few benches of 3870X2

[thilanliyan]

http://en.expreview.com/?p=219#more-219

Still loses in Crysis unfortunately at those settings...or is Crossfire even working?

 

[Rusin]

Or that card still just sucks in that sucking game? Crysis is poor game and it haven't sold that well. It does well in Call of Duty 4, but simply sucks in Need for Street: Pro Street.

 

[zeroburrito]

looks like crossfire isn't working correctly in a few games.

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: zeroburrito
looks like crossfire isn't working correctly in a few games.

Guaranteed, we will see lots of issues with this card & nV's upcoming SLI sandwich.

I'm staying away till a real next gen solution appears.

 

[AzN]

Why would crossfire not work? The board is on 1 pcb.

NFS prostreet is one of those games AMD just sucks on with AA performance.

Crysis shouldn't be slower unless some driver issues or need optimization.

 

[BFG10K]

Why would crossfire not work? The board is on 1 pcb.

I doesn't matter if it's on one PCB because the driver still programs the card just like regular Crossfire with multiple physical PCBs.

That means the usual problems if a profile isn't there and/or isn't scaling properly.

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

Why would crossfire not work? The board is on 1 pcb.

I doesn't matter if it's on one PCB because the driver still programs the card just like regular Crossfire with multiple physical PCBs.

That means the usual problems if a profile isn't there and/or isn't scaling properly.

You would know how they wrote the drivers to give me this information? Do they even use a crossfire profile? Maybe they wrote drivers from the ground up.

 

[AzN]

http://www.pczilla.net/upload/200801211916224385.jpg

WTH is this graph about? Does this mean 3870x2 performs better with PCI 2.0 over PCI 1.1?

 

[BFG10K]

You would know how they wrote the drivers to give me this information?

It's two GPUs on a single PCB that require a Crossfire driver to operate. It's not a single GPU, nor does it behave like one.

Do they even use a crossfire profile?

They must have something to use AFR/scissors/super-tiling or it wouldn?t scale and would behave like a slightly faster single 3870.

Maybe they wrote drivers from the ground up.

They did put a lot of work into Crossfire scaling, something they wouldn't have to do if it was a single card.

WTH is this graph about? Does this mean 3870x2 performs better with PCI 2.0 over PCI 1.1?

It would appear so. Maybe they use PCIe for some of the inter-GPU communication.

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

It's two GPUs on a single PCB that require a Crossfire driver to operate. It's not a single GPU, nor does it behave like one.

How do you know it's using crossfire driver to operate? Did AMD tell you?

They must have something to use AFR/scissors/super-tiling or it wouldn?t scale and would behave like a slightly faster single 3870.

You got this information where? Provide some links where AMD released this information.

They did put a lot of work into Crossfire scaling, something they wouldn't have to do if it was a single card.

Doesn't look like it's running crossfire with 2 separate pcb. Dual 3870 performance is actually worse than x2 looking at how well it scales and looks to be more compatible than dual 3870. I rather wait for the official review of comparing the 2.

It would appear so. Maybe they use PCIe for some of the inter-GPU communication.

This is a little different than 2 3870 slapped on together with a crossfire profile obviously.

 

[Aberforth]

finally a card that performs very close 8800 ultra that was released several months ago. What a waste of PCB...definetly not buying an outdated card.

 

[40sTheme]

Originally posted by: Azn

Originally posted by: BFG10K

It's two GPUs on a single PCB that require a Crossfire driver to operate. It's not a single GPU, nor does it behave like one.

How do you know it's using crossfire driver to operate? Did AMD tell you?

They must have something to use AFR/scissors/super-tiling or it wouldn?t scale and would behave like a slightly faster single 3870.

You got this information where? Provide some links where AMD released this information.

They did put a lot of work into Crossfire scaling, something they wouldn't have to do if it was a single card.

Doesn't look like it's running crossfire with 2 separate pcb. Dual 3870 performance is actually worse than x2 looking at how well it scales and looks to be more compatible than dual 3870. I rather wait for the official review of comparing the 2.

It would appear so. Maybe they use PCIe for some of the inter-GPU communication.

This is a little different than 2 3870 slapped on together with a crossfire profile obviously.

I'm assuming the bridge in the middle of the two chips is a Crossfire bridge slapped onto the PCB.

 

[BFG10K]

How do you know it's using crossfire driver to operate?

Because it's a Crossfire card.

You got this information where? Provide some links where AMD released this information.

Start by reading the basics of Crossfire. Once you understand that we can proceed.

Doesn't look like it's running crossfire with 2 separate pcb.

It?s running Crossfire on one PCB. What part of this are you having trouble understanding?

Dual 3870 performance is actually worse than x2 looking at how well it scales

That's because each GPU on the X2 is running at a higher clock speed than a single 3870 and also I'd imagine certain things are more efficient when kept one die instead of two separate cards.

I rather wait for the official review of comparing the 2.

Given you don't appear to understand the fundamentals of Crossfire, I don?t think an official review will help you.

 

[happy medium]

Copy and paste from review.....

Something you won?t find in the specs is that this video card will work on any PCI-Express X16 capable motherboard. It was widely assumed in the early-going that the card would only work on motherboards that support CrossFire technology. In reality, however, the CrossFire option does not even become available in the Catalyst driver when using this card. All CrossFire connectivity appears to be handled internally, and the computer recognizes the X2 as a single video card.


http://www.fpslabs.com/reviews...-3870-x2-review/page-3

 

[BFG10K]

Right, but in order to utilize two GPUs the driver still has to use Crossfire technologies (AFR/scissors/super-tiling), like I mentioned earlier.

That means it'll have to deal with the same limitations of Crossfire scaling, limitations a true single GPU doesn't have.

 

[Killrose]

Is the true driver for this card even released yet? I know the 8.1 Cats are very new, but don't they usually hold back the real drivers untill the eleventh hour to keep reveiw sites from jumping the gun?

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Azn

Originally posted by: BFG10K

It's two GPUs on a single PCB that require a Crossfire driver to operate. It's not a single GPU, nor does it behave like one.

How do you know it's using crossfire driver to operate? Did AMD tell you?

They must have something to use AFR/scissors/super-tiling or it wouldn?t scale and would behave like a slightly faster single 3870.

You got this information where? Provide some links where AMD released this information.

They did put a lot of work into Crossfire scaling, something they wouldn't have to do if it was a single card.

Doesn't look like it's running crossfire with 2 separate pcb. Dual 3870 performance is actually worse than x2 looking at how well it scales and looks to be more compatible than dual 3870. I rather wait for the official review of comparing the 2.

It would appear so. Maybe they use PCIe for some of the inter-GPU communication.

This is a little different than 2 3870 slapped on together with a crossfire profile obviously.

Sounds a little bit like you were hoping for something else?

 

[ronnn]

To expect this to perform any better than the disappointing 7950gt is probably wishful thinking. Though is hard not to hope, but sli and crossfire have not thrilled many yet. If you play lots of one game that scales well, than dual gpu may be a good thing, but if you play many games - hope for the best but expect the worst.

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: ronnn
To expect this to perform any better than the disappointing 7950gt is probably wishful thinking.

Do you mean the GX2? I thought that card was trumped a long time ago no??

 

[ronnn]

u are right, I mis typed. The 7950gx2 won the performance crown according to many here, but promised drivers never arrived and buyers felt remorse.

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: Aberforth
finally a card that performs very close 8800 ultra that was released several months ago. What a waste of PCB...definetly not buying an outdated card.

Yeah, I forgot, DX12 is already here. and their performance sucks and can't play next generation games even at 640x480 ¬¬