3870x2's tell what u think

[GotNoRice]

I have somewhat recently moved from a pair of 4870s in crossfire to a single GTX 570 and found the 570 to be only slightly faster, which is to say that 4870x2 performance is quite contemporary if perhaps limited to only dx10. I gather these 3870x2's also do DX10? If so, they are indeed quite capable, if power-hungry.

The 3870 series not only supported DX10, but DX10.1

That is significant because the backward compatibility built into DirectX11 that allows DirectX11 games to run directly on DX10 and DX10.1 hardware has separate provisions for both DX10 and DX10.1

Many of the pioneering features introduced in DX10.1 were not widely adopted in games at the time mainly due to Nvidia's lack of support for 10.1. All of those features were, however, integrated into DirectX11. It is somewhat ironic that only now, when playing a DirectX11 game, are we finally making use of the DirectX10.1 features on our cards (via the 10.1 downlevel path).

Point is, with DX10.1 hardware, you're in a great place to play DX11 games. Just about the only real feature you will miss out on is Tessellation.

I am running 2x 4870x2 in quad crossfire and I'll probably upgrade my motherboard/CPU again before I upgrade my video-cards. I would like to get at least 2 more years out of these cards.

http://gotnorice.dlinkddns.com/q96502x4870x2QUAD.jpg
http://gotnorice.dlinkddns.com/haven.jpg

 

[qubit]

Point is, with DX10.1 hardware, you're in a great place to play DX11 games. Just about the only real feature you will miss out on is Tessellation.

Unfortunately, tesselation is a killer feature. It transforms a scene and the free Unigine benchmark/demo shows it off to stunning effect.

In short, if there's a DX11 game you wanna play, such as Metro 2033, then you're better off selling your cards and getting one high end DX11 card.

 

[GotNoRice]

Unfortunately, tesselation is a killer feature. It transforms a scene and the free Unigine benchmark/demo shows it off to stunning effect.

The Unigine benchmark is basically a showcase for tessellation, so of course it looks amazing. Normal developers make at least some effort to texture their surfaces. The surfaces in Unigine intentionally lack traditional texturing as to increase the perceived effect when tessellation is applied.

In short, if there's a DX11 game you wanna play, such as Metro 2033, then you're better off selling your cards and getting one high end DX11 card.

Metro2033, that's better as it is a real world example. Let's look at exactly what we're missing:

Tessellation:

No Tessellation:

I still think it's a very cool feature, but not the sort of "night and day" difference some claim.

 

[qubit]

The Unigine benchmark is basically a showcase for tessellation, so of course it looks amazing. Normal developers make at least some effort to texture their surfaces. The surfaces in Unigine intentionally lack traditional texturing as to increase the perceived effect when tessellation is applied.



Metro2033, that's better as it is a real world example. Let's look at exactly what we're missing:

Tessellation:
http://gotnorice.dlinkddns.com/tesson.png

No Tessellation:
http://gotnorice.dlinkddns.com/tessoff.png

I still think it's a very cool feature, but not the sort of "night and day" difference some claim.

I have to confess that I can hardly see the difference there. Perhaps it's because the screenshots are fairly small and the effect is used more for outdoor scenes? Still kinda proves your point though. If those were Unigine screenshots, the effect would have been marked and very obvious.

 

[a_ump]

So has the HD 3870 gotten a decent performance increase over the years? i remember at release it was a lil weaker than the 8800GT. Because i find it pretty cool that someone that has say 2-4 of these can actually still enjoy a lot of the eye-candy options, whereas those with a Nvidia 8/9 series might be limited without having dx10.1.

I say this because not a lot of people upgrade, my brother and i included lol.

 

[GotNoRice]

So has the HD 3870 gotten a decent performance increase over the years?

I'm not sure how much additional performance has been gained from the hardware itself due to newer drivers, but for crossfire configurations using older cards, there has been at least one very significant development - that is, the separation of Crossfire profiles from the main driver. This started with the 10.2 drivers.

Ever since then, it really seems like AMD has a fire under it's ass and has made great compatibility and performance enhancements in regards to crossfire.

So while a single 3870 may or may not have received many performance enhancements, 4 of them together should be worlds different with newer drivers (and up to date CAP).

 

[Melvis]

The 3870 series not only supported DX10, but DX10.1

That is significant because the backward compatibility built into DirectX11 that allows DirectX11 games to run directly on DX10 and DX10.1 hardware has separate provisions for both DX10 and DX10.1

http://gotnorice.dlinkddns.com/featurelevels.png

Many of the pioneering features introduced in DX10.1 were not widely adopted in games at the time mainly due to Nvidia's lack of support for 10.1. All of those features were, however, integrated into DirectX11. It is somewhat ironic that only now, when playing a DirectX11 game, are we finally making use of the DirectX10.1 features on our cards (via the 10.1 downlevel path).

