Why are we expected to give respect to the 4870X2, when was not given to the GX2?

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TalonMan

[H]ard|Gawd
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Feb 16, 2007
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Here is what I think is a little funky. I owned a GX2, and when the reviews hit the net, look at what it was made to run against...

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTQ3NSwzLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==
XFX GeForce 9800 GX2
Goes against
(2X) GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB SLI
(2X) GeForce 8800 GT 512MB SLI
ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2

Note: All multi GPU chipped rigs, due to the GX2 having 2 GPU chips too.

Even when the 280 was released:
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTUxOCwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==
"The GeForce 8800 GTX was succeeded this past April by the GeForce 9800 GTX. The GeForce 9800 GTX also has 128 stream processors, and NVIDIA was able to greatly increase the stream processor frequency, making it, until now, the fastest single GPU video card for gaming. We will be comparing the GTX 280 and 260 to the 9800 GTX for this reason."

No mention of how the GX2 succeeded the GeForce 9800 GTX, and was the current Reigning King. People hated giving Nvidias GX2 the same respect, we now are expected to give the 4870X2.

I Stepped into a 280, and now, everybody insists on comparing it to SLI rigs, or the 4870X2...

Now when reviewing an ATI card, they tend to show it in a different light...
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...deon-hd-4870-x2-2gb-video-card-review-16.html
Palit HD4870X2
Goes against
(1) GTX 280
HD4870 Crossfire
(1) GTX 260
HD4850 Crossfire
(1) DH4870 512
(1) 9800GTX
(1) 8800GTS
(1) HD4850 512

(2) GTX 280's would have been the thing to add... The Big Dog SLI rig is missing!
Heck, no (2) 260's sli either?

The [H] is my favorite review site, and to their credit they did test 280's in sli, against a HD4870X2. (Note that this is only a preview review.)
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTUzMSwzLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

I feel like Nvidia was on top for so long, people in general love rooting for the underdog almost to a fault... They want ATI to win for a change, so they avoid showing the HD4870X2 against a faster setup. It makes it harder for me to believe their numbers too. Do I think they are making a conscious decission, to skew their results? Probably not. But it does make you wonder if a bit of subconscious creative FPS number rounding, isn't happening in the back room...

It's hard being human, if your rooting for the underdog to win, and also recording the data...
Some do it better than others.

Most of all, don't talk about Vantage, and counting the PhysX work that get's calculated on your Nvidia GPU. They really cry loud then.

Note that most didn't give the GX2 the same break. Showing it against single cards was a total abomination. Times change I guess?
Or do they...

http://channel.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=14993&page=2
" We start by asking them what they feel about losing the performance leadership".
Hehe... I loved his responce...

"Is that interesting?" says Del Rizzo. "To some people maybe, but it took two of their GPUs to beat one of ours. We have had dual GPU cards and it's feasible that it may happen again."

I figured that is the way they felt... Especially after all the flack the GX2 took for being a dual GPU card.

If you want to say who's crown the 4870X2 took, I would say the GX2's, not the 280's!

One last thought. The GX2 gave more in speed to the intel mobo guy's, than the 4870X2 ever could. ATI didn't have a super fast card for us, so running a Nvidia GPU was it. Due to SLI being not supported, the GX2 in effect doubled our max GPU speed. Now a 4870X2 comes out, but by no stretch of the imagination, it can double a 280's speed.

The GX2 should have gotten more attention, then the 4870X2. It gave more speed, to more people. But that would require you to not be Non-Biased.

Now I am not willing to kiss the feet of the 4870X2. There are too many in front of me anyway...
 
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To start with, no one expects you do to anything.

As for our evaluations, this logic of "2 GPUs must be compared to 2 GPUs" is not what we look at. We look at price and try our best to compare cards to similarly priced cards. Really that is it. We still pull the "flagship" cards for comparison as well regardless of price on some articles.

