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Average user rating:
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Full user review
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1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
4.0 stars
"Good but conditional performance."
Pros: Excellent Price, scaling in DX9 games.
Cons: Crossfire still does not scale well in DX10.
Summary: I picked up this card some two weeks ago now and have had a chance to run it through the standard battery of tests.
The price point for this card and the performance I have seen in DX9 games is truly amazing. Scaling in F.E.A.R., COD4, and Bioshock are quite good with Catalyst 8.2 drivers. Pretty much any DX9 game you can throw at it will run beautifully and smoothly at whatever settings you choose.
However, the scaling on a DX10 game like Crysis still does not seem to be quite there. Right now, the way Crysis scales makes a single GPU solution like an 8800 Ultra the best bet for running the game. This month will see the release of Catalyst 8.3 which will introduce CrossfireX software support on CrossfireX motherboards. That will allow two of these cards to be linked for four GPUs, or alternatively one 3870 X2 and one HD3870 or 3850 for three GPUs.
It seems like this functionality will help these ATI cards run better in games where they already excel, and will not help the Vista DX10 situation. I fail to see how three or 4 GPUs will help when the drivers cannot take advantage of two under the DX10 architecture. It may be that the DX 10.1 refresh will help these problems along with the catalyst 8.3 drivers. But it may not be until the true dual core R700 series that we see better DX10 performance.
I highly recommend this card under XP or for DX9 gaming under Vista. With built in crossfire on one PCB it scales ever so slightly better than two seperate 3870s. New drivers will also add the flexibility to add another 3870 X2 or 3870/3850. If the driver and DX10 updates increase scalability in DX10 applications this card will be a lock.
On a side note, being able to output audio and video over HDMI is quite nice. Full support for Blu-ray lossless formats, it is great not having to worry about a discrete sound card or motherboard audio(which I have disabled on my system).
As stated earlier the weaknesses to this card are the fact that it may never scale well in DX10 apps, which isn't good if one whole GPU can't be used adequately. Also the R700 series may be out this summer already, and depending on prices and the performance of dualcore GPUs on one die (not two seperate GPUs as in this card) it may be obsoleted fairly quickly. But then, what isn't in this market?
