If you had this choice?

Well, well.... The 3870x2's are very close now it would seem. This leaves me in a bit of a pickle for my final decision. I am almost finished building my new setup, which I have nicknamed "Ultima". In actuality it should be named "This is totally ridiculous", but we won't go there. All I have left to buy is the video cards. SO, if you had the decision to make, what would you do? I am only curious because you guys have some very good opinions and observations that are very relevent at times.

As I see it, from reading here, one 3870x2 should be very close to two 3870's. Two 3870x2's should be pretty sweet and the latest of course. Since you can't go above two X2's right now, then you are set on spending around $900 - $1000 or so, if I read correctly, versus $450 - $500 for two 3870's. Keeping in mind that money is NOT the issue, what route would you go and why?

In my thinking, the 3870 route is the most stable, as far as stability/drivers go, plus there are waterblocks available where there will be none for the X2's, of course, at least not for some time. The X2's will surely have driver issues for a while one would think. Spending half the money for video that will be more than adequate makes more sense, especially if you consider the 45nm R700's that are comming in about 6 months, or so I read, but you know how rumors go. Upgrading from 3870's seems the correct choice for 6 to 8 months of use. BUT, X2 is also the better way if you plan on waiting longer for the R700 beginning to settle down which would be about a year I would guess. Like I said, quite the pickle.

Here is the setup you would have to work with:

Custom UFO case designed for 4 water cooling loops
ASUS Maximus MB
QX9650 CPU
2GB Corsair Dominator DDR3 1800
2 WD Caviar SATA2 WD3200YS in Raid
Enermax Galaxy 1000W Power Supply
4 seperate water loops:
1- pump > CPU > PA120.3 > Res
1- pump > NB > PA120.2 > Res
1- pump > GPU1 > PA120.3 > Res
1- pump > GPU2 > PA120.3 > Res


I am very curious what you would do and why.

So, here's more to think about:

The same driver issues that might theoretically plague a 3870X2 will also affect a CF'd pair of 3870 cards. Why? Because a 3870X2 is absolutely nothing more than two 3870's with an onboard PCI-E 1.0 bridge in the center -- just as if you were running crossfire on your own motherboard. So if driver stability is one of your concerns, then it should be the same concern for both options.

As for upgrade path? There's always something better on the way. It's R700, but then it's G98. But then it's R780. But then it's only another four months... But then it's only another three months... Let's face it, our computers are bleeding-edge for only a very short amount of time. Trying to pin down when to buy is like trying to nail jello to a wall.

My suggestion, for what it's worth, is this: Buy a single 3870X2. If you like what you see in the R700 in a few months, sell your 3870X2 on the forums here and buy an R700. If you don't really care much for the R700 when it debuts, go buy another 3870X2 and enjoy some quad-crossfire.

If you buy a pair of 3870's today, you have no more expansion options unless you sell them both. So if you want that performance but still want future upgrade capacity without having to sell them off, then I'd go with the X2.

I personally bought two 3870's because I didn't want to wait I'll likely sell them off and get a pair of X2's when they come out -- and then will probably at least look at the R700 when it hits the street.

Some points:


The 3870x2 is nothing more than 2x 3870's on one PCB, so I doubt there will be driver issues.

Current waterblocks will fit 3870x2's as they have the same mounting mechanism.

You can crossfire 2x 3870x2's.

AFAIK, there are faster hard drives on the market.

Go with 4gb of ram. You wont notice a difference in benchmarks, but real-world performance will be improved.

4 WC loops is excessive. A single PA120.3 would handle everything you have listed...assuming you put fans on it. I would consider 2, though. Maybe a 120.2 for your processor, and a 120.3 for 2x 3870x2's.

Don't watercool your chipset - waste of time and space.

I dunno about the power supply, but I have a friend with an unlimited budget and he opted for a Tagan.

Tagan are a mixed bag of nuts, generally crap.


And I'd get 3870X2 CF just for kicks. (and 4x 3870x2 when the platform comes) (LOL)

I'd get a PCP&C 1kw or maybe a TT Toughpower 1kw...

The galaxy is a very cpu related psu.. (lots of amps on cpu rail, not alot on others)

I would wait for reviews. Right now a lot of people seem to assume that the 3870x2 will own due to some 3d mark benches which Ati seems to be very good at compaired to their game performance. Also it may end up like the 7950gx2 which is good stand alone but 2x of them lost to 7900gtx sli. Basically what I am trying to say is dual gpu card dont have a good track record. You can argue that the 7950gx2 was the first of its kind and thus prone to more problems but that is wrong not only was there a 7900gx2 but there where also some 6800 dual gpu cards from gigabyte and asus. Also nVidia has more experience in this then ati who started a gen after nvidia with the dual x1600. Also Ati has not released an offical dual gpu card, meaning all of the dual gpu cards with Ati cores thus far where through companies such as gecube etc. On top of that everyone complains that ATi drivers suck add this to their recent track record since the x1900 (vastly delayed 2900, worse performance in AA vs nVidia, etc). I have seen so many people go nuts for yet to be released ATi cards durring this period of nVidia dominance, myself included for a short period of the r600 months before release, and have learned to always sugest waiting till actual reviews hit. I hope ATi gets it right but sadly with all these problems I personally expect the 9800gx2 to be better then the 3870x2. The only thing reflecting positively in ATis corner is 3870 crossfire scaling vs many nVidia pros. If I where nVidia I would leak 9800gx2 info soon to mess up the 3870x2 launch. If they dont then assume that the 9800gx2 cant measure up and go with whatever is best at the time be it 3870x2 or something else. Also If money is not an issue you might want to remain open to the idea of opting for tipple