Benchmarking

Testbed:

Motherboard:
EVGA 680i SLI (Supplied by EVGA)

Processor:
Intel Core 2 Duo 6800 Extreme edition (Supplied by Intel)

Memory:

OCZ FlexXLC PC2 9200 5-5-5-18  (Supplied by OCZ)
        during testing CL5-5-5-15-CR2T 1066MHz at 2.2V

PSU:
OCZ Silencer 750 Quad Black (Supplied by OCZ)

Hard disk:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 80GB SATA (Supplied by Seagate)

CPU-Cooler:
Freezer 7 Pro (Supplied by Artic Cooling)
 

Case Fans:
Artic Cooling - Artic Fan 12 PWM
Artic Cooling - Artic Fan 8 PWM

ATI Driver:

Sample-R680_xp_vista_8-451-2-080108a
8-1_xp32_dd_ccc_wdm_enu_57717

Nvidia Driver:

169.21_forceware_winxp_32bit_english_whql
169.28_forceware_winxp_32bit_english_beta

Futuremarks




All 3DMarks report ATI HD 3870 X3 to be the fastest. If it only worked that way in the real world, owning this card would be like winning the lottery.


Gaming



HD 3870 X2 did well in comparison to Geforce 8800 Ultra, and the cards were quite even. Compared to a single HD 3870 card, the new dual chip card succeeds where HD 3870 fails, and it’s antialiasing. With antialialiasing on, a single HD 3870 is about 50% slower than its twin brother, whereas when you turn antialiasing on, it’s slower by 32%.

ATI’s R680 does a great job and it outperforms Geforce 8800 GTC, but Ultra still takes the cake at higher resolutions and antialiasing on. We again see that antialiasing is ATI’s weak-spot. HD 3870 X@ outperforms a single-chip card by 54% at 1600x1200 AA, and by 66% at 1920x1440 AA. With antialiasing off, this difference drops to only 9%.



In F.E.A.R., ATI runs over Nvidia. Even a single HD 3870 card almost reaches 8800 GTS territory. We won’t experience such a high Radeon 3870 X2 performance in every game, but the result shows that ATI still has much to offer. Maybe the new drivers push Radeon harder in the rest of the games. In this test, HD 3870 X2 outperforms Ultra by up to 23%.



Something went wrong in Crysis, as HD 3870 X2 won’t run with Antialiasing on. It looks as if the two RV670 chips don’t communicate well. It seems as if it’s just a single chip that actually works because the result is identical to the one that a single HD 3870 got. With antialiasing off the card ran better, and at 1600x1200 the result is identical to the one scored by Geforce 8800 Ultra.



In the famous ATI game (Half Life Episode Two), the new Radeon HD 3870 X2 beats 8800 GTX, but not 8800 Ultra. Still, CrossFire runs well and we see a good result in comparison to a single card.


Conclusion

We are witnessing an important event where DAAMIT has finally awakened and put up a fight. The HD 3870 X2 card with two RV670 graphics chip is likely to be a hit, and it will be interesting to see what antidote Nvidia has in store.

Dual chip cards are likely to have driver problems at least for a while, but the performance increase in comparison to one card is apparent, so you can count on 60% to 70% more power.

It seems that this is the path ATI wants to take in the future, and this ultra "hot" card is faster than Nvidia’s 8800 Ultra, but only by a few percent. At the time of writing this review, ATI finished a new driver that should increase performance in Crysis, but only in Vista. Still, we’re confident that ATI will keep polishing and improving their drivers.

This is a big step forward and priced at €400, it is most definitely gives a great bang for the buck.