AMD Shows Off Dual GPU Radeon HD 3870 X2

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• Regs - Tuesday, January 8, 2008 - link

  AMD yet again shows no performance. I guess will have to be paitent one more month and hope AMD doesn't try the same stunt again and give it to reviewers hands.
  
  
  Or...always another trip to Africa.

• Griswold - Wednesday, January 9, 2008 - link

  Smartass. Maybe they're trying to get it right this time by giving their driver-monkeys enough time to get it right - so this thing actually takes off instead of throwing out some numbers with a premature set drivers that wont help anyone especially not AMD?

• synic - Tuesday, January 8, 2008 - link

  What's the price? If it's under the price of two HD 3870's (say, $349?) and delivers close to twice the performance, then it would be more cost effective to get two of these HD 3870 X2's and CrossFire them on an X38 motherboard than two 8800GTS on the 780i motherboard.

• tcool93 - Tuesday, January 8, 2008 - link

  Typical Nvidia fanboys once again trashing ATI. Trying to drive away their business, then they whine when there is no competition due to the fact ATI has no money to invest. Kinda like shooting yourself in the foot isn't it.
  

• synic - Tuesday, January 8, 2008 - link

  WTF? Did you mean to reply to my post?
  
  Do you even know what fanboy means?

• Makaveli - Tuesday, January 8, 2008 - link

  I think he was talking about the first poster who is obviously a moron.
  
  And I seriously doubt this will retail for $349 as the other poster was suggesting. I would say either $399 on the low end to $499 on the highend. Don't forget about the retailers and their bastard markups!

• geogaddi - Tuesday, January 8, 2008 - link

  
  ...farging bastages...
  
  

• DigitlDrug - Tuesday, January 8, 2008 - link

  Focusing resources on a superior middle-tier solution may work, especially given that a multi-gpu config may be able to reach a lower idle power state if the correct hw and sw exists.
  
  This probably is not an ideal discrete graphics solution, but given that nvidia may be about to shoot themselves in the foot (which I will explain in a second), there may be a place for multi-core gpu's.
  
  A previous post reported on NVidia's use of integrated GPU's to save pwr when discreet gpu is not needed. As I stated, this may allow ATI to accomplish the same goal without an inherent system bandwidth penalty.
  
  NVidia's strategy involves loading the frame buffer into system memory and outputting it through the integrated gpu. I have my doubts about this tech given the value of bandwidth (and low latency requests) in multi-core systems.
  
  NVidia is flush with cash and dev teams (at least compared to AMD/ATI) so they can play with solutions like this and solve much of the problems with Brute Force engineering (the way Intel kept the p4 on life support for so long). ATI does not have that luxury and will need less exotic solutions like multi-gpu's to offer a competing low pwr feature.
  
  It should also be noted that though engineering costs will be saved, margins will inevitably be lower given the costs associated with manufacturing each discrete gpu chip. In short, this is NOT a slam dunk.
  
  Unfortunately, to my knowledge ATI's strategy of designing for the middle has never been implemented in the pc space successfully. In practice the best hardware platforms use a trickle down approach where the low-end inherits tech from the high-end. The high-end's higher transistor/thermal/pwr budget allows for a greater degree of innovation in terms of features, etc.

• kilkennycat - Tuesday, January 8, 2008 - link

  ... since they have no money at the moment to develop next-gen GPUs. Consumer-appealing tweaks on the current generation is all that they can afford.

• Griswold - Wednesday, January 9, 2008 - link

  Stop posting, idiot.