Today AMD announced the Radeon HD 3870 X2. This graphics card is based on the R680 graphics processing unit which consists of two RV670 GPU cores. Both cores are interconnected using a PCI Express bridge chip and run in a CrossFire setup which is completely transparent to the end user. There is no CrossFire option to enable in the Catalyst drivers, nor is there one to disable it. When we installed our card it was as easy as using as any other video card. Insert card into slot, install drivers, reboot and start playing. Since this card is a dual design, basically every component can be found twice on the PCB. AMD failed to mention a price, but it should be either $449 or $499. - techPowerUp!
When AMD released the Radeon HD 2900 XT in May of last year, we were left with a bitter taste in our mouths. Not because the product was all that bad, but because it seemed AMD was content to leave NVIDIA uncontested at the high-end of the 3D graphics card market. If you remember, when the Radeon HD 2900 XT launched AMD had targeted the mid-range GeForce 8800 GTS, and not NVIDIA's high-end GeForce 8800 GTX or Ultra. It seemed as if AMD just didn't want to be in the fight for 3D graphics supremacy any longer and enthusiasts like yourselves, who seek nothing but the highest performing products, were left with only a single option leaving AMD in the cold. - HotHardware
So you say your system is budget minded? You went out and obtained a system that was minimal as that was all you had at the time for an update. A little on-board video with an AMD processor paired to it, not exactly state of the art, but not old enough to go all out for new right. Could you possibly add a little something, maybe something just shy of $150 to make her compete, make her alive with some gaming tooth? Well we have in our grubby little hands the MSI GeForce 8600 GT Twin Turbo, while not a Porsche, we don't think we should take for granted the current mid-range deliverable, as not all that long ago, we are sure this card would have toppled the best we had. - Viper Lair
Well not all might know this GeForce 8800 card that we are looking at today, as this card was actually released rather silently without making much noise about it. It is not the first time that NVIDIA has done this, but it is somehow rather limited to products that don't last that long or meant mainly for the OEM market, which is why not every brand has one of these graphics cards. The XFX GeForce 8800 GS XXX Alpha Dog Edition is a fearless beast. While the reference cards run at 550MHz core, 1357MHz shader and 1600MHz memory speed, the XFX card is significantly overclocked, and it definitely reflects on the performance. Well, you don't name a card Alpha Dog just for kicks. - FudZilla
The graphics card market continues to become more splintered and specialized as time goes by. So ATI and NVIDIA are both working overtime to find a specific market niche that the other is not servicing as such, which has led to many very interesting product releases. The Radeon HD 3800 series is just one, and these cards are targeted at just above and below the magic $200 mainstream ceiling. The Radeon HD 3850 is the little brother of the two, and in addition to being a price to performance champion, its lower power and heat production has led to Sapphire offering another of their innovative Ultimate edition models. This should however come in handy for home theatre PC's. - Sharky Extreme
ATI recently released a few lower end cards. One of these new cards is the Radeon HD 3650 which is based upon the new RV635 chipset. The RV635 uses fewer transistors than the RV630 chip, which itself featured a pretty massive 390 million of the little blighters. In fact AMD has made some optimisations during the die shrink, which should help to improve performance per clock and efficiency a little bit. The Radeon HD 3650 card uses less than 75W of power at peak and supports everything you'd expect a Radeon HD 3000 series product to support. With a custom cooler and high clocks, this card from PowerColor looks the part and should perform fairly nicely with great gaming visuals. - Overclock3D
AMD's latest GPU generation is the RV670 which is used on the Radeon HD 3850 and Radeon HD 3870. With the Radeon HD 3870 Atomic edition, Sapphire has engineered a video card which goes together with the launch of their Atomic gaming portal. The card is the only Radeon HD 3870 that works with a single slot cooling solution. This is possible because Sapphire is using a different cooler with vapor chamber cooling technology, a proprietary cooler that improves cooling performance considerably, according to Sapphire. Since this card is a limited edition, it comes with some nice exclusive features like metal case instead of a cardboard box and more accessories. - techPowerUp!
