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Nvidia 9800GX2 & AMD 3870X2

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Grizzled Veteran
Nov 21, 2005
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Sheffield, UK
#1
Linky for 9800GX2 pics

Link to 3870X2 reviews

The Nvidia 9800GX2 looks stunning, the cooler looks well built and sturdy along with the black colour scheme that the 8 series employed. This card now features an HDMI port and what was suggested by forum members as either an SPDIF or AC wall power connector. Original thread can be found here

The 3870X2 is also pretty impressive considering it has 2 GPU's each with its own 512MB of memory connected by separate 256bit data buses all on 1 PCB. The card looks very well built and attention to detail regarding thermal dissipation is present. Have a look at this pic. Stunning! ATI has also featured well buit, reliable and very effective cooling solutions for their high end products in the past, so expect nothing less here.

Both these cards are built from existing architecture; the 9800 being 2 GTS 512's (rumour?) and the 3870X2 being 2 AMD HD3870 chips. This means you will not get next gen performance increases like you did when you jumped from a FX5950 to a 6800ulta or 7800 to a 8800 for example, but if your still plodding long with a 7 series Geforce and providing the price is right (and you like the idea of American cars with a fetish for their inefficiency) one of these bad boys might be for you. Usual SLI/Crossfire performance scaling issues apply.
 
#2
I have a 7900GS, which does fine in RO and most other games, but has been eaten into little tiny bits by ArmA (which hates babies and the elderly too). So I'm sniffing around the market myself, but neither of these cards is truly exciting--they are new additions to the mid/top end of cards, which is nice, but I guess the next generation cards are what--a year away?
 
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#3
God knows, Nvidia have been milking the G80 architecture for 18 months now and ATI are still trying to catch up to it. Does not really give them an incentive to push out new GPU's every six months like they used to when things were even.

On the positive side: this generation of video cards have kept their value, there are also plenty of games that run great on these GPUs too. Maybe the software has had chance to be optimized due to the lack of hardware changing every 5 minutes, maybe the current gen video cards have been very well designed - especially the G80, maybe its because hardly any frigging PC games are released any more. Or maybe i am just talking ****e :)
 
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#9
Xendance said:
200 euros a year... that's less than one euro per day.
Click to expand...

Agreed you know you dont have to buy the most expensive cards the 8600 cards are next to nothing now 100 euro or so and for an extra 100-150 euro u can get a 8800 wait till summer chances are the 8800 will be quite cheap by that stage.
I always buy a genereation behind u can still play all the new games on medium and the oldish ones on high (by oldish i mean hl2 company of heroes etc) unless u absolutly have to play crysis on super duper high then getting this new hardware is silly imo unless of course u have money to burn.
 
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#13
Ah that actually makes sense now come to think of it. My laptop has got an HDMI port and some people have reported difficulty getting a sound from it (or other sound sources) that cant be fixed without a bit of fiddling about, so this prob makes it easier.

Though do most sound cards have an optical in? My external sound blaster only has an output but it isnt exactly high spec.
 
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#14
Mahnsikir said:
Ah that actually makes sense now come to think of it. My laptop has got an HDMI port and some people have reported difficulty getting a sound from it (or other sound sources) that cant be fixed without a bit of fiddling about, so this prob makes it easier.

Though do most sound cards have an optical in? My external sound blaster only has an output but it isnt exactly high spec.
Click to expand...

I don't know, sound is not really my forte :)

I think it would require an optical output from the sound card, the cable would run into the SPDIF in the video card. The signal would run into the video card and out through the HDMI port.

That's the only logical way i can think for the card having an SPDIF port. I could be totally wrong about this though.
 
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