Old Crossfire VS new 3870x2

[Mango1970]

I currently have an x1950XT Crossfire setup... P35... Q6600 G0. Would anyone recommend going to one 3870x2 over what I currently have? Wish they would do some benchmarks from older platforms compared to the new.

 

[angry hampster]

Yes.

The 3870 has a lot more power than an x1950xt. I think it would suffice to say that a 3870x2 would perform substantially better than your CF setup.

 

[Sylvanas]

Originally posted by: angry hampster
Yes.

The 3870 has a lot more power than an x1950xt. I think it would suffice to say that a 3870x2 would perform substantially better than your CF setup.

 

[TestedAcorn]

I would recommend it, just make sure you have a good power supply... maybe 600w for that beast. I think it draws about 550w on full load.

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: TestedAcorn
I would recommend it, just make sure you have a good power supply... maybe 600w for that beast. I think it draws about 550w on full load.

That might be for a fully LOADED system with lots of HDDs, fans, hungy CPU, etc. The card by itself won't draw anywhere near that.

 

[lopri]

Even after counting that the X2 has higher base clock than regular 3870, the scaling is really impressive to me. It looks like 80~90% performance increase is not uncommon, which couldn't be said about previous generation SLI/CF. Plus, I am not sure why some of the biggest achievement of X2 aren't being mentioned very often - dual monitor support as well as seamless integration (being transparent) to OS.

 

[angry hampster]

Originally posted by: lopri
Plus, I am not sure why some of the biggest achievement of X2 aren't being mentioned very often - seamless integration (being transparent) to OS.

I was actually quite impressed by this. It's literally just a drop-in and you never have to think twice about it after installing the proper drivers. Very cool for a CF/SLI setup. I'm very curious to see how Nvidia's GX2 does next month compared to this.

 

[CP5670]

Plus, I am not sure why some of the biggest achievement of X2 aren't being mentioned very often - dual monitor support as well as seamless integration (being transparent) to OS.

The latter only applies to games that the sites usually benchmark, which are all the standard big name titles. This is the problem that SLI and CF had in the past; they worked well in most of the blockbuster releases, but from just reading reviews you never found out about odd problems that they created in lesser known or slightly older games, or subtle issues that weren't immediately apparent from just running a timedemo. It may well be that they have worked out all the problems with this card, but the reviews give no indication of it one way or another.

Also, I still haven't seen anything concerning how fast the CF compositing engine on these 3870 X2s is capable of outputting data. The last time I heard anything about it was with the X1800, where the issue with the X800s had been largely but not completely resolved. It's possible that it has been brought up to the level of a single card (400mhz) by now, but it can't be taken for granted.