Maximum PC

Geek Tested:

Reviews MSI R3870 X2 T2DIG

Posted 03/03/08 at 06:54:01 PM | by Michael Brown

AMD’s Radeon HD 3870 is a fine GPU for the money. It doesn’t outperform Nvidia’s GeForce 8800 GTX, and it lags far behind the extravagant 8800 Ultra, but it does deliver a phenom— er, make that a tremendous price/performance ratio.

So what happens when you put two of these parts—each with its own 512MB frame buffer—on a single board? You get a Radeon R3870 X2. The result isn’t as spectacular as you’d expect, but MSI’s implementation delivers plenty of bang for the buck. This card isn’t an Ultra killer by any means, but with a price tag of just $450, it doesn’t need to be.

There’s nothing mysterious about the R3870 X2—the two GPUs are exactly the same as those on a single-GPU card. Each one has 320 stream processors, a 256-bit memory interface, support for AMD’s Unified Video Decoder (for offloading HD and Blu-ray video-decoding from the host CPU), and dual-link DVI with HDCP on both links (to support the native resolution of 30-inch LCD panels).

If you care as much about high-definition video decoding as you care about gaming, you probably know that neither Nvidia’s 8800 GTX nor its 8800 Ultra supports those last two features. And unlike Nvidia’s new GPUs that do fully offload HD video decoding, the R3870 X2 supports the incremental updates to DirectX: Direct3D 10.1 and Shader Model 4.1 (although we believe this support to be unimportant right now).

MSI set the GPUs’ cores to run at 828MHz and the memory at 955MHz, a fraction faster than AMD’s reference-design specs of 825MHz and 900MHz, respectively. As with AMD’s 3870 X2 reference design, MSI’s board has two 512MB frame buffers, one for each GPU. AMD’s reference design and MSI’s implementation both use GDDR3 memory, compared to the GDDR4 memory found on single-GPU 3870 cards. AMD tells us there’s nothing about the design that would prevent its board partners from using GDDR4 memory or from increasing the size of the frame buffers (although we suspect there wouldn’t be a tremendous difference in performance from either design change).

A PCI Express 1.1 bridge chip sitting between the two processors effectively creates CrossFire on the card (with 16 bi-directional lanes for each GPU) without the need for a CrossFire chipset on the motherboard. There is, however, a single interconnect that will allow you to build a CrossFireX rig with four 3870 GPUs onboard, but that does require a CrossFire chipset. The board itself supports PCI Express 2.0, but AMD tells us that putting a PCI Express 2.0 bridge chip between the two GPUs would have delayed the product and wouldn’t have yielded much of a performance boost anyway.

Having all the components on a single board strikes us as a much more elegant solution than sandwiching boards together, which Nvidia did with its since-discontinued 7950 GX2. It also allows AMD to use a single cooler, which is located at the very end of the board and exhausts outside the case, for both GPUs and both frame buffers.

You’ll need both the six-pin and eight-pin power connectors if you intend to overclock a 3870 X2 board.

Having a single fan not only renders the card nearly as quiet as a single-GPU configuration but also avoids the need for twice the electrical power. The R3870 has two auxiliary power sockets onboard, one six-pin and one eight-pin, but only the six-pin socket is needed for normal operation. If you intend to overclock the board, you will need to send power to both of them. In our tests, our 3870 X2 test system consumed about 170 watts at idle and around 275 watts under load, compared to the 3870’s 117 watts at idle and 208 watts under load.

We periodically update the games we use for videocard benchmarking, but we’ve stuck with the Shader Model 3.0 tests in the artificial benchmark 3DMark06 as a means of providing continuity. The results we’ve seen with the 3870 X2, however, indicate that the benchmark has finally outlived its usefulness: The 2x performance boost it delivers there doesn’t jibe with the frame rates we saw in actual games. In fact, there was virtually no performance scaling in Crysis at all with the 3870 X2 when compared to a single Radeon 3870.

The 3870 X2 is a good solution, but it doesn’t solve the fundamental problem with dual-, tri-, and quad-GPU systems: Their performance doesn’t scale with every game—including high-profile titles like Crysis that you’d buy these cards for in the first place.

The dual Radeon 3870 GPUs require a lot of board real estate, which means the Radeon 3870 X2 won’t fit in every case (although it’s no longer than Nvidia’s GeForce 8800 Ultra).

Truth

Relatively quiet and power efficient; offloads video-decoding chores from the host CPU.

Consequences

Currently delivers no performance scaling with the most demanding game on the market today.

Windows XP (DirectX 9)
	MSI Radeon 2870 x2	XFX GeForce 8800 Ultra
3DMark06 Game 1 (FPS)	47.6	35.2
3DMark06 Game 2 (FPS)	42.1	31.7
Crysis (DX9) (FPS)	23.1	38.6
Unreal Tournament 3 (FPS)	86.5	97.6

Windows Vista (DirectX 10)
	MSI Radeon 2870 x2	XFX GeForce 8800 Ultra
3DMark06 Game 1 (FPS)	46.4	34.3
3DMark06 Game 2 (FPS)	41.9	30.9
Crysis (DX10) (FPS)	26.7	30.1
Unreal Tournament 3 (FPS)	68.4	75.4
Best scores are bolded. AMD-based cards tested with an Intel D975BX2 motherboard; Nvidia-based cards tested with an EVGA 680i SLI motherboard. Intel 2.93GHz Core 2 Extreme X6800 CPUs and 2GB of Corsair DDR RAM used in both scenarios. Benchmarks performed on ViewSonic VP2330wb monitors.

