ATI Radeon HD 3870 & 3850: A Return to Competition

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• Parhel - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link

  Even though you're wrong, do you mind if I use your math on my upcoming trip to Europe? It would really help me out. :)

• MrKaz - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link

  Since no one seems to ask but since when crossfire works on Nvidia 680i?
  
  Also you said this correctly over load power:
  "The difference is negligible, but when you include the fact that the 8800 GT is faster, the Radeon HD 3870 actually has worse performance-per-watt than the competition. "
  
  But you unfortunately failed to mention this over idle power:
  "The difference is huge, especially when comparing to the older ATI and NVIDIA offers, even when comparing to the new 8800GT it’s still a 40 Watts difference."

• Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link

  It doesn't, we used a P965 board for CrossFire, but you couldn't have known that - thus I've updated the test table :)
  
  And I've included commentary on the idle power of the 3800 series, my apologies for the oversight.
  
  Take care,
  Anand

• MrKaz - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link

  Anand do you think Crossfire scaling would improve if you used some X38 or rd580?
  Or the 4x PCIe slot on 965 doesn’t affect it much?
  
  Does the 790 and Phenom get reviewed this month?
  
  Continue the good work!

• Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link

  Personally I don't think the chipset is at fault for poor scaling here, but you do make a good point - I'll see if we can run some numbers internally and figure that out.
  
  Indeed this isn't the only AMD product that gets reviewed this month...
  
  :)
  

• Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link

  Woops, my mistake, Derek ran the CF tests and they were on a P35 board and not a P965. I've updated the article accordingly.
  
  Take care,
  Anand

• MrKaz - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link

  Thanks Anand!

• jcromano - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link

  From page 5:
  

  quote:
  

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  Looking at our own price search engine we see that only Amazon is listing a card available at $249, but it's not in stock, nor are any of the other more expensive 8800 GTs listed.

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  I have been unable to use the RTPE for the past two weeks or so. What's the trick? Here is the error it gives me:
  

  quote:
  

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  Warning: mysql_pconnect(): Lost connection to MySQL server during query in /var/www/vweb/rtpeserve/php/login.php on line 53

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  Jim

• Crassus - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link

  Yep. Same here error message here, both in Firefox and IE. I've been trying to make use of the RTPE for weeks now, without success. Or was it converted to Anandtech "staff only" use? ;c)

• jcromano - Thursday, November 15, 2007 - link

  Ok. Thanks for the quick response. I look forward to the return of the RTPE, but maybe your shopping page can substitute in the meantime.
  
  Cheers,
  Jim