Even if the current graphics card market is ruled by the PCI Express version, some partners such as MSI still haven't given up on the aging AGP slot. The latest addition to the MSI's AGP series is the Radeon HD 2600 PRO in both 256MB and 512MB versions, both of which are passively cooled. MSI was kind enough to send us the 256MB version. The only difference between this card and the 512MB version is memory size, the cooler and the clocks are identical. ATI's Radeon HD 2600 PRO, or less commonly known as the RV630, is made in the 65nm manufacturing process which is the main prerequisite for this card to be passively cooled, since it produces less heat. - FudZilla
ATI finally launched a more competitive mid-range graphics card line-up with the introduction of the new Radeon HD 3800 series back in November 2007. Raining on ATI's parade somewhat, NVIDIA also just released a mid-range refresh to its excellent GeForce 8 series range, the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB. We surmised that ATI's offering was the more complete version, with a better 2D feature set, but NVIDIA's held the straight line gaming speed, and that's what a $250 card is all about, really. Sapphire's significantly tweaked the reference Radeon HD 3870 design and come up with its Atomic version. How it stacks up against the mid-range NVIDIA series is what counts, the Atomic version joins the battle. - Hexus
Inno3D began its iChill series with the previous GeForce 7 series of video cards. The premise was quite simple, couple factory overclocked video cards with quality aftermarket GPU coolers. No point reinventing the cooling wheel right? If ever there was a card that screamed for better cooling it was the GeForce 8800 GT. The GeForce 8800 GT was designed to be a single slot solution in reference trim. Now that the card has been out for a while it is clear that the single slot cooler is adequate at best. Of course when going for a factory tweaked version, you will need a bit better cooling solution and that is exactly what inno3D has put in practice with their iChill performance series. - Overclocker Cafe
While it's always exciting to receive samples from the big boys in the hardware world, it's also nice to take a look at something a little different and this almost always comes from the little guys. Now, Vvikoo are manufacturers of some top end NVIDIA and ATI based GPU solutions, so using the word little is probably a little harsh, but they are definitely the new kid on the block and have a lot to prove. What we have with us today is a GeForce 8800 GT, but not just any GT. Oh no, this one has 1GB of high-end GDDR3 memory, with a huge aftermarket Zalman cooler and it's purple. So a quite special version as such with an unusual style and improved cooling solution. - XSReviews
We're not going to go into too much detail today. The simple fact is that we have a nice big long winded intro for our GeCube Radeon HD 3870 X2 but that is a bit postponed. Though, for some unknown reason AMD decided to delay the release date of the card after they had previously brought the date forward. So it's easy, we have the Radeon HD 3870 X2 in our hands, it's tested and that's probably all that really matters. We're going to have a quick look at the package that MSI have put together, a look over the specifications and then we'll get straight into the benchmarks. And somehow that should already please most of you who are interested in what the fuzz is all about. - TweakTown
Diamond Multimedia is a new name for us, but they have been around for a long time. Diamond has been trying to get the attention of gamers for some time now, but gamers are a tough group to get the attention of. Diamond released their Radeon HD 3870 and Radeon HD 3850 graphics cards back in November when they originally came out, but they were based off the ATI reference design and were the same as everyone else's. Diamond went back to the drawing board and came up with an Radeon HD 3850 that would be unique to them and be directed at overclockers and enthusiasts. What Diamond came up with was a Radeon HD 3850 512MB dual slot card, with a custom cooling design. - Legit Reviews
A couple of you guys probably already know that the good folks from Sparkle recently released a GeForce 8800 GT that is actually passively cooled. Our Sparkle representative asked us to do an article on the product. We repeatedly warned Sparkle up front that they probably would not like what we were going to write, because the reference cooled GeForce 8800 GT already runs insanely hot. Doing the cooling part passive would definitely make things even worse. With that said Sparkle still is not bothered by us checking out the product, and well you have to respect a manufacturer that is balsy enough to send out a product that potentially will get flamed. - Guru3D
