Maximus Nebuchadnezzar

QUOTE (Merc @ January 28, 2008 05:18 pm)

Given the current state of the Nvidia chipsets I'd guess there may be a bunch of GTXes hitting the used card market.

I have an XFX 8800 GTX XXX Edition for sale with Swiftech Stealth installed. I'll toss in the Raptor, gratis, if anyone is interested. $400 shipped UPS ground, including insurance. That was the price my last one went for on Ebay, so think that's a fair price point.

(Thank you for that segue, Merc. lol)

QUOTE (rlvogel322 @ January 29, 2008 12:06 am)

I'm really thinking about going the 3870 X2 route if I can get a decent price for the GTX.

Rick, if you would have gotten to me a week ago, you probably could have talked me into buying your GTX.

However, I succumbed to the Intel chipset and have the Maximus Extreme being delieverd on Wed.

QUOTE (Merc @ January 28, 2008 05:18 pm)

The 3870X2 appears to just beat the 8800GTX Ultra. Plus it does it at a much reduced cost of under $500. That is really good news for all of us that like the new Intel chipsets but want dual video cards.

Here are the cons: the X2 could be a place holder, like the GeForce 7950 was -- dual GPU cards tend to be a bone the chip mft tosses gamers before introducing true innovation, such as the 8800GTX.

Cost of Wblocks for those Wcooling: True you can see this as two wblocks for the cost of one, but that one block will cost you. Danger Den has reported they see them in the $150.00 range. EK has theirs similarly priced at 110.00 Euros (more for nikel or acetal finishes) with 20.00 Euros shipping to the US. You can save a little on shipping costs by waiting for US resellers to offer them, but from what I'm told, that will be a few weeks. Maybe longer. Danger Den's ETA is mid-February for availability. They sent a prototype to ATI this past Friday. Swiftech has yet to commit to producing one at all.

QUOTE (cool_case @ January 28, 2008 05:23 pm)

Wow - beauts Jason!

I'll be joining in with you in the x2 craze, getting a delivery Thursday. Sold my 3870s over the weekend. Will be benching them late this week.

Yes, Eddy does beautiful work. Priced just a skootch more than DD's with much better finishing work and detail to engineering and quality, throughout.

Let me guess, CoolCase, you bought two X2's?

QUOTE (jmkays @ January 28, 2008 09:09 pm)

QUOTE (cool_case @ January 28, 2008 05:23 pm)

Wow - beauts Jason!

I'll be joining in with you in the x2 craze, getting a delivery Thursday. Sold my 3870s over the weekend. Will be benching them late this week.

Yes, Eddy does beautiful work. Priced just a skootch more than DD's with much better finishing work and detail to engineering and quality, throughout.

Let me guess, you bought two?

No w-blocks on the LN2 rig. Going air ...

QUOTE (rlvogel322 @ January 28, 2008 05:06 pm)

Thanks for posting the info Jason. I wonder when they'll have stuff in the US. How do I get on your list to get one directly from them?

Rick, should be within four weeks. Maybe sooner. If you like, you can order directly from EK. Please let Eddy Konig (EK) know that you were referred by me and the forum -- I'm encouraging him that the two might enjoy a symbiotic relationship.

Here's the link to order from: EK Water Blocks

If you prefer to wait and order State side, please tell Alex or Quoc I sent you their way: Petra's Tech Shop

As a group, the more we name drop Asus Independent when transacting with these smaller manufacturers and resellers, the easier it will be to secure sponsorship deals for Forum Wars and other events in the future.

There is some really nice rigs coming together for Forum Wars

Kwikky, you better sign up with that monster you're assembling.

QUOTE (Merc @ January 29, 2008 01:45 am)

There is some really nice rigs coming together for Forum Wars

Kwikky, you better sign up with that monster you're assembling.

Defintely right with that one Merc. Also, just imagine everyone being able to enjoy these new updated rigs after the FW too.

There is so much great gear and chips available now at incredible prices that it is a builder dream come true.

Can't get the 3870x2 in Australia yet, but I think they should come in at about AU$600 or so... From preliminary reports it looks like they will be around the Ultra performance level, but at that price I can afford to get one..

RE: 3870 X2. I hadn't intended to run two of these in Crossfire mode, but apparently there Crossfire won't be supported until March. Nor does the card support PCIe 2.0. The latter seems strange -- no 2.0 support??

Game Spot ATI 3870 X2 Review

Excerpt:

QUOTE

The Radeon HD 3870 X2 requires only a single video card slot, but you currently cannot run two cards together in CrossFire at this time. AMD has told GameSpot that it plans to offer X2 CrossFire support this March. The card also lacks PCI Express 2.0 because the special bridge chip that connects the card's GPUs together only supports PCI Express 1.1.

The card doesn't have to support PCIe 2.0 since the standard is backward compatible. I'll float a waiver for Crossfire guys at Forum Wars. I don't see a problem labeling the system Xfire if Xfire exists but the drivers for the 3870X2 suck at the moment.

QUOTE (Merc @ January 29, 2008 12:44 pm)

The card doesn't have to support PCIe 2.0 since the standard is backward compatible.

I realize it will be compatible, Merc, but was surprised to find it doesn't take advantage of the new protocol since it's a new product.

According to this TechPowerUp review, the lack of pcie 2.0 support will only minimally hurt performance.

You can see the performance of the x2 really shine in 3D06. If ATI gets tomorrow's planned driver release out, the hope is that the cards performance in DX10 games will be much closer to equaling its 3D06 performance edge. The problem the new drivers are supposed to fix is x-fire (on-card) scaling with DX10 games.

I am however concerned about the lack of x-fire support for two cards until March. We have until April 19 to finalize our scores. An ATI fix coming much beyond mid-April would really hurt some of our scores.