Its been a long while since the fastest video card you could buy has had Radeon written on the box in red, instead of GeForce, written in green. While ATI and NVIDIA make most of their profits actually from video cards that sit somewhere in the middle of the performance spectrum, making the fastest graphics card brings something that can't be measured with numbers. And that something is bragging rights, solidified from the respect from everyday PC gamers everywhere. Vying for that respect is what the Radeon HD 3870 X2 is all about. This is a serious card for the enthusiast. Today we are looking at the ASUS Extreme AH3870 X2 TOP edition, a pre-overclocked version based upon the reference design. - NeoSeeker

ASUS Extreme AH3870 X2 1GB TOP Graphics Review

This mesh of metal, silicon and plastic wasn't made for people who play The Sims on the weekends. This is a dual GPU high performance monster card that retails for around $475. Both the red guys and green guys don't seem to take many breaks. Both camps work hard on putting new products on the market, and keeping their technological edges sharp. It probably will not be long until NVIDIA releases a new card in the same class as the Radeon HD 3870 X2. But for now, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 has a very good chance of taking the performance crown from the aging king and queen of frame rates, the GeForce 8800 GTX and Ultra.

The ASUS Extreme AH3870 X2 TOP is one of the largest and heaviest video cards we've had the opportunity to handle. Coming in just a few millimeters shy of the length of an ASUS Extreme N8800 GTX, the long Extreme AH3870 X2 has a larger dual fan, double slot cooling solution on it. The fans are bolted in above each GPU. Each GPU has a seperate heatsink, and unusually both heatsinks are made of different metals. One heatsink is copper, and one is aluminum. This non reference cooling solution from ASUS is the only one currently available with two fans. Both fans also have Republic of Gamers stickers on them.

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 cards were named using logic, not marketing spiel. The X2 simply means Radeon HD 3870 times two. Which is what we have here, two RV670 55nm GPU's coming through the glory of CrossFire to make a RV680. Snuggled between each GPU is a PCI Express bridge chip. While PCI Express 2.0 bridge chips are around, they don't really offer any real world performance increases. For many people, after installing the card, they may forget altogether that they have two GPU's processing polygons for them, instead of one. On the subject of CrossFire, what about CrossFireX technology?

Speaking of clock speeds, for the reference model Radeon HD 3870 X2 the core clock has been increased from the 775MHz by 50MHz, to 825MHz. While the Radeon HD 3870 X2 memory clock has gone down to 1.8GHz from the 2.25GHz default memory clock of the Radeon HD 3870. Fans of ASUS hardware will probably know that the TOP branding means that the card is factory overclocked, and this once again the case with the Extreme AH3870 X2 TOP edition. The core clock is set to 851MHz, while the 0.8ns GDDR3 memory clock sits pretty at 1.9GHz. In addition, this ASUS card differs from the non-TOP version.

The Extreme AH3870 X2 TOP edition put in a number of good results. But it didn't blow away the competition. It's hard to make a definitive judgment on the potential performance of the Radeon HD 3870 X2 due to the early state of support from the Catalyst drivers, however. While the launch of the Radeon HD 3870 X2 was postponed on the account of less than ready drivers, it seems that there still is a bit of work that needs to be done on them. This TOP edition from Asus is an excellent departure from the standard reference board design. The cooler is also very good, with dual fans and it is not very loud.

And in the end, while very impressed with this ASUS Extreme AH3870 X2 TOP edition, it is up against some strong competition. The GeForce 8800 Ultra is probably not part of this competition, as the Radeon HD 3870 X2 offers more bang for the buck. With the four DVI ports, and a nice cooling solution, we could see the Extreme AH3870 X2 being the completing touch to a really powerful, custom built gaming rig. But in any case, its good to see ATI back in the high-end running with the Radeon HD 3870 X2, and it is also nice to see ASUS make a nice twist on the Radeon HD 3870 X2 out of the gates.