well dude i have a 8800gt sli
and a 3870 crossfire...

after been testing both
i prefer the 3870 crossfire
or a 8800gt single card

nvidia still doesnt scale that well
so all those who wants to tri sli.. kindda silly as vrzone proved that only in maxed out setting on 3dmark06 8xAA 1920x1200 they manage to get 26 percent
so in real world usually half of that...

so 10 percent or less..
they failed in quad sli years ago...

but i do admit they are really good at single card solution now.

Duh.
How many days has the card been launched?

It's selling like crazy in US (Newegg) and UK (Even Overclockers.co.uk sold most of them, and they aren't exactly cheap)


These storetards are purposely jacking up the price. Show them how it's done- don't buy anything.

Asus came out with a new edition of HD3870 and HD3850.It's called Top Edition.Here's a pic of the card and its's specs.

what is current price for 3850 512mb ?

no offence,
mind to tell us why you said nvidia doesn't scale that well ?

Anyone here mind answering a question that i have:

I am quite confused by all those technologies lately. Previously, when the 320MB 8800GTS was out, it was like the best hang for buck GC at that point. With 320MB and 320bit, it seems to last quite a while.

At that point, people are saying, there isnt too much difference in between the 640MB and the 320MB if gaming was on 22" and below. Thus, i have the assumption of the EXTRA 320MB was only causing it to be better when played in higher resolution.

At the same time when the poor 8600GTS was launched with 128bit, people are complaining why is it that way and not 256bit. Thus limiting its capability. Assumption from me again is that the bits are very important.

Now, when the 512MB 256bit 8800GT/ HD3870 was out, it beat the crap out of the higher bit, lower memory 8800GTS. Why would it so? I mean, ok, its technology but i always thought that the memory is only going to serve you when you are playing on higher resolution?

Thanks alot for answering..

8800GT: 112 SPs and brute force high shader clocks. Great speeds, at which you implode an atomic bomb.
3850 (which mostly wins the GTS320): New drivers are great, AA hit is almost gone, shader engine is optimized, plus the 2900XT wasn't THAT bad to start with in raw speed anyway.


DX10 has a LOT of RAM overhead. You need RAM everywhere. 256MB can't cut it (As for the 3850 256MB, it seems to be a nice DX9 card for the Palit price). 512MB is the minimum, and it shows.

When I was searching for info regarding 640mb vs 320mb a few months back, it was stated that a few games already required more than 256-320mb of VRAM even at lower resolutions. With that in mind, I decided to get the 640mb instead as I knew more or less that future games would require more rams.

In terms of bandwidth, I didn't really come across any reviews that compared 256-bit vs 320-bit or 384-bit per se. I guess for current games, 256-bit is still enough, and that is the reason why most current games are not affected by those differences.

In conclusion, I guess at the moment, 512mb VRAM at 256-bit is adequate for current games based on the current mainstream hardware that is available.....

they just dont
their sli setup seems to only scale well at extreme reso's or forced AA/AF
and that also with a marginal difference form 10-20 percent.

so far been toying with crossfire for a week with several multi gpu games...
they scale way higher... almost to a point of averaging 50-60 percent improvement.

nvidia still has a lot of bugs with their sli config from their chipsets to drivers

until today for nvidia chipsets
this functions are meaningless or goes to a point of has no major impact on performance of real world gaming

GPUEX
Turbo Settings
Linkboost

all three was a failure eventhough they marketed it and when it failed they eventually was being very quite about it...
a lot of their extra features that they did market eventually didnt perform at all.

but they do have a good single card solution till date with the G80 and G92.

ati's only fault i can say is they need to do something with the catalyst control's bugs
like me i usually just download the drivers
and use ati tray tools.

for me however i moved from sli setup primarily the 680's were really bad boards and i was getting fed up with it.
so chose the x38 motherboard which is really a dream mobo for me after i worked out the kinks etc.
crossfire was the only viable option and so far impress with the 3870 crossfire performance so far...

ati is a leader in multi gpu config and they are actually trying to deliver the scaling performance that they had set
nvidia is very far from delivering their 1.5x and usually on average performance gain is around 20 percent. Most of the time the sli setup performance depends on force
AA/AF settings.
this is the where ati limitations. usually a few games dont work well when u force AA/AF on drivers for a few games.


