AMD confirms R680 is two chips on one board

.The inbound GX2 will be nothing more than a placeholder for a GPU that is, admittedly, running behind schedule...

RV670 has been floating around AMD as a working chip for about 5 months now...

Jawed[/QUOTE]

Well I might be wrong, but isnt the R680 also a placeholder while we wait for the strongly anticipatated R700 ?

 

You could also say that the r680 is a prequel to the r700 which is "rumored strongly" to have a similar dual gpu configuration.

 

And still behind getting the game running on one chip - let alone two. They've still gotta walk before they can run.

Jawed

 

Im pretty skeptical with Crossfire scaling....

For the past year almost ive heard nothing but bad things abotu Crossfire vs SLI- i have always heard and known that SLI was much better at scaling than crossfire esp with AA/AF but now because of ONE benchmark/review Everyone is stating OMG its much better. + 2 HD3870X2's in "quad" Crossfire will not beat 2 - 8800 ultras in SLI simply because QUAD GPU drivers are not optimzed at all and the 4th core wont get load on it anyways hence why Nvidia came out with TRI SLI.

But at that point you have to be rich haha same I expect in canada the 3870x2's to be round 500-525 which is only 100 bucks less than a 8800 ultra- and if your doing DUAL Cards- 2 8800 ultras is still a better buy which to me is amazing that after more than a year and a half G80 still has HUGE GPU Real Estate!

Bravo.

 

It will be interesting in any case. You may be right but... We only have to wait a few days to find out eh?

 

People are already receiving the HD3870X2s they ordered today. So we might see many unofficial reviews pop up over the weekend:

http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_message/29495204#29495204

 

This is kindof cool, although I don't think it'll be supported in drivers:http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5347&Itemid=1

 

I'm sure it will be supported in drivers, in terms of four 3870 cards as the article spoke of. Now, as for four 3870X2 cards? Nope.

 

I was talking about daisy-chaining 2 3870X2s with 2 3870 in the middle in order to the six-way CF. And for some unfathomable reason, looking at the link again, I realised that I'm petarded and that it shows 4 3870x, not what I had in mind.

 

The 3870X2 cards only have a single CF connector on the top, which should be a dead giveaway as to how many ATI intends to support in a CF'd configuration

 

Sure, sure, I know that. Still, physically it would be possible to get 5 or 6 way CF

 

What? No way man, there's four PCI-E slots there -- that's eight way crossfire!! Awww jyeah, massive framerate lag for the win!

 

Umm, no...not if you want to use the CF connectors. This is what I'm saying:3870X2(1 CF connector) goes to 3870(2 CF connectors->you've still got one free) which goes to either another 3870X2(and you get 5 way CF) or to another 3870, which in turn goes to the final 3870X2(and you get 6 way CF).

The only way to get 4 3870X2s would be to do connector-less CF on them...which I doubt would work at all. At least the first case has a slim(OK, non existant) chance of materializing. Ignoring the PSU requirements and other such trivial aspects

 

Oooooooh, I see where you're going. I never even thought about that! So yeah, you throw two single 3870's in the middle, and a 3870X2 on each end. Sweet thinking!

 

It will be extreme CPU limited ; the idea is worthless.... even if it was possible for quad cross-fire using 4X Radeon3870X2.

 

So it would be CPU limited at 2560x1600 with 8xMSAA/16xAF at very high settings on Crysis?

 

You would need faster CPU in order to be limited @2560x1600 w/ 8xMSAA/16xAF, but over-clocked CPU will raise higher FPS limitation @ 2560x1600 w/ 8xMSAA/16xAF.

 

I'm quite certain you wouldn't.

 

I agree. If 4X Radeon3870X2 were possible, it would become CPU limited and a faster CPU would only help shift the balance and offer higher fps with max eyecandy.

 

In most games yes. But Crysis? No.

I guarantee that you could not playably run Crysis at 2560x1600 with 8xMSAA/16xAF at very high settings even with quad 3870X2's.

At 30fps, that works out to 3.75 fps per 3870 assuming perfect scaling. And frankly, I don't think the 3870 could manage 3.75 fps at those settings (going off how my single 8800GTS 640 handles much lesser settings).

And even then, thats assuming "CPU bound" to be below 30fps. If anything I would say 60fps is the ideal. So really the question is could that GPU setup hit 60fps average?

The answer is a definate no.

On the other hand, at much lower graphics settings i'm sure a 9650 could easily maintain a 60fps average.