ChillyMystfunny, the x2 3870 isnt any longer then the normal cards.......its surly not longer then my 8800gt.

remmber their are ways with smart design to avoidthe pitfalls you speek of.

more pcb layers for example allow higher complexity and lower noise, thats why most ram sticks today at 6 or even 8 layer pcb's, so your argument tho "logical" is also false.

were you saying that my argument was false or someone else?

freaksaviorfarewell ati....

lol with htose prices ati will be ontop!

TooFastlol with htose prices ati will be ontop!

:respect: Ati

TooFastlol with htose prices ati will be ontop!

Those prices are normal these days. Ati will continue to offer bang for your buck competition in the mid to low range while nvidia continues to dominate the high end market. Thus, nvidia will most likely continue to be on top, unless ati's r700 can offer competition to nvdia in all levels of the market, which will lower those prices. And lets hope they do, and all the good looking games due out this year live up to their hype and fully utilize these cards, and we could be in for a very nice year for gaming.:)

jbunch07were you saying that my argument was false or someone else?

no that his "it would have to be 75% longer" statement was false.

Nvidia cards are bigger but there overall design is more efficent. The way the ram is laid out provides reduced latency for one by having the traces all the same length. The Power circutry is laid out well and away from other parts to cause less signal interferance. These are things i care about. The 3870x2 doesnt take into account such things and for that one problem it does not interest me. Id rather have Nvidia's option simply because it also contains proven realibility and design where as AMD skimped and went cheap, look at how there ram is arranged and how the power circutry is for one. No id rather keep proven tech and go with what works and what was changed for a reason not the slap job AMD did.

your honestly grasping at starws to prove that Nvidia is unable, trust me the worlds biggest add in board GPU maker could but its very clear there engineers are approcaing this to give the best overall benifits and not sacrafice quality. Sure get an AMD its a fine card but at the end of the day the GX2 will out preform it hands down

1 Nvidia's dual design will be hot as stated by nvidia.
2 Nvidia's pricing scheme is ridiculous.
3 Ppl fail to see what ati is doing in regards the 3870x2, in my eyes it is merely a test bed for their future cards... which will be going down the same rout...

IMHO 2 heads are mostly better than one...and if ati can make a dual card that is more power efficient or just about the same as Nvidia's single card design while being around the same price and performs better...kudos all the way to DAAMIT.

while i do agree with those of you who stated that they would go for a product that is true and tried (g80/g92) core, like ive said before and will continue to say...ATI r600 core shows promise and can easily surpass the technology of yesterday (g80/g92)...it is the same as intel vs amd...amd owned got lazy then intel struck back...the core is a very superior design but it was something new...

comparing nvidia and daamit...in each generation of the nvidia cards leading up to where we're at today(6-9), the performance boost is acceptable but no leaps and bounds over mountains...let me emphasize this (in most cases). i do believe that ati has managed to double each cards performance in most cases.
as far as naming scheme goes i believe both company has done a soso job...but it is understandable. ie the 1800s from ati where a hot mess and they were quickly subdued by the 1900 series...so a new name sake to differentiate the two in my eyes was inevitable...because if they did not differentiate the refined product would still have they same name and us as consumers would lose because unless a retailer/e-tailer can guarantee that they would be only shipping the refined model we would still end up in a hot mess that was called the 1800. perfect example the q6600 with/with-out the g0 stepping...
not that the q6600 was a bad product but the confusion on which you were receving.

i am not a fanboi either... i will bad mouth intel, nvidia, daamit who ever especially creative...as i own products from each.

ati vs nvidia
8800 gt > 3870 performance...hd>gt everything else...and yes everything else does matter.
g80/g92 vs r600 tech i say tech because this is basically a radical redesign(complete change)
g80/g92 is only greater at this given moment and this is really pending on ati's rumored r700/r770 core which should be signifcantly better than the r600/670 and this is why i feel nvidia has continued to rush out these products...there would be no 8800gt back in nov if the 38*0 wasn't such an improvement over the 2900 in all aspects... so we have ati to thank for nvidia rushing there products to the line...like i said ati's technology as more growth potential than Nvidias....its like having an NBA draft today and the first guy you have to draft is a center...and you have nvidia seeing amds potential and takes shaq over yao..yes shaq is a great player but he is a decline stage he can only give you so much until he over do it....and i feel that this approach that nvidia is taking will eventually put ati back on top...

which is great because we as consumers need the competition to continue so that we wont have overpriced cards...
to be a total antagonist... those that are really buying the 9800 x2 are just buying to play games like crysis (cry-engine 2) because they know nvidia shines in that department...all pun intended...