On the ATI front the major rumors that are circulating are all about the upcoming dual-GPU graphics accelerator, which should normally feature two RV670 cores. The same graphics chips are currently already used on some single GPU video card which are bringing great performance as a mid-range price. These cards are currently widely available and you can find these as the Radeon HD 3850 and the faster Radeon HD 3870 board series. Today we are taking a look at another ATI graphics card, this time a more special Radeon HD 3850 version from ASUS. This particular Radeon HD 3850 is factory overclocked for more performance than typical Radeon HD 3850 graphics cards. - I4U News
Gainward are one of NVIDIA's most well respected add in board manufacturers. With a long history of producing fast cards that overclock well, Gainward are a company who's hardware we always like to see. Somehow Gainward always manages to come with great customized solutions that provide that extra more that we are all looking for in a graphics card. Today we're taking a look at a GeForce 8600 GT with a twist. In fact Gainward have placed an HDMI port on the back of this mid-range card. This means that all those of you out there who are media nuts and have HDMI equipped HDTV's should become all ears. So let's see how it all stacks up shall we? - Overclock3D
NVIDIA's release of their G92 based graphics card has so far been nothing but a total success amongst enthusiasts. The die shrink not only permitted cards to run cooler and thus use less electricity, but also improvements have been made for higher efficiency reflected by its incredible performance. The first card rolled out is the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT, the card that outperformed the previous generation G80 based GeForce 8800 GTS. Next came the G92 based GeForce 8800 GTS that outperformed once a flagship graphics card from the company. We will take a look at the ASUS version of the GeForce 8800 GT, the TOP edition which is pre-overclocked, straight from the factory. - APH Networks
It's just the beginning of a new year and already we have seen rumors about the new graphics products upcoming from the two big chipmakers. NVIDIA looks to consolidate an excellent 2007 by reinforcing its mainstream offerings with a GeForce 8800 GS, supposedly with an even more stripped down G92 core. With such heavy reliance on the G92 core, the Taiwanese fabs that NVIDIA is counting on to produce the chip better be working double and triple shifts to meet demand. ATI meanwhile has promised its dual-GPU R680 graphics card in the first quarter and we really hope that this time, ATI will have a performer capable of giving NVIDIA's high-end cards some proper competition. - Hardware Zone
For NVIDIA the year 2007 was rather successful with the introduction of many new series and various models, covering all range of users, from the typical one to the enthusiast. The recent update of the G92 GPU bring us the GeForce 8800 GTS with 512MB of memory that promises high performance at an affordable price. The prices of the new cards ranging from $299 to $349 and the most noticeable update is the new PCI Express 2.0 support and the second generation of NVIDIA's PureVideo HD. Compared to the original GeForce 8800 GTS with 96 stream processors, the new version gives a further boost in performance with 128 stream processors and higher clock settings. - CDRInfo
It's been over two months since NVIDIA has launched the GeForce 8800 GT. The new graphics processing unit has ushered in a new era of performance within the mid-range market. An era, where a video card with an price of $259 can be neck and neck with the GeForce 8800 GTX, a card with an price nearly double that of the GeForce 8800 GT. It's easy to understand why these cards have been flying off the shelves. The GeForce 8800 GT, while being part of the GeForce 8 series, is based off a new core, dubbed the G92. Among the changes that the new card has ushered into the GeForce 8 series is the 65nm manufacturing process, which allows NVIDIA to pack more transistors into a smaller space. - nV News
ATI's Radeon HD 2600 XT is a pretty nice card. It plays games acceptably well, consumes a negligible amount of power, and has flawless video acceleration. It's our first choice for the mainstream. So where does that leave the Radeon HD 2600 PRO? Being a cut down, budget version of a cool card, what, then, is missing? The Radeon HD 2600 PRO is targeted to anyone who wants a discreet video card, the casual gaming ilk, but doesn't really want either the lowest-end model or to spend over a hundred dollars. All that seems reasonable, but it's just not true. We think the GDDR3 model should be skipped altogether. It does a couple things right, but misses the mark too often. - TheTechLounge
Welcome to the world of Gainward, a world beyond your senses! Gainward is a world leading producer of high-quality, high-end 3D accelerators for the personal computer market. Yes for quite some time the G80 graphics chips have been ruling as kings on the high-end graphics market, and in fact they still do. Though since not so long, meaning since the last months of last year NVIDIA has refreshed their GeForce 8800 series by reducing the die and came up with the G92 chipset which is produced at only 65nm. These smaller, more optimized G92 chips are now reviving the GeForce 8800 range with a GT and GTS version, replacing the G80 based versions.