On the subject of the 9800 GX2, HardOCP was the first site in world to show of real pictures of the card along with specs, we did that in January of this year. Now when the 9800 GX2w as launched, it was pretty much considered dead in the water by us here at HardOCP due to the FACT that it was already marked EOL and production volumes of the card were minuscule at best.

However, we gave the card high marks, but value at $600-$650 at the time was not founded.

What does need to be said is that the “GX2 Curse” propagated by the 7950 GX2 that seemed to hold so much promise at the time does not seem to still be alive. The fact is that NVIDIA’s SLI has matured greatly since then and NVIDIA SLI profiles now account for hundreds of games. Couple that with the end user ability to force SLI modes and you have a multi-GPU environment that is not near as narrow as it was a couple years ago. Many of the bad feelings about the 7950 GX2 stemmed from its Quad-SLI shortcomings and as mentioned above, we will get to 9800 GX2 Quad-SLI soon.
Click to expand...

Quad SLI pulled up VERY short though with the 9800 GX2 and again the value of the setup was no where close to founded.

Except for Crysis, GeForce 9800 GX2 Quad SLI provides no real gameplay advantages and quite frankly we do not see Quad SLI benefiting much else right now.
Click to expand...

The 9800 GX2 was a good card but simply cost to much for what it supplied in terms of gaming when you could run 8800 GT for so cheap.

For us here at HardOCP we have yet to see really true value when scaling beyond 2 GPUs.

Hope that answers some of your questions.
 
The main problem with the the GX2 at launch was the MRSP (> $600).
It did not make much sense to buy a GX2 when a 8800GT could be found for less than $250.
Also, I always felt that the GX2 was somewhat a failure since it had problems at 2560*1600 (and also at 1920*1200) due to its insufficient memory size and limited bandwidth.

The 4870X2 is not without problems but its price ($550) is competitive (not more than 2 vanilla 4870) and it really shines at very high resolutions particularly since it does not have the bandwidth and memory limitations of the GX2.
BTW, today the GX2 can be found at $300 which makes it a great bang for the buck alternative.

Comparing a GTX 280 SLI to 4870X2 would be very interesting indeed.
However, it should be noted that GTX 280 SLI setup is much more expensive (2 video cards + high end SLI mb + ultra high end psu) which makes this option not very attractive.
In this regard, the 4870X2 is more elegant since it runs on almost any mb and it only requires a decent modern psu.
 
TalonMan said:
Thanks for the reply.

I never ment any disrespect for the [H]. :)

I really just felt like the world never officially gave the GX2 it's moment in time, as the King.

On the other hand, the 4870X2 is generating almost too much praise.

I would have expected two different dual GPU'ed cards, to have been received closer in the same manor than they have been. Might be too bacause ATI shocked some people by making a runner?

As far as price, it is getting much closer now. A 260 sli rig isn't too bad these days. :D
Click to expand...

The reason why the 4870x2 is getting so much hype is because it outperforms a GTX 280 SLI setup in most setups and costs $100 less. (The cheapest 4870x2.)

IMHO, I wouldn't want a SLI or Xfire setup b/c of the microstutter. And besides a dual 4850 setup beats the bejeebies out of the GTX 260 SLI setup.
 
RadXge said:
The 4870X2 is not without problems but its price ($550) is competitive (not more than 2 vanilla 4870) and it really shines at very high resolutions particularly since it does not have the bandwidth and memory limitations of the GX2.
BTW, today the GX2 can be found at $300 which makes it a great bang for the buck alternative.
Click to expand...

Good points!

So a good price match would be (2) GX2's against (1) 4870X2.

Two 260's would also be a good price match up. :)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814261016
After rebate it's $235.
 
CptFalcon said:
The reason why the 4870x2 is getting so much hype is because it outperforms a GTX 280 SLI setup in most setups and costs $100 less.
Click to expand...

I wish more site's would show that matchup running the current 280 drivers.

I think the 280 SLI would win most. :p
 
I think part of the reason nobody really seemed to really care was because it was simply 2 GTS 512's... which weren't even better than the 8800GTX / Ultra (by themselves atleast)...