say what u want i own a 8800gt, 3870 and i will be getting another 3870 to finish my unfinished spider...(no phenom) they just plain suck for what i want...they dont really suck but i just expected more, once the phenom hits 3.0ghz retail then i will purchase one and for my intel system once the q9450 drops i will be getting it eventhough my 6420 @ 3.0 is perfect for my htpc i just want a fantastic pc. period.....

on a side note i remember when to use a pc back in the days i would normally have to hit up my local library...now my lil' bro has a pc in his room from he was about 9...
from a athlon xp thoroughbread-to-athlon 64 3000 venice-to athlon 64 3500-to-athlon x2 3800-to-once i get my phenom-a x2 5200-and also-e6420... i cant believe he will have two pcs.. he loves it when i upgrade because he gets a faster pc everytime...i dont even want to mention gfx cards because he has moved from the likes of a 9200-9600-9800-g6600-x800-x800gto2-1550-1950 pro-8800gt-and he is waiting for my next purchase like a hungry lion pouncing on its pray because he will either get a 3870 cross fired or another gt to sli with...and he is just 12...i think i spend too much on pcs...
the moral though of all of this is just to say "bring on the competition and innovation"
i live for this stuff.

candle_86Nvidia cards are bigger but there overall design is more efficent. The way the ram is laid out provides reduced latency for one by having the traces all the same length. The Power circutry is laid out well and away from other parts to cause less signal interferance. These are things i care about. The 3870x2 doesnt take into account such things and for that one problem it does not interest me. Id rather have Nvidia's option simply because it also contains proven realibility and design where as AMD skimped and went cheap, look at how there ram is arranged and how the power circutry is for one. No id rather keep proven tech and go with what works and what was changed for a reason not the slap job AMD did.

your honestly grasping at starws to prove that Nvidia is unable, trust me the worlds biggest add in board GPU maker could but its very clear there engineers are approcaing this to give the best overall benifits and not sacrafice quality. Sure get an AMD its a fine card but at the end of the day the GX2 will out preform it hands down

*sniffs air* i smell fanboi.........nvidiot fanboi at that........

ok first off, nvidia and ati have both used the weird memory layout on their cards, its not that big an issue, i know you think its ungoddly important, but really its not.

second, nvidias design is HOT and cant be effecently cooled the 7950gx2 couldnt eather, because it was such a horrible design, traps the head inside between 2 pcb's.

3rd, the design of the 3870x2 is a first gen card and dispite that its very well made, no matter what you think, ati/amd have a long trackrecord of making very sturdy products, nvidia has a spotty record in my experiance.

examples, the fx line, what a pile of crap they where, some models of 6800/7600/7800 cards had HIGH fail rates on NVIDIA build pcb's, my buddys been thru 8 7800gt's and is about to have to rma another one, because it keeps artifacting, its a design error on the spicific model he has, he thankfully got it from a supplyer with life time warr.
the company even admits that theres not much they can do to fix the problme because its a known issue with that perticular model, the volt ciructes arent cooled properly or something.


ati has had some CRAPPY cards in the distant past, but i havent seen any large numbers of any one card/model returned that used the ati/amd pcb's, seen a good number of reports of the pcb's on the 1950gt/pro cards made by a 3rd party design having problems and being returned

oh and i wasnt trying to make nvidia look unreliable, hardware wise they are just fine for now, other then that first shipment of 8800gt's that had high rates of fails or issues, where nvidia isnt reliable is in the driver dept, they have a horrible reputation for removing fetures to new drivers when they dont work(dissabled tv out on some drivers under vista for example) because they are to worried about getting 5extra fps in some stupid game.

or the yv12 color spacing bugg that has been around since the begining of 2007 and is still not fixed on all systems/drivers, nvida has KNOWN about these things for YEARS and hasnt spent the time to fix it because they are to fucking busy making their drivers just a few fps faster in whatever the top benching game is this week..........

on the other hand i have never had that problem with ati/amd, my 9600/9800/x800/x1900 all got monthy driver fixes that didnt just boost perf in a couple games but also fixed buggs that where found and reported in older drivers, if you found a color spacing issue with an ati card, reported it, they would get back to you, ask for details, then many times give you a beta driver to test to see if that fixes it.

try that with nvidia, report a bug via email, you at best get back an formletter email that will lead to NOTHING, no fix, hell no real responce...........

and mind you my systems got an 8800gt in it at the moment.

