Home for a lonely HD3870X2... X48 or 780i?

[Giacomo]

Hello everyone. This is my first post, it's been inspired by a couple of nice and recent reviews by Anandtech, thus the reason for posting here.

The brief story is that I'm about to build my new PC, after seven years with a Compaq Presario 5000 (AMD Duron 700 with an ATi Radeon 9000...), and three with a Sony Vaio VGN-S2XP notebook (Intel Pentium-M core Dothan 1.8GHz and a Radeon Mobility 9700). I've been collecting money since November, looking at market news, and finally, on mid February, the time to spend my hard saved money will have come.

I was initially tempted with DDR3, then got my brain back and changed my mind. So, here's what I've already bought: a Samsung 2032BW monitor, an Antec P190+1200 case, a Mushkin 2x2GB kit of HP2-6400 DDR2 RAM, and an Intel Q9450 CPU (ordered, should be in stock on February 6th). About the VGA, I've choosen to let ATi have my support for their recent strikingly nice product and I'll pick a HD3870X2.

My doubts reside in the mainboard... Only two possibilities: ASUS Rampage Formula or eVGA 780i SLI. I personally love nVIDIA works (in fact, before looking at that X2, I was oriented towards a G92 8800GTS), and more importantly, I've noticed a very strange fact: most of the brilliant X2 reviews out there (I mean, the most positive ones) are written around a Radeon-on-nForce test. That's strange, isn't it?

I wonder why those reviewers have got so nice results with the nForce, maybe just cohincidence, or maybe it's something else, maybe it's a brilliant marriage.

What about all of you? What do you think about it, what would you do? Of course, the most natural approach would be "GeForce on nForce" and "Radeon on AMD or Intel"... So I expect most of you answering "Go for the Rampage Formula".

So, I'm all ears to receive your feedbacks, any thought is appreciated, and maybe I'm even missing some functionalities of the X2 which could only reveal on the X48 platform, and would be "locked" on the nForce one... But I can't think of any of these.

About my overclocking needs, I'd like to play, yes for sure, but not too hard... I'd like the system to be, if not relaxed, not too stressed either. I think that 400*8, with some well-calculated tRD play, would be just fine.

So, I'm ready to listen to all your suggestions

Regards,
Giacomo

 

[jimru22]

I'm building a system very similar to yours. I think I'm going to wait for the Rampage Formula. That's my vote .

 

[Mr Fox]

Originally posted by: Giacomo
Hello everyone. This is my first post, it's been inspired by a couple of nice and recent reviews by Anandtech, thus the reason for posting here.

The brief story is that I'm about to build my new PC, after seven years with a Compaq Presario 5000 (AMD Duron 700 with an ATi Radeon 9000...), and three with a Sony Vaio VGN-S2XP notebook (Intel Pentium-M core Dothan 1.8GHz and a Radeon Mobility 9700). I've been collecting money since November, looking at market news, and finally, on mid February, the time to spend my hard saved money will have come.

I was initially tempted with DDR3, then got my brain back and changed my mind. So, here's what I've already bought: a Samsung 2032BW monitor, an Antec P190+1200 case, a Mushkin 2x2GB kit of HP2-6400 DDR2 RAM, and an Intel Q9450 CPU (ordered, should be in stock on February 6th). About the VGA, I've choosen to let ATi have my support for their recent strikingly nice product and I'll pick a HD3870X2.

My doubts reside in the mainboard... Only two possibilities: ASUS Rampage Formula or eVGA 780i SLI. I personally love nVIDIA works (in fact, before looking at that X2, I was oriented towards a G92 8800GTS), and more importantly, I've noticed a very strange fact: most of the brilliant X2 reviews out there (I mean, the most positive ones) are written around a Radeon-on-nForce test. That's strange, isn't it?

I wonder why those reviewers have got so nice results with the nForce, maybe just cohincidence, or maybe it's something else, maybe it's a brilliant marriage.

What about all of you? What do you think about it, what would you do? Of course, the most natural approach would be "GeForce on nForce" and "Radeon on AMD or Intel"... So I expect most of you answering "Go for the Rampage Formula".

So, I'm all ears to receive your feedbacks, any thought is appreciated, and maybe I'm even missing some functionalities of the X2 which could only reveal on the X48 platform, and would be "locked" on the nForce one... But I can't think of any of these.

About my overclocking needs, I'd like to play, yes for sure, but not too hard... I'd like the system to be, if not relaxed, not too stressed either. I think that 400*8, with some well-calculated tRD play, would be just fine.

