bad_haze

More than ever, the front lines of the battle between NVIDIA and ATI are now apparent. The consistent release of hardware without the appropriate software drivers is a testament to how desperate each company is getting to maintaining a lead in the marketplace. The cost to us consumers is the risk of buying a card whose true potential is unknown until all features are supported through appropriate driver support.

My experience with the 8800GTS was my first in the front line of this battle, as it was the first time I was faced with the prospect of watching the potential of my video card grow significantly before my eyes as I downloaded and installed a new beta driver every month. Originally, I scored 9'000 on 3dm06, but with the new drivers (and an upgrade from 667 to 800 RAM ) I now obtain 11'200 on 3dm06. It was quite a pleasing experience to watch my investment's performance defy the history of video cards and actually grow over time as opposed to have it remain stable or even decrease as so many other video cards have done in the past.

That is why I am optimistic about the 3870. Yes, it has a 256-bit bus but the documentation indicates that the efficiency of the hardware has been vastly improved reducing the need for a much larger 512-bit bandwidth, lowering power consumption and production costs. With a focus on efficiency rather than brute bandwidth, we can only imagine how far AMD can take their products with specs that are lower than its predecessors or NVIDIA's lineups. We can already see the benefits of AMD's efficiency approach as the 3870 (with barely beta, almost alpha drivers) uses less power, a smaller bus, and fewer transistors, yet performs on par with the 2900, better than the 8800GTS, and nipping at the heels of the 8800GT.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/11/...800/page5.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/11/...00/page20.html

If the growth in performance I have experienced with the 8800GTS over the past year is an example of what tactics will be used by both companies in the battle for market dominance, we can reasonably expect to see the 3870 perform much better than the 8800GT after a few driver releases. Of course, that is considering NVIDIA has already exhausted all or a significant portion of the features the 8800GT has to offer in their recent 170.09 beta release. Since the 8800's have been on the market for quite some time now, and dx10.1 is still not supported, I believe this to be a distinct possibility.

The last ATI video card I had was the x1800xl so I don't know if ATI has released a video card that experienced such significant driver and performance growth since then like the 8800GTS has, but I am optimistic that the 3870 will do so because all the signs point to that conclusion; they're almost an exact replica of what happened when the 8800 versions were released. That is why I actually sold my 8800GTS and bought a Diamond Viper 3870.

It should arrive tomorrow or Monday next week. Thanks for reading and be sure to tell us what you think!


Edit: I thought this should be added. I wrote it in another thread.

The 8800's have been out for quite some time now and they still do not support dx10.1. Compared to the 3800's, they are dated in technology because only the 3800's support dx10.1. This coupled with the fact that ATI chose to beef up the shader operations to 50x more than the 8800GT and give it 50x more bandwidth, says something about the 3870 being future proof. The future of gaming is shading, plain and simple. The only reason why the 8800GT is barely beating the 3870 is due to driver tuning and the large texture fill rates.

NVIDIA is quicker at tuning their drivers than ATI is (which says something about their commitment to their products, go NVIDIA!), but the end result of their efforts are the same: great drivers. In terms of shading, one reason why the 8800GT has inched ahead of the 3800's is because the 8800GT has so much power in terms of rendering textures that it can afford to skimp out on the shading. However, when games start using more and more shading, textures wont be so important and that's where ATI has captured the future in their 3800 lineup. So expect to see the 3870 pull ahead of the 8800GT in terms of future game releases that use more shading.
The 8800's have been out for quite some time now and they still do not support dx10.1. Compared to the 3800's, they are dated in technology because only the 3800's support dx10.1. This coupled with the fact that ATI chose to beef up the shader operations to 50x more than the 8800GT and give it 50x more bandwidth, says something about the 3870 being future proof. The future of gaming is shading, plain and simple. The only reason why the 8800GT is barely beating the 3870 is due to driver tuning and the large texture fill rates.

I'm not saying the 3870 is the card of choice for all gamers. It seems like it should only be the card of choice for gamers who want to play newer games that will use a lot of shading. That means you have to have money to buy those games. BUT if you already own all the games you want to play, and want to play them with better quality and speed, then get the 8800GT. They are both excellent cards in their own respect.

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thealmightyone

Don't forget, the 8800GT will improve with each driver release. So, unless the 3870 is already performing on par or better than the 8800GT, I doubt anything will change as both companies will release driver updates.

RussianGrimmReaper

The 3870 will never out preform an 8800GT. No matter how many drivers come out, the 8800GT is better because of its hardware.

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bad_haze

I understand what you are trying to say and it may make sense, only time will tell if ATI's efficiency approach really can make the 3870 outperform the 8800GT. Remember, though, that the 3870 beats the 8800GT in some respects as well, like bandwidth, shader ops, pixel fill rate, core clocks, memory clocks, shader processors, die size, and even matches the 8800GT in terms of bus width (256-bit). http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards....=544&card2=547

I'm just reminding people to consider the gains we have seen from driver releases during the stages of the 8800 release and now that the 8800s are maturing, further driver releases may not provide such big improvements as they used to. The fact that the 8800GT does not support DX10.1 might also support this fact because it might mean that the differences between the G80 and G92 cores may not be as drastic as the differences between the RV600 and RV670.

All this means the 3870 has the real potential to outperform the 8800GT and remain more future-proof! Check out the link above and you'll see the 3870 is an interesting adversary to the 8800GT and superior in most respects. That's why I didn't buy a G92(8800GT) because it's based on dated technology with respects to the RV670(3870).

Cheers!

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RussianGrimmReaper

Vista doesn't support 10.1 yet... why would you pick out a card based on something that doesn't exist yet? I bought my 3870's because I wanted my X38 chipset but needed dual cards to play games, the only choice I had were the 3870's.

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bad_haze

dx10.1 is coming out in January or whenever they release vista SP1. Your dual 3870s will pay off after a few driver releases, wait and see

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RussianGrimmReaper

10.1 isn't that important right now, game developers are still trying to nail down DX10. Vista SP1 isn't coming until end of Jan/beginning of Feb.

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||LAW||Doom

In the current benchmarks between the two the margin isnt large enough to convince to spend more $$$ on the 8800GT. Both cards are steadily improving and are starting to turn out to be overclocking monsters but once again price comes down to it. A vanilla 8800GT is 290 on newegg while a vanilla HD3870 is 220 on newegg. Is it worth the extra 70 bucks for a small gain? Just my 2 cents

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RussianGrimmReaper

Vanilla 8800GT is $270. But the 3870 can overclock to be equal to an overclocked 8800GT (Not factory oc, your own oc). What really kills the 3870 is its horrible drivers. When they get better, it will be still less powerful then an 8800GT, but it will overclock farther. CF will destroy SLI in this case. In which case comes the next question, when will this happen, and are you willing to spend $440 for two cards when the new GTS 512 will be almost as good and slightly cheaper (which can be overclocked too).

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003

Someone needs to read up on the R600 architecture...