And the price/value point wasn't too great... with the 4870x2 around $500 it's pretty decent... considering the performance/value of it
 
TalonMan said:
Good points!

So a good price match would be (2) GX2's against (1) 4870X2.

Two 260's would also be a good price match up. :)
Click to expand...

The GX2 suffers from serious microstutter and doesn't scale that well to 4 GPUs, however, so your desired goal (pretty clear here) of proving the GX2 the superior card (and yes I remember how thrilled you were about the car, and how you made who knows how many threads prior to getting one) is not very likely to happen.

Two 260s is much more likely to happen since they're current generation and not EOL, but again, not likely to beat out a 4870X2 in 9/10ths of all titles.

Another key point you've overlooked is the "free" AA at 1920x1200 thing. That's impressive, unprecedented even, and Nvidia can't currently compete on that level. The card is a beast, ATI is on top, and all playing the fanboy here is going to do is leave people upset and frustrated.
 
CptFalcon said:
The reason why the 4870x2 is getting so much hype is because it outperforms a GTX 280 SLI setup in most setups and costs $100 less. (The cheapest 4870x2.)

IMHO, I wouldn't want a SLI or Xfire setup b/c of the microstutter. And besides a dual 4850 setup beats the bejeebies out of the GTX 260 SLI setup.
Click to expand...
where are you getting $100 from? a 4870x2 costs $250-$300 less than two gtx280 cards.
 
CptFalcon said:
IMHO, I wouldn't want a SLI or Xfire setup b/c of the microstutter.
Click to expand...
While not entirely negated, AMD seems to have decreased microstutter on RV770-based Crossfire moderately. With the performance it's exhibiting, I personally don't believe MS is a major factor. NVIDIA's still lagging behind on this front, unfortunately.

Blazestorm said:
And the price/value point wasn't too great... with the 4870x2 around $500 it's pretty decent... considering the performance/value of it
Click to expand...
Especially with 1GB of memory per chip. I wouldn't be too thrilled about the idea of a 1GB 4870 X2, but AMD's made all the right moves.
 
The 4870X2 represents the return of ATI to a competitive position.
This is great for all GPU enthusiasts and the graphics market in general.

The 9800GX2 didn't represent anything other than being the fastest card.

It is really important for fans of each camp to recognize how important competition is. How can lower prices, better GPU's, and two companies trading blows for market share be bad?

4870X2 is just a fast card on paper, but its release is significant in a much broader sense.

Two more years of Nvidia would be the worst possible situation for Nvidia, at least in the long run.
 
CptFalcon said:
That was a really rough guesstimate.

The point I was trying to illustrate is that the 4870x2 costs less than two GTX 280 cards in SLI.
Click to expand...
well I think I better illustrated it by showing just how big the price gap actually is. :p

I think the only game that having gtx280 in sli beats a 4870x2 in is Crysis.
 
cannondale06 said:
well I think I better illustrated it by showing just how big the price gap actually is. :p

I think the only game that having gtx280 in sli beats a 4870x2 in is Crysis.
Click to expand...

Well of course two GTX 280 cards would be better in Crysis, Nvidia did "sponsor" the game after all.
 
silent-circuit said:
The GX2 suffers from serious microstutter and doesn't scale that well to 4 GPUs, however, so your desired goal (pretty clear here) of proving the GX2 the superior card (and yes I remember how thrilled you were about the car, and how you made who knows how many threads prior to getting one) is not very likely to happen.

Two 260s is much more likely to happen since they're current generation and not EOL, but again, not likely to beat out a 4870X2 in 9/10ths of all titles.

Another key point you've overlooked is the "free" AA at 1920x1200 thing. That's impressive, unprecedented even, and Nvidia can't currently compete on that level. The card is a beast, ATI is on top, and all playing the fanboy here is going to do is leave people upset and frustrated.
Click to expand...