So, I'm ready to listen to all your suggestions

Regards,
Giacomo

Originally posted by: jimru22


I'm building a system very similar to yours. I think I'm going to wait for the Rampage Formula. That's my vote .

Just a quick reality check....

"Marketing 101" = "Make them think that they need it".


Don't get too caught up in names, and Marketing Shineola.


X48 has no real performance advantage over X38 and X38 has no real advantage over P35 other than 2 x 16x PCI-E and that only means something if you are going to run Multi Card - Multi GPU at resolutions above 1680 x 1050.

You are considering a Multi GPU card, and it only requires 1 16x PCI-E slot a P-35 MOBO will give you everything any of the other higher priced MOBO's, except the Cost...

You are playing on a 20" monitor... any higher end single GPU card will do the job.

There is no "Future Proofing" as this socket dies next year at about this time with the intro of Nehalem.


Enough of the reality check !


By the way Welcome To AnandTech Forums !

Don't Let Rollo Sell You Tri-SLI ! (hehehe, Inside joke!)

 

[Giacomo]

Hi MrFox, thanks for your welcome and your contribution, rationale and original thoughts always appreciated.

I know there's no future-proof stuff (except enclosures, I'd say) in this branch of hi-speed evolutive market, but the reason why I would pick a X48/780i board, together with a hi-end dualGPU, is not the future-proofing mirage. The concept is ridicolously simple: I'm not a constant upgrader and I pick the opportunity for a new PC every many years. I also have fun with experimenting cool stuff (I'm -almost- an engineer, and everything of a high grade technologic stamp makes a lot of appeal to me), and wonderful things such the recent ASUS jewel or the ATi great achievement can't pass unobserved to me. Even if you take 'em simply as "objects", even if I could put them on a shelf.

Now, that said, you'll understand that I don't care saving 100 EUR, if I'm not gonna spend an another cent for the next year or so. I'd simply like to build something fascinating and max-powerful now that I can do it, be satisfied, treat it like my new beast without having done compromises.

Anandtech review of the ASUS Rampage Formula clearly talks about a transparent and incredibly well conceived product, which offers the enthusiast (not necessarily geek, I think) his best set of working tools. It surely is an usability achievement. On the other hand, the HD3870X2 is simply worth an award for efforts and implementation, it's the first working dual-GPU solution on one PCB, and when we'll all get used to multi-GPU VGA (which is, for sure, our future), this card will be remembered as a milestone. Today is out and I can't let it on the shelves, pure love (just joking, but you've understood me for sure).

The point is... A Radeon on an nForce chipset is something which sounds a bit... Strange... But I couldn't avoid to notice that cohincidence between nice review results and nForce chipset usage in tests.

It almost seems that this card performs worse if put out of an nForce chipset.

What's your opinion? I give it 10:1 to be silly, but maybe is good as a starting point to make some interesting thoughts.

Giacomo

P.S.: Thank you jimru22 for your "vote", too.

 

[mhouck]

The 780i is still based on the 680i architecture and doesn't support a 1600 fsb. With an ATI card, the SLI PCI-E 2.0 holds no benefit for you.

I would recommend the X-38. I can't type out all the reasons its silly to get a X-48 over a X-38. (#1. Is it's not out yet.) Read the Anandtech article linked.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...howdoc.aspx?i=3150&p=1

I'm also linking a Newegg Product Link for the product specs with a DDR3 1600 board example. There are at least a dozen X-38 boards that support higher clocked DDR2 if you want to save some money at most online retailers.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813128068

 

[Giacomo]

I would recommend the X-38. I can't type out all the reasons its silly to get a X-48 over a X-38. (#1. Is it's not out yet.) Read the Anandtech article linked.

Uhm, I think that those thoughts are a bit outdated; in fact, the recent ASUS Rampage Formula review is entitled "Why we were wrong about the X48".

Giacomo

 

[Mr Fox]

Originally posted by: Giacomo
Hi MrFox, thanks for your welcome and your contribution, rationale and original thoughts always appreciated.

I know there's no future-proof stuff (except enclosures, I'd say) in this branch of hi-speed evolutive market, but the reason why I would pick a X48/780i board, together with a hi-end dualGPU, is not the future-proofing mirage. The concept is ridicolously simple: I'm not a constant upgrader and I pick the opportunity for a new PC every many years. I also have fun with experimenting cool stuff (I'm -almost- an engineer, and everything of a high grade technologic stamp makes a lot of appeal to me), and wonderful things such the recent ASUS jewel or the ATi great achievement can't pass unobserved to me. Even if you take 'em simply as "objects", even if I could put them on a shelf.