This post has been edited by cstkl1: Nov 18 2007, 09:17 AM

hmm from what i read sli have higher scaling than cf.....maybe that's on lower resolution which is pretty useless i think....anyway the tri sli might be just another way to sell more
btw dude ur maid's rig is so powerful

Great. Thanks for the explanation there. I guess all the assumptions of mine had just gone to dust. LOL..

Well, its tough decision saying 256bit 512mb is sufficient. Its just a few months ago when people are saying how great the 320MB 8800GTS is and how enough it will be to last another year or so. Now, its barely enough..

With that being said, i am really tempted to let go of my 8800GTS and go the ATI way of HD3870 depending on the pricing.

Well,for GTS owners: AT the moment, none of the gc are really capable to play crysis (or more games in future) smoothly at max setting/resolution, so I do not think it is worth the upgrade.....better hold your GTS and enjoy it while pending for the next gen CG, just my opinion......

talking about the crossfire x... how many watt of power supply will be needed?? My guess >1000w?
forgpot to mention 4 cards crossfire together.

This post has been edited by riku2replica: Nov 18 2007, 12:39 PM

wah~~~~~ just one month i dint come lowyat forum~~ another ati release!!ehehehehe

i GOT quesTIONSS!!!!!

1. Is (HD3870 and 3850 series) better than (HD2900 series) in term of performance???
2. What things make IT better?
3. IS HD2950 Going to release SOON? when??~~~

PLS plS~~ me wanna know
hehehee...

if cstkl is rite, than i suggest if u ever thinking of changing card, go for 8800gt, unless u wanna use multigpu then only u choose 3870..


1. generally yes. better performance than 2900xt
2. new core and architecture that is better than the R600.. it has lower watt consumption.. thus making it runs cooler..
3. never heard of 2950.. i doubt ati gonna release any 2xxx series gfx..

where they hell did u read that...

yeah my maid now has been selected as the first astronaut for indonesia.
she is flying up soon and will be awarded Dr. ship and maybe will become a dato soon.

Ati released hotfix for crysis, anyone care to share on the improvement if any?

Crysis hotfix includes the following:
DirectX 10: Fixes texture flickering in bushes, clouds, trees
DirectX 10: Performance improvements
DirectX 9: Fixes Anti-Aliasing corruption seen on the ATI Radeon 2900 Series
DirectX 9: Anti-Aliasing performance enhancements
DirectX 9: Crossfire performance improvements
DirectX 9: Fixes random graphics corruption during game play

Download:
http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default...uestionID=30533

This post has been edited by sotong168: Nov 18 2007, 01:45 PM

The bus width in isolation doesn't tell you much. You have to consider the memory speeds it is paired with as well. Total memory bandwidth is important. Also, how the cards use their memory bandwidth makes a difference. Newer cards tend to be smarter with memory bandwidth usage. G92 has better frame buffer compression vs G80, so it can do more given the same amount of bandwidth. I'm sure the HD3870 has improvements in that area, amongst other things too.


Clearly then, you don't know how elegantly the shaders were designed.

I see.... thats mean i can save up my rm300 to upgrade other things wahhahahaah!! gdgd thx for ur info
like that i sure will get HD3870!!

Well, in the meantime, i am still waiting for the price to stabilize before making a decision. Rushing to get one of the new technology isn't going to be my ideal choice..LOL..The 8800GT look tantalizing but of course, i had a sudden feeling that there is potential in the HD3870. Need to read more reviews..

Nice and clear explanation there. Thanks alot. In this case, considering this fact, what might be the main/major point for me to look at when i was about to purchase a new card? Memory bandwidth?Shader clock?