Point is, with DX10.1 hardware, you're in a great place to play DX11 games. Just about the only real feature you will miss out on is Tessellation.

I am running 2x 4870x2 in quad crossfire and I'll probably upgrade my motherboard/CPU again before I upgrade my video-cards. I would like to get at least 2 more years out of these cards.

http://gotnorice.dlinkddns.com/q96502x4870x2QUAD.jpg
http://gotnorice.dlinkddns.com/haven.jpg

This is also true for me, im not going to upgrade my video cards as they perform so well even for today, and i dont see that much difference in eye candy ether with DX11.

I have benched my two cards against others with there crossfire 6950's and i have performed better, so why would i need to upgrade? seriously?

I got a m8 to run AVP in DX11 for me so i can see the difference, the only difference i saw was in the floor, it looked alot better, apart from that there wasnt much difference at all.

I can run Crysis 2 now at maxed settings with ease and i dont get below 40FPS, very happy.

 

[Horrux]

This is also true for me, im not going to upgrade my video cards as they perform so well even for today, and i dont see that much difference in eye candy ether with DX11.

I have benched my two cards against others with there crossfire 6950's and i have performed better, so why would i need to upgrade? seriously?

I got a m8 to run AVP in DX11 for me so i can see the difference, the only difference i saw was in the floor, it looked alot better, apart from that there wasnt much difference at all.

I can run Crysis 2 now at maxed settings with ease and i dont get below 40FPS, very happy.

What, you don't spend your time in game staring at the floor???

But yeah, I had a couple 4870s 1Gb in crossfire and was doing well (minus some stuttering in the odd game), and then I changed them for a single GTX 570 for the purpose of running 3D Vision, and saw no performance increase to speak of except in the odd game which had been giving me stuttering. And now with SLI GTX 570s, my CPU is the bottleneck. Sigh.

Tesselation? I haven't seen one scene in my games where the difference was visible, although I am sure the feature will be used well in future games.

There's lots of life in older tech, for sure.

 

[Melvis]

What, you don't spend your time in game staring at the floor???

But yeah, I had a couple 4870s 1Gb in crossfire and was doing well (minus some stuttering in the odd game), and then I changed them for a single GTX 570 for the purpose of running 3D Vision, and saw no performance increase to speak of except in the odd game which had been giving me stuttering. And now with SLI GTX 570s, my CPU is the bottleneck. Sigh.

Tesselation? I haven't seen one scene in my games where the difference was visible, although I am sure the feature will be used well in future games.

There's lots of life in older tech, for sure.

Naaa only when i die lol.

Yea im sure these things will come good in the future, but just not right now, i need a GPU that will do everything but also run games with ease you know?

I do like the 6870X2 though, that would be an ok card to upgrade for me, 2 of them of course lol

 

[Alt Bass]

The 3870 series not only supported DX10, but DX10.1

That is significant because the backward compatibility built into DirectX11 that allows DirectX11 games to run directly on DX10 and DX10.1 hardware has separate provisions for both DX10 and DX10.1

Many of the pioneering features introduced in DX10.1 were not widely adopted in games at the time mainly due to Nvidia's lack of support for 10.1. All of those features were, however, integrated into DirectX11. It is somewhat ironic that only now, when playing a DirectX11 game, are we finally making use of the DirectX10.1 features on our cards (via the 10.1 downlevel path).

Point is, with DX10.1 hardware, you're in a great place to play DX11 games. Just about the only real feature you will miss out on is Tessellation.

I am running 2x 4870x2 in quad crossfire and I'll probably upgrade my motherboard/CPU again before I upgrade my video-cards. I would like to get at least 2 more years out of these cards.

Does that mean that any DX11 app should run on DX10.1 hardware or the software publisher should be aware of that?

 

[a_ump]

Does that mean that any DX11 app should run on DX10.1 hardware or the software publisher should be aware of that?

They way i understand it is DX11 is itself aswell as 10 and 9. Kinda like games support multiple graphic cards, dx11 supports multiple API's, which in turn means the cards that support those API's are supported. DX10/9 cards can run a DX11 hardcoded game bc its backwards compatible though they don't run dx11 features. Whereas a dx10 hardcoded game can't be run by dx9 cards.

At least that's what i got out of dx11 when it was released.

 

[Horrux]

They way i understand it is DX11 is itself aswell as 10 and 9. Kinda like games support multiple graphic cards, dx11 supports multiple API's, which in turn means the cards that support those API's are supported. DX10/9 cards can run a DX11 hardcoded game bc its backwards compatible though they don't run dx11 features. Whereas a dx10 hardcoded game can't be run by dx9 cards.

At least that's what i got out of dx11 when it was released.

Me too.