Now, that said, you'll understand that I don't care saving 100 EUR, if I'm not gonna spend an another cent for the next year or so. I'd simply like to build something fascinating and max-powerful now that I can do it, be satisfied, treat it like my new beast without having done compromises.

Anandtech review of the ASUS Rampage Formula clearly talks about a transparent and incredibly well conceived product, which offers the enthusiast (not necessarily geek, I think) his best set of working tools. It surely is an usability achievement. On the other hand, the HD3870X2 is simply worth an award for efforts and implementation, it's the first working dual-GPU solution on one PCB, and when we'll all get used to multi-GPU VGA (which is, for sure, our future), this card will be remembered as a milestone. Today is out and I can't let it on the shelves, pure love (just joking, but you've understood me for sure).

The point is... A Radeon on an nForce chipset is something which sounds a bit... Strange... But I couldn't avoid to notice that cohincidence between nice review results and nForce chipset usage in tests.

It almost seems that this card performs worse if put out of an nForce chipset.

What's your opinion? I give it 10:1 to be silly, but maybe is good as a starting point to make some interesting thoughts.

Giacomo

P.S.: Thank you jimru22 for your "vote", too.

I Love NVIDIA Video Cards... don't get me wrong... but it is a love/hate relationship...


I'm the wrong person to comment on NVIDIA NFORCE Core Logic... because in my opinion they were made by another company in orbit around Uranus. That is how poor their Intel Chipsets are.

Their AMD Chipsets are much better than their three ill fated Intel chipsets while they seem to be learning... I'm not sure how much is being applied.


If you do a little leg work.. you will find that there is nothing in the X48 and the X38 that the P35 does not have.and they are within a few FPS performance wise...

But good luck with whatever you do choose !!

 

[Giacomo]

Eheh nice points, and maybe I've come to a conclusion... That depends upon the answer you (all of you) are goin' to give me.

Will the P35/X38/X48 boards with TWO PCI-Express slots (such as the P5K-E, the Maximus Formula, the Rampage Formula) support a twin HD3870X2 Crossfire(X), when drivers will be available?

If the answer is "yes", and if I have to throw the coin, I'll go for the solution which gives me future Crossfire possibilities. Maybe I won't never use it, but who knows... It surely is a stronger argument for choosing, than a few percent more or less and blah blah blah.

I thought that you needed a specific AMD-chipset board to run Crossfire with more than 2 GPUs, but I'm finding posts which make me think I was wrong. If an Intel chipset would ensure me the capability of a 2x HD3870X2 in the future, I would surely choose it over the nForce.

Giacomo

 

[GoaGas]

Hi, Having used the 680i & now the X38 I can tell you I'd want to see a very long list of satisfied customers before I'd consider an nVidia chipset again. In my experience the X38 is a dream to run on. It is still a very young chip & yet seems to have outstanding reliability - just count the problems with it on these forums in the past month - virtually none.
The P35 is a very good mature chip; you'll not get anything radically better than it for several years. Most tests show the X38 as slightly better (in general terms) & presumably the X48 will be slightly better again. Both will propably get even better as they mature with new BIOSs. Remember chipsets are about stability just as much as speed & high end Intel chips knock the spots off nVidia's present offering in that department.

 

[imported_wired247]

FWIW I was about to pull the trigger on a P35 system, but I required 2x pcie 16x slots (at full speed) so I went for the X38.

IMHO, you should decide right now whether you need the 2 slots at full 16x speed or not.

If you are not going to do crossfire on the initial build then I would not bother keeping it as an upgrade strategy. After all you can easily spend more than double on the motherboard just to get that extra slot.

just to be clear, I did not get it for crossfire, I got it because my raid card is pcie x8

 

[NinjaJedi]

Originally posted by: mhouck
The 780i is still based on the 680i architecture and doesn't support a 1600 fsb. With an ATI card, the SLI PCI-E 2.0 holds no benefit for you.