Back in November 2007, AMD launched the 55nm ATI RV670 GPU. With this launch, we were introduced to two new ATI video cards, the Radeon HD 3870 and Radeon HD 3850. If you read some articles, then you already know that the RV670 is a derivative of the R600, which powers the Radeon HD 2900 XT. Our initial experience with AMD's new cards was pretty positive. The Radeon HD 3800 series offer good performance at nice price tag with impressive power characteristics. The card we have up on the block today is the ASUS Extreme AH3850 TOP edition. As you've probably already realized, this is a Radeon HD 3850 card which sports 256MB of GDDR3 memory. - HotHardware
You've probably never heard of Palit before. While the company itself is not new, it has done retail business almost entirely overseas until now. Palit is now making itself known in the US by offering some exciting high-end video cards for the enthusiast. If you search their website you will find video cards offered using both AMD and NVIDIA based GPU's, offering stock cooler options and custom heatsink and/or fan options to appeal to the enthusiast. Along with custom coolers they have also gone one step further and offered some more unique memory capacities, such as the GeForce 8800 GT based Super+ version with a total of 1GB of high-end GDDR3 memory. - HardOCP
After suffering through most of 2007 without a compelling mainstream lineup to counter NVIDIA's GeForce 8 series cards in the $150-300 range, ATI is finally back with a pair of GPU's that have everyone buzzing, the Radeon HD 3850 and the Radeon HD 3870. Sporting codenames like Gladiator and Revival, the Radeon HD 3850 and Radeon HD 3870 came at just the right time for AMD. Many gamers were disappointed with the performance of previous mainstream offerings like the GeForce 8600 GTS and Radeon HD 2600 XT. The biggest competitor by far to the Radeon HD 3800 series is the GeForce 8800 GT, but cards based on this GPU sell for more than these cards. - FiringSquad
The new ASUS Extreme N8800 GTS 512MB is based on the NVIDIA G92 GPU, which is the leaner, meaner version of the ground breaking NVIDIA G80 GPU that powered graphics cards like the GeForce 8800 GTX and the GeForce 8800 Ultra. The ASUS Extreme N8800 GTS video card looks set to blaze a new trails in both performance and value for money. And it not only boasts the smaller, cooler and faster G92 GPU, it also comes with the new VP2 PureVideo HD video processor which allows it to completely take over HD decoding from the CPU. As such, it offers significant advantages in performance and features over the older GeForce 8800 series graphics cards. But how much faster is it really? - TechARP
PNY 9600GT PCIe 512MB - Rev 01
Welcome to the world of Gainward, a world beyond your senses! Gainward is a world leading producer of high-quality, high-end 3D accelerators for the personal computer market. Yes for quite some time the G80 graphics chips have been ruling as kings on the high-end graphics market, and in fact they still do. Though since not so long, meaning since the last months of last year NVIDIA has refreshed their GeForce 8800 series by reducing the die and came up with the G92 chipset which is produced at only 65nm. These smaller, more optimized G92 chips are now reviving the GeForce 8800 range with a GT and GTS version, replacing the G80 based versions.
