Full Review: 9800GX2 vs HD3870X2!!!

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SunnyD

SunnyD

Belgian Waffler
Jan 2, 2001
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www.neftastic.com
Well, I guess it comes down to is a 25% performance premium worth a 33% price premium? Seeing that it looks like the 9800GX2 is going to be selling for around $600, and 3780x2 is around $400 now, and only going to get lower when the 9800 comes out.
 
thecoolnessrune

thecoolnessrune

Diamond Member
Jun 8, 2005
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Performance looks good, though obviously they have serious issues to work out with AA. Most enthusiasts are running Intel chipsets right now, and to only ensure good performance on nVidia chipsets would be shooting themselves in the foot. But obviously there are still driver bugs to work out.

I wonder what the price difference is between these two.
 
G

Genx87

Lifer
Apr 8, 2002
41,091
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They will iron out those AA issues. Otherwise it looks good. I saw a bunch of 30+% gains over the competition. And Crysis, the most demanding game out there saw a 70% increase in performance!
 
R

reviewhunter

Member
Mar 4, 2008
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Originally posted by: SunnyD
Well, I guess it comes down to is a 25% performance premium worth a 33% price premium? Seeing that it looks like the 9800GX2 is going to be selling for around $600, and 3780x2 is around $400 now, and only going to get lower when the 9800 comes out.
Click to expand...

price/performance ratio? 3870X2 for sure!
 
R

reviewhunter

Member
Mar 4, 2008
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Originally posted by: thecoolnessrune
Performance looks good, though obviously they have serious issues to work out with AA. Most enthusiasts are running Intel chipsets right now, and to only ensure good performance on nVidia chipsets would be shooting themselves in the foot. But obviously there are still driver bugs to work out.

I wonder what the price difference is between these two.
Click to expand...

Yea, I'm on Intel chipset too. Hopefully a new driver would solve that problem.
 
R

richwenzel

Member
Sep 19, 2007
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i cant read the article (work internet police blocked the site)....

however, if th ati is 400 and the nvidia is 600, and the nvidia is 25% faster, the performance price ratios is 25%/50% or 1/2...Since you use the base ATI score for the base and the Nvidia as the numerator, you have to do the same on the prices, and the nvidia it 50% more, not 33%...

 
SunnyD

SunnyD

Belgian Waffler
Jan 2, 2001
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www.neftastic.com
Originally posted by: richwenzel
i cant read the article (work internet police blocked the site)....

however, if th ati is 400 and the nvidia is 600, and the nvidia is 25% faster, the performance price ratios is 25%/50% or 1/2...Since you use the base ATI score for the base and the Nvidia as the numerator, you have to do the same on the prices, and the nvidia it 50% more, not 33%...
Click to expand...

However... the 3780x2 is only 66% of the cost of a 9800GX2, and provides 75% of the performance.

Numerical fudgery ftw!
 
nitromullet

nitromullet

Diamond Member
Jan 7, 2004
9,031
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Food for thought...

With the numbers taken from http://lly316.blogspot.com/200...radeon-hd-3870-x2.html and http://www.firingsquad.com/har...erformance/default.asp it looks like 8800GT SLI is overall 20% faster then the 3870 X2, while the 9800GX2 is 13% faster then the 3870 X2 in the tests it was able to complete.

The 9800GX2 is apparently going to cost $600-650, two 8800GTs and a 780i motherboard will run you $700-750 (before MIR) at newegg, and the 3870X2 can be had for about $430. The rub is that the X2 doesn't perform all that great with AA enabled, and well the GX2 sometimes doesn't appear to perform at all with AA enabled.
 
M

mhouck

Senior member
Dec 31, 2007
401
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Originally posted by: nitromullet
Food for thought...

With the numbers taken from http://lly316.blogspot.com/200...radeon-hd-3870-x2.html and http://www.firingsquad.com/har...erformance/default.asp it looks like 8800GT SLI is overall 20% faster then the 3870 X2, while the 9800GX2 is 13% faster then the 3870 X2 in the tests it was able to complete.

The 9800GX2 is apparently going to cost $600-650, two 8800GTs and a 780i motherboard will run you $700-750 (before MIR) at newegg, and the 3870X2 can be had for about $430. The rub is that the X2 doesn't perform all that great with AA enabled, and well the GX2 sometimes doesn't appear to perform at all with AA enabled.
Click to expand...

And if you subtract out the cost of the board (dont forget that you don't need a 7 series to run these in sli) then you put in the two 8800GTs at newegg for $420. Better deal if don't already have an intel board...
8800 512 gt's at newegg
 
R

richwenzel

Member
Sep 19, 2007
172
0
0
Originally posted by: SunnyD
Originally posted by: richwenzel
i cant read the article (work internet police blocked the site)....

however, if th ati is 400 and the nvidia is 600, and the nvidia is 25% faster, the performance price ratios is 25%/50% or 1/2...Since you use the base ATI score for the base and the Nvidia as the numerator, you have to do the same on the prices, and the nvidia it 50% more, not 33%...
Click to expand...

However... the 3780x2 is only 66% of the cost of a 9800GX2, and provides 75% of the performance.

Numerical fudgery ftw!
Click to expand...

No

Let's say ATI's performance = 1. If the Nvidia's performance is 25% more than the ATI, it is 1.25.

Therefore if you want to say the ATI is 66% the cost of Nvidia, I.e. ATI's price/Nvidia's price, and we wanted to keep the metrics in the same order, we would take ATI's score/Nvidia's score, 1/1.25= 80%...