I would recommend the X-38. I can't type out all the reasons its silly to get a X-48 over a X-38. (#1. Is it's not out yet.) Read the Anandtech article linked.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...howdoc.aspx?i=3150&p=1

I'm also linking a Newegg Product Link for the product specs with a DDR3 1600 board example. There are at least a dozen X-38 boards that support higher clocked DDR2 if you want to save some money at most online retailers.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813128068

I would have to disagree on the PCIe 2.0 part. Some reviews have shown a slight increase in performance when the 3870x2 was used on an x38 or 780i mobo. I don't think many would call it enough to justify the higher cost of the board when a very good p35 board can be had with 1 PCIe slot for a lot cheaper. I do kind of wish that some companys would make a x38 board with 1 PCIe slot for those that have no need to run crossfire. If you want to have the option of running crossfire in the future clearly an x38/x48 platform is the way to go. My hope is that once x48 is out prices on p35 and x38 will drop some.

A lot of people are insisting that the 3870x2 does not support PCIe 2.0 but it clearly states that it does on the AMD/ATI web site. It appears that the use of 2 GPUs can take advantage of the extra bandwidth of the PCIe 2.0 though is only a slight one.

 

[BigMoosey74]

Wait for the x48s to come out. It will at least let the x38 prices deflate if you aren?t interested. x48 seems to be for those wanting to OC the bageebus out of their system. Who knows if it will be better than x38 or not but I wouldn't listen to anyone saying so because the ones they are testing don't even have polished BIOS versions.

The longevity of socket 775 is interesting. I don't think Nehalem will kill 775 seeing that games aren't stressing the quad cores just yet. If games do start utilizing quads...I think 775 will have good run. I am building soon and putting in a Wolfdale and will swap for a quad if they start to add significant FPS in the next year or so. It will take a while for Skulltrail to unfold and price decently (if it isn?t an all together flop) so I think x48 will be a good investment if it OCs yur grandma?s x38 set off the table. If not?x38 for discount price it is.


P.S. I read something somewhere abut the PCIe 2.0...Cards are saying that they support it but indeed are not utilizing the full bandwidth...so it is something to keep an eye on. It is like DDR2 vs DDR3...keep an eye on it since DDR3 isn't that much better and the moment.

 

[Giacomo]

Thank all of you for your comments, I don't know what to answer to the P35/X38/X48 debate yet. I'm thinking and evaluating.

Just my two cents about the PCI-Express 2.0 and 3870X2 thing: the Radeon HD3870 X2 has a PCI-Express 2.0 interface towards the mainboard, and a previous version PCI-Express 1 interface between the two GPUs onboard.

This means that the two 3870 cores communicate using the "old" (?) 8 GB/s interface, but no one (at least not me) knows if the global throughput of the card (3870 + 3870) towards the mainboard makes the 16 GB/s useful or not. If yes, then the answer to the board engineering is simple and clear: a single 3870 doesn't throw out so much data to fill a PCI-Express 1 slot, and they wisely saved some money on the switch, but the sum of the two does, therefore the presence of a 2.0 interface to the mainboard.

Ciao,
Giacomo

P.S.: Just one thing about those chipset: P35 is out, because I prefer to leave a "Crossfire option" door opened. No one knows what I'll do, but I'll surely prefer to have a chance. If some kind of a miracle happened, in the next months, and Crossfire became super-efficient, together with a good driver optimization of the X2, the 2-cards quad-crossfire could become a killer.

 

[dingetje]

slap that bad boy in a p45 board

 

[Giacomo]

Eheh where's the P45, man?

Giacomo

 

[lopri]

Not saying that OP should purchase a 780i board, but on many occasion AMD cards perform better on NV chipsets. Weird, isn't it?

 

[dingetje]

errrrm wait about 2 months for it

 

[Giacomo]

Not saying that OP should purchase a 780i board, but on many occasion AMD cards perform better on NV chipsets. Weird, isn't it?

This was exactly the topic of my thread. So, is it true? Anyone else has an opinion on this thing? It sounds weird to me too, but, as I stated in the first post, I couldn't ignore those pretty nice results achieved on the nFORCE platorms, maybe the ones which showed the longest gap between the X2 and the rivals.

But I still miss an another answer: will the X48 Rampage Formula (or the X38 Maximus Formula) support a Crossfire of two 3870 X2s? Isn't CrossfireX needed for that, and isn't CrossfireX supported only from P45 on?

The only reason I would be sure to get an X38/X48 board would be the Crossfire(X?) opportunity. If I don't have with the Intel chipsets either, the match is still open.

Regards,
Giacomo

P.S.: One last add about X38vsX48: in my reference marketplaces (Switzerland) the difference between the Maximus Formula and the upcoming Rampage Formula is only 50 CHF (about 30 EUR and 40 USD).