No my goal here is not to prove the GX2 was better, heck I love my 280 now and think it's a much better card...

My intent is to address what seemed to me to be uneven way both cards were received.

Lot's of people to me seemed not to like the GX2 due to it's dual GPU's. The 4870X2 dosen't seem to have the same curse...

Good for ATI I guess!
Nvidia could have used some of that Black Magic. ;)
 
Many complained about the 9800GX2 due to micro-stuttering...and stuttering because of it's limited frame buffer. You also have to remember that the the 8800Ultra preceded the 9800GX2 as king of all cards....and there were scenarios where the larger frame buffer of the 8800Ultra actually gave it an advantage...out performing the 9800gx2. This is why not many people including myself who owned 2 8800 Ultras at the time, gave any credit or praise to the 9800GX2.

With the 4870x2 however, you got an effective 1GB frame buffer @ GDDR5...2GB total memory...and a dual gpu based card on one PCB. This card obviously is going to perform better at higher resolutions with AA/AF than the 9800GX2, which was people want. Remember that the 9800GX2 was simply two 8800GTS G92s stuck together....and the limited 512mb frame buffer is really what made it a bad product.
 
I agree that the 4870X2 is a better card than the GX2. I just wish the reviews would let it run against dual GPU setups.
 
Simple answer: Price/Performance

Long answer: Even as a single card, the HD4870 can bring down the price of the GTX280 for so much. When two of those GPUs ar combined as a HD4870 X2, it is cheaper than two HD4870 separate cards.
 
alg7_munif said:
Simple answer: Price/Performance

Long answer: Even as a single card, the HD4870 can bring down the price of the GTX280 for so much. When two of those GPUs ar combined as a HD4870 X2, it is cheaper than two HD4870 separate cards.
Click to expand...


+1

Now after people have seen how much Nvidia was (over)charging for their cards just because there was no competiton, people are kind of pissed off, so there is one more reason too. On the other hand, it's just a breath of fresh air after two years of same old, same old. Change is welcomed every once in while you know :).
 
I think RadXge is spot on. I didn't get the 9800 GX2 because of the issues he outlined. I bought a 4870 X2 the day it came out because it plays nice with my current system (p5ne-SLI motherboard and 620w PSU) and I get the frames I always wanted at 2560x1600 in a single slot solution at a nice price.

I read many benchmarks and I have seen reviewers comparing it to SLI 280s (firingsquad, driverheaven.net) and the 4870x2 loses in Crysis and is level in Oblivion but it would cost me 60% more to run the SLI 280s, not to mention the new PSU and motherboard so it's a perfect example of the ATi solution totally owning the high end single slot at the moment.

Who knows 2 months from now?
 
The price/performance thing is good to know, but we also just want to know what is really faster too.

The 4870X2, or (2) 280's in SLI. We spend 5 Grand on our systems. Saving 2 or 3 hundred bucks on the video card setup is a questional decission to me.

If your building your uber system, and have to save a couple of hundred, you would do well to look for something else to save on, other than your video setup.

In most games, do most of you guys really think one 4870X2, beats the speed of (2) 280's in SLI? (Forgetting price for a moment.)
 
TalonMan said:
The price/performance thing is good to know, but we also just want to know what is really faster too.

The 4870X2, or (2) 280's in SLI. We spend 5 Grand on our systems. Saving 2 or 3 hundred bucks on the video card setup is a questional decission to me.

If your building your uber system, and have to save a couple of hundred, you would do well to look for something else to save on, other than your video setup.

In most games, do most of you guys really think one 4870X2, beats the speed of (2) 280's in SLI? (Forgetting price for a moment.)
Click to expand...

in a lot of games yes here is the tech report benches.
http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/15293/
faster in COD4 (to be fair it was CPU limited here), faster in HL2 until 4mp, and so on. and these reviews don't take into consideration of the true strength of the 4870X2, the "free" AA. if you turn up the AA the gap between the 4870X2 and the GTX280 SLI widens by a large amount.
 
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