretty sure that the new DX10 games would be too much for any current single GPS, so it appeared the best chance would be SLI/Xfire.

to complete my "plan" [besides Penryn QC], all i need is a dirt-cheap 2900xt [or similar-performing 3XXX] and i should be able to squeek by with the DX10 games for another year or even two!!

Of course, i am basing this on Crysis' Demo performance ... and i might be disappointed

 

[ronnn]

With the price of the 3850's. xfire might be a cheap fun thing I could try. Really depends on how well the drivers work and am not holding my breath.

 

[bryanW1995]

would xfire work with 2900xt and 3870?

btw, 2900 pro is finally down to $250 at the egg