Erm, why are people believing that the G92 GT and GTS were the last of the G92 models to EVER be released? Where is that stated? As soon as the GT was released people questioned a GTS, and then it was released and they enquired over a GTX etc. Well, there's the G92 roadmap, just like we all pondered over.

Where did Nvidia state that these later to be released GPUs are NOT using the G92 tech, and are in fact a completely brand new tech?

9800gtx better be over double hd3870 speeds.

newconroerErm, why are people believing that the G92 GT and GTS were the last of the G92 models to EVER be released? Where is that stated? As soon as the GT was released people questioned a GTS, and then it was released and they enquired over a GTX etc. Well, there's the G92 roadmap, just like we all pondered over.

Where did Nvidia state that these later to be released GPUs are NOT using the G92 tech, and are in fact a completely brand new tech?

The new Nvidia 9800xxx cards were supposed to utilize the G100 core. This information/rumour was all over the web a while back and was at some point confirmed by Nvidia. It seems that this has somehow changed now and the G100 has been replaced by several different flavours of the G92 core.

www.mvktech.net/content/view/3911/1/
shyamkol.blogspot.com/2007/12/nvidias-g100-to-roll-in-march.html
www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=125&Itemid=1

jpierce559800gtx better be over double hd3870 speeds.

well i dont know about the 3870 but the 3870x2 is already at par with gtx and ultra, so unless the 9800 gtx is going to be twice as fast as the current 8800 gtx i would say your outa luck, but i imagine it will be about 30% 45% tops faster than the 8800gtx

what we know is, its 512bit bus, super fast shaders and core clock. What we dont know is how many rops got locked and TMU's and that makes a massive diffrence, notice Nvidia is being hush hush on rops and TMU's if there are more in the G92 we could be very well looking at the future of Nvidia. As for the comparision, no your dead wrong, Nvidia sat on its lurals once and only once in histroy its when the made the geforce4. Never again will Nvidia do that, they are set at beating ATI no matter what and are very good at it in recent years. As for generation speed, are you high, the 7800GTX 256mb was as fast as 2x6800 Ultras in SLI and the 8800GTX was over twice as fast. Nvidia released the G70 and G71 as hold overs only to work on G80 and its obvious of this because of what we saw in Nov 2006 when the x1950 XTX no longer looked worth a damn and looked more like a midrange. Nvidia right now is leading, and we have no idea what the G92 can do, as there is no way an extra 60 some odd transistors account for PCIe 2.0 circutry.

candle_86what we know is, its 512bit bus, super fast shaders and core clock. What we dont know is how many rops got locked and TMU's and that makes a massive diffrence, notice Nvidia is being hush hush on rops and TMU's if there are more in the G92 we could be very well looking at the future of Nvidia. As for the comparision, no your dead wrong, Nvidia sat on its lurals once and only once in histroy its when the made the geforce4. Never again will Nvidia do that, they are set at beating ATI no matter what and are very good at it in recent years. As for generation speed, are you high, the 7800GTX 256mb was as fast as 2x6800 Ultras in SLI and the 8800GTX was over twice as fast. Nvidia released the G70 and G71 as hold overs only to work on G80 and its obvious of this because of what we saw in Nov 2006 when the x1950 XTX no longer looked worth a damn and looked more like a midrange. Nvidia right now is leading, and we have no idea what the G92 can do, as there is no way an extra 60 some odd transistors account for PCIe 2.0 circutry.

Where were you getting that info? VR-zone just put up an article today (www.vr-zone.com/articles/GeForce_9800_GTX_Card_Photos_%26_Specs_Unveiled/5599.html) - Going by the info there, the bus is 256 not 512, the shader clock is 1683 (vs 1625 on the 9600 GT, 1500 on the 8800 GT), core clock @ 673 (vs 650 on the 9600 GT, 600 on the 8800 GT). The 9600 & 8800 GT #s are from Nv's site.

Edit: Also going by forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=241354 , it would seem the Rops have stayed the same (the 8800 GT had 16 right?)

I love fanboys

I think it's too premature to say goodbye to ati. Remember there are alot more uses for graphics cards other then playing crysis. If your looking to get 60 fps @1920x1200 or 2560x1600 in crysis, you'll be waiting for a long while. I use my computer for everything, i know the 3870x2 is great for blueray and rendering, it kept me from buying a firegl or quadro. I mean really it's great to get 114 fps in games but it's not really necessary since you can't even see past 60 lol. When it comes to overall price per performance ATI is hands down your choice. I'd rather stay with ATI and suffer 10 fps then pay almost double for Nvidia products.