So we can say either of the following things, You can get 80% of Nvidia's performance for 66% of the cost if you buy the ATI, or You can get 25% more peformance than ATI for 50% more cost if you buy the Nvidia over the ATI.

No numerical fudgery. The opening posters math and your math are incorrect.
 
R

reviewhunter

Member
Mar 4, 2008
79
0
0
Originally posted by: nitromullet
Food for thought...

With the numbers taken from http://lly316.blogspot.com/200...radeon-hd-3870-x2.html and http://www.firingsquad.com/har...erformance/default.asp it looks like 8800GT SLI is overall 20% faster then the 3870 X2, while the 9800GX2 is 13% faster then the 3870 X2 in the tests it was able to complete.

The 9800GX2 is apparently going to cost $600-650, two 8800GTs and a 780i motherboard will run you $700-750 (before MIR) at newegg, and the 3870X2 can be had for about $430. The rub is that the X2 doesn't perform all that great with AA enabled, and well the GX2 sometimes doesn't appear to perform at all with AA enabled.
Click to expand...

It's unfair to compare it that way, 9800GX2 were running on QX6850; while the 8800GT SLI were running on E6750.

 
nitromullet

nitromullet

Diamond Member
Jan 7, 2004
9,031
36
91
Originally posted by: mhouck
Originally posted by: nitromullet
Food for thought...

With the numbers taken from http://lly316.blogspot.com/200...radeon-hd-3870-x2.html and http://www.firingsquad.com/har...erformance/default.asp it looks like 8800GT SLI is overall 20% faster then the 3870 X2, while the 9800GX2 is 13% faster then the 3870 X2 in the tests it was able to complete.

The 9800GX2 is apparently going to cost $600-650, two 8800GTs and a 780i motherboard will run you $700-750 (before MIR) at newegg, and the 3870X2 can be had for about $430. The rub is that the X2 doesn't perform all that great with AA enabled, and well the GX2 sometimes doesn't appear to perform at all with AA enabled.
Click to expand...

And if you subtract out the cost of the board (dont forget that you don't need a 7 series to run these in sli) then you put in the two 8800GTs at newegg for $420. Better deal if don't already have an intel board...
8800 512 gt's at newegg
Click to expand...

Personally, based on these numbers I think the 8800GT SLI + 780i board is the best route. It is the most expensive, but it offers the best performance across the board, the most options for upgrades, plus you don't have to buy all the pieces at once if you don't want to.

As far as 680i vs. 780i... Agreed, you don't need a 780i board, but if buying a new SLI board it doesn't make sense to go with 680i anymore IMO.
 
nitromullet

nitromullet

Diamond Member
Jan 7, 2004
9,031
36
91
Originally posted by: reviewhunter
Originally posted by: nitromullet
Food for thought...

With the numbers taken from http://lly316.blogspot.com/200...radeon-hd-3870-x2.html and http://www.firingsquad.com/har...erformance/default.asp it looks like 8800GT SLI is overall 20% faster then the 3870 X2, while the 9800GX2 is 13% faster then the 3870 X2 in the tests it was able to complete.

The 9800GX2 is apparently going to cost $600-650, two 8800GTs and a 780i motherboard will run you $700-750 (before MIR) at newegg, and the 3870X2 can be had for about $430. The rub is that the X2 doesn't perform all that great with AA enabled, and well the GX2 sometimes doesn't appear to perform at all with AA enabled.
Click to expand...

It's unfair to compare it that way, 9800GX2 were running on QX6850; while the 8800GT SLI were running on E6750.
Click to expand...

It isn't exact science I realize, but we don't have a review comparing 3870X2, 9800GX2, and 8800GT SLI... The comparison I made isn't 8800GT SLI vs. 9800GX2 anyway, it's 8800GT SLI vs. 3870X2 and 9800GX2 vs. 3870X2. Notice it's based on percentage, not raw performance numbers.
 
R

Rusin

Senior member
Jun 25, 2007
573
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0
Wonder what kind of performance this one would have with new 174.51 drivers..
 
J

Janooo

Golden Member
Aug 22, 2005
1,067
13
81
Originally posted by: nitromullet
...
Personally, based on these numbers I think the 8800GT SLI + 780i board is the best route. It is the most expensive, but it offers the best performance across the board, the most options for upgrades, plus you don't have to buy all the pieces at once if you don't want to.

As far as 680i vs. 780i... Agreed, you don't need a 780i board, but if buying a new SLI board it doesn't make sense to go with 680i anymore IMO.
Click to expand...

Well, your CPU overclock won't be the same as with an Intel board.
 
krnmastersgt

krnmastersgt

Platinum Member
Jan 10, 2008
2,873
0
0
Yes but a CPU overclock isn't as important to a lot of people as performance they get in games, personally I don't notice a difference between running my Q6600 at 3ghz and 3.6ghz, so sure you won't get as high an OC with your cpu with an nVidia chipset, but it should be more than enough assuming you aren't using a cpu that'll bottleneck in any game out there right now.
 
T

Tempered81

Diamond Member
Jan 29, 2007
6,374
1
81
The 9800gx2 is for people who wipe their ass with cash and/or want 8800GT sli performance on an intel based board.

edit: it is the new single slot king! but not single pcb king ;)
 
V

v8envy

Platinum Member
Sep 7, 2002
2,720
0
0
Neither will stability, or the lifespan of your board or RAM in many cases.

That said there are still a few 650i SLI motherboards floating around out there for low $100s. With a nearly stock clocked E8400 or X3110 you'd definitely have an edge over the sandwich card with a pair of 8800GTS for the same price.
 
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