SPECS
GPU	Radeon HD 2870 x2
GPU Manufacturing Process	55nm
Memory	512 MB GDDR3 (x2)
Form Factor	Dual Slot
Display Interface	Dual-Link DVI with HDCP on both links
PCI Express Support	2.0 on the motherboard; 1.1 on the card
DirectX Support	Direct3D 10.1; Shadermodel 4.1
Power Sockets	One six-pin, one eight-pin

COMMENTS:: 6
TAGS:: reviews, Video Card, radeon, msi, graphics card, dual gpu, directx 10, Crossfire, build a pc, 3870

Comments

COMMENTS

Skewed Results
Submitted by Hugh MANN on Sun, 2008-03-16 04:34

Skewed Results!

From what I can tell from the product secifications, neither the Intel D975BX2, nor the EVGA 680i SLI motherboards are PCIE 2.0 compliant, and to use them to compare the MSI R3870 X2 and the XFX GEFORCE 8800 Ultra in a head to head showdown does a great disservice to both videocards!

The name of the magazine is MAXIMUM PC, and to castrate and cripple these videocards with a last generation motherboard does not allow either card to demonstrate it’s MAXIMUM potential!

I assume that the 3D Mark 06 benchmark scores were obtained using the default resolutions, and with Antialiasing and Anistropic Filtering disabled, but there was no mention of this! A proper product review would include tests made at low, medium, and high resolutions, with and without AA and AF! Moreover, there is more to a product review than just a few benchmark scores, and there is more to a computer system than just the video card!

The video card is part of a system, and consumers are interested in just how well the video card integrates itself with the system, and makes use of the system resources! To say that each motherboard had 2 GB of Corsair DDR RAM doesn’t tell me much at all! What speed was the DDR RAM? (Typing error should be DDR2 RAM), but was it 533/667/800/1066/1200 MHz DDR2 Memory?

What was the FSB and Hypertransport speeds? Would performance increase with a faster CPU and - or faster memory! Would performance increase in Windows XP 64 which can make full utilization of more memory?

Other questions include, operating temperatures and noise levels at idle and heavy loads, and how well it overclocks, and which set of drivers was being used! (ATI updates it’s drivers almost every month, and some people have reported significant performance increases by going to the newer drivers)!

In addition to comparing benchmarks with the GEFORCE 8800 Ultra, how does it compare with a GEFORCE 8800 GTX (512 Meg), and with ATI’s Reference design for the Radeon HD 3870 X2, and also with two single GPU Radeon HD 3780's in Crossfire?

Not every 8800 is created equal, and the same thing can be said for the Radeon HD 3870 and also for the Radeon HD 3870 X2! Between the individual manufacturers differences do exist! Primarily in how aggressively the video card is overclocked, and secondarily in the different cooling solutions used!

The Asus EAH3870X2 1GB Top (Top Overclocking Performance) offers a radically different cooling solution than the “leaf blower” which is the ATI reference design! A very comprehensive product review appears in the Overclockers Club website!

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/asus_eah3870x2/

Sapphire Technologies has just added a water cooled version of the Radeon HD 3870 X2 to it’s ATOMIC lineup of video cards and a brief review appears in the Fudzilla website!

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5870&Itemid=40

Aside from some nice pictures, not much technical information was provided, but with excessive heat and noise removed from the equation we can be assured that it will be an overclocker’s dream come true!

The MSI R3870 X2 was the first of the Radeon HD 3870 X2's to be reviewed by Maximum PC, and hopefully, it won’t be the last! Hopefully, the readers will not judge all Radeon HD 3870 X2's by what they see in the MSI R3870 X2, and hopefully by the time Michael Brown begins to write these reviews, someone at Maximum PC will provide him with some newer generation motherboards that allows either type of video card to demonstrate it’s MAXIMUM potential!

Only someone who has more money than common sense would choose a video card based on framerates alone! Each card has its PROS and CONS and it is up to the consumer to decide what is best for them!

At this stage of the game, my advice would be to adopt a wait and see attitude before you start shelling out your hard earned cash!

Nvidia plans to launch the Geforce 9800 GX2 on the 18th of March, and on the 25th Nvidia plans to launch the Geforce 9800 GTX, Nforce 750a SLI and Nforce 780a SLI chipsets for AMD processors. These will have an IGP and will support Hybrid power, as well as Hybrid SLI.

Also on the 25th Nvidia plans to release the Quad SLI drivers! So a wait and see attitude would be the best course of action for the present! More information is available at,

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogsection&id=12&Itemid=65

Overall, the thing that I find most surprising is that Nvidia plans to release the Nforce 780a SLI chipsets for AMD processors. Ever since their merger with ATI, AMD as the parent corporation has been in direct competition with Nvidia! It has been a couple of years since there have been any AMD based motherboards that were SLI capable, and in that time we have seen the release of the AM2+ Phenom Quad Core CPU’s and also the PCIE specification upgraded to 2.0!

Login or register to post comments

Benchmarks
Submitted by silentbravo on Tue, 2008-03-11 13:01

MSI Radeon 2870 x2, yes it says 2870 x2, In BOTH benchmarks, nice scores though, I must have this 2870 x2...

oh its in the specs to: Radeon HD 2870 x2

Login or register to post comments

8gpu
Submitted by crysismaster on Wed, 2008-03-05 06:36

i mean 4 3870X2 in a single mobo. is tat possible?

Login or register to post comments

8 GPUs
Submitted by nsvander on Wed, 2008-03-05 21:25

From looking at the card on newegg's site, it does not look like you could get more then 2 attached, there is only one x-fire slot on the card.

Login or register to post comments

Power needed
Submitted by crysismaster on Tue, 2008-03-04 04:37

how much juice does it need to run the msi 3870 x2 in cross fire x mode (four of the same cards).

Login or register to post comments