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AMD HD 3870 X2 beats 8800 Ultra in most games

@ 2008/01/23

English HW site PCOnline had a chance to play around with a HD 3870 X2 sample, comparing its performance to the 8800 Ultra in different games, they found the new X2 to be a match for NVIDIA's previous tech 8800 Ultra.

Although the X2 consumes more power and crossfire doesn't work well with all games, it will be the price which make this card a good deal or not.

The full 17-page review can be found here:

Comment from Kougar @ 2008/01/28

Is it? Has anyone directly compared them yet? For configurations where the 256bit memory controller comes into play I would have thought it mattered.

Edit: The Tech Report comapred the two. In fact it does matter, if you play Crysis! And again in UT3, although that one was a tie. Otherwise there is a surprising tangible improvement for the 3870X2 verses two cards in Crossfire.

Comment from jmke @ 2008/01/27

why ouch? the performance difference is negligible

Comment from Kougar @ 2008/01/27

Actually, I just realized why there is such a large difference in memory clocks. The HD 3870 uses GDDR4, but the X2 uses GDDR3. Ouch.

Comment from Kougar @ 2008/01/26

MSRP was $220 for a HD 3870. MSRP for HD 3870 X2 was $450.

You are correct, the X2's look like they come with 50Mhz higher core clocks. However the X2 has 1800Mhz memory. The original 3870's come with 2250Mhz! I might suspect when the 256bit bus becomes an issue, two standalone HD3870's will scale better.

Comment from jmke @ 2008/01/25

from what I've read, the 3870X2 is clocked higher by default and is cheaper than two 3870 cards

Comment from Kougar @ 2008/01/25

The question should be, does the 3870 X2 outperform two HD3870's? You get no savings in price buying them combined or individually... so buying two individual cards still sounds better for flexibility, and possibility of price discounts.

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