HD3870X2

INTRODUCTION

For a long time ATI and NVIDIA kept pretty even steps when it came to their cards. At any given time both had cards that competed at every possible level including the absolute high-end. Then something changed. Around the same time AMD bought ATI, NVIDIA gained the upper hand and ever since AMD has simply lacked a card that can compete with the best from NVIDIA.

Today AMD is announcing (and releasing) a card that for the first time in a couple of years has the chance to compete with the best NVIDIA has, at least until NVIDIA releases their new cards in a month or so.

The HD3870X2 is not your average video card. Instead of creating a single GPU with the power to compete with the 8800Ultra and beyond, AMD has chosen to go the multi-chip route instead. The HD3870X2, just as the name implies, simply is a card that has two HD3870 GPU's. It is not the first video card in history with two GPU's. The ATi Radeon Rage Fury MAX is one example and we all remember NVIDIA's first attempt, the GeForce 7950 GX2. Recently AMD tested a similar design with the HD2600 Gemini cards which were a very rare sight in the wild. NVIDIA is also working on a multi-GPU card that should be out pretty soon.

THE FEATURES AND SPECIFICATIONS

The feature set of the HD3870X2 is the same as the other HD3xxx GPU's.

• Created with the 55 nm process making them need less power and run cooler
• DirextX 10.1 SM4.0 support
• UVD (Unified Video Decoder)
• PCI Express 2.0
• CrossfireX support
• Native HDMI and DIsplayport support

There are no real surprises here. It's cool that the board will support CrossfireX as it means that you can theoretical run with 4 HD3870 GPU's in your system.

Dual-GPU

The main feature of this card is the dual R670 (HD3870) GPU's placed on the card. These GPu's are linked with a PCIe 1.1 high-speed interconnect bridge. The Bi-directional x16 lanes between the two GPU's help giving the card Crossfire type performance. We will test that statement ourselves soon.