|
Sapphire HD3870 X2
 |
Thermal Characteristics:
As mentioned earlier it was immediately obvious that the HD3870 X2 put out a lot of heat. We measured the exhaust temperature as well as core temps using a laser thermal probe after the machine has been running Crysis for 30 minutes.
Exhaust Temperature
Configuration |
Exhaust Temperature (Degrees C) |
Single 3870 X2 |
67.3 |
Reference Nvidia 8800GT |
55.3 |
Core Temperature
Configuration |
Core Temperature (Degrees C) |
Single 3870 X2 |
69.1 |
Reference Nvidia 8800GT |
59.2 |
While these temperatures are much hotter than most are used to seeing you need to remember the HD3870 X2 is being compared to a single GPU card and that the card was perfectly stable running at these temperatures.
Power Utilization:
Our power utilization is achieved by using the crysis benchmark and taking power utilization at the same point in each test. The test additionally represents a full system layout including hard drive, DVD rom, and all system fans. It should be noted that your power usage will be different depending upon your system layout and additional accessories such as hard drives, sound cards, etc.
Configuration |
Core Temperature (Degrees C) |
System with Single 3870 X2 |
386 Watts |
System with Nvidia 8800GT |
592 Watts |
Encountered Issues:
The Sapphire card performed flawlessly in each test and game we used it in. We did however have issues with the fan onboard developing some vibration issues within weeks of starting to use it. If you plan to purchase an aftermarket cooler then this is not an issue but for us we were less than comfortable with running it 24/7 in case the fan should completely stop. We have additionally tested two other Sapphire HD3870 X2 cards from retail outlets that showed no signs of this issue so it could be a "fluke".
During our testing we wanted to check out Crossfire X as we had two HD3870 X2 cards. We found that although properly physically setup a fresh installation of windows always produced horrible test results with both cards installed. It seems that in order to setup Crossfire X you must install the system with a single card and then add the second after windows is installed. We tested both the 8.3 and 8.4 ATI drivers and found this to be the case with both. When installed separately the system performs flawlessly.
REAL TIME PRICING