Also 1 thing to note is that performance will be a bit higher on x38 motherboards as the P35 only has the 2nd PCI-E slot running @ 4x, which significantly impacts performance. I did a test of my own and scored about 15% less in 3dmark06 using a x1900GT (tested at both x4 and x16)
yes, the 38X0 cards really need to have 8X PCI-E bandwith or more.
I am wondering about this... does this give the performance of a 3850 and a 3870, or do both the cards get brought down to the lowest card? (i.e. 2 3850s)
The 3850 will bottleneck the 3870, except maybe if it uses alternate frame rendering.
Yeah I wouldn't recommend crossfiring a 3870 and 3850 because the 3870 will just downclock to 3850 speeds...which means it's a complete waste of money and you would have been better off just buying another 3850
underclock isn't the right word. The 3870 will run at its default (or overclocked) clock speeds. It will be slowed down by the 3850 though.
If you go crossfire, even though it's possible to use two different types of card, it's best to use the same type.
psp_crazy1 said:
Xfire normally does better than SLi, right?
Yes. Crossfire scales better than SLI does.
A single 3850/3870 won't be as fast as a single 8800 GT, but crossfired 3870's will be faster on average than SLI'd 8800 GT's.
I'm not sure how crossfired 3870's will perform against SLI'd 8800 GTS's (G92). The G92 GTS's will probably be a bit faster, but the 3870's are cheaper.
SLi>Crossfire
8800GTS>3850
Actually, it's:
Crossfire > SLI
3850 < 8800 GTS (G80) < 3870 < 8800 GT < 8800 GTS (G92)
in single card configurations
8800 GTS (G80) < 3850 < 8800 GT < 3870 < 8800 GTS (G92)
in SLI/Crossfire
Personally, I'm going to crossfire 3870's.