ASUS EAH3870X2 review - Conclusion
Author: Luka Rakamaric
Date: 08 Mar 2008

We can see that the 3870X2 scales excellent when compared to a single 3870 board, and that it not that different than two 3870 boards in Crossfire mode. When compared to the current NVIDIA flagship, the 8800 Ultra (which is End Of Life), the 3870X2 comes on top by a comfortable margin, and loses only to an SLI configuration of 8800GTS 512 cards, which are quite more expensive and also limit your motherboard choice to high end NVIDIA models. This card, however, works in all motherboard, whether they are based on Intel, NVIDIA or AMD’s chipsets.

After quite a while, ATI finally has a faster card than NVIDIA, and it comes for a fair price. Its 2 chip, 12 layer PCB design is quite complicated, but with it ATI managed to claim the top spot once again, at least until NVIDIA releases its 9800GX2 which should retake the throne if the drivers are released mature. Until then, ATI’s card presents a very nice offering whose only problem is power consumption that is at a level of and CF or SLI system, so you will probably have to think about a modern power supply, especially if you want an 8 pin connector.

Some people still have a bitter taste in their mouth after seeing the 7950GX2, which was not a success because of buggy drivers. Hopefully both companies will try to do a better job with their respective current models, especially since both CF and SLI have matured from what they were two years ago. It should also be noticed that game developers as well are having a much easier time designing multi GPU compatible games, which is also one of the reasons that scalability of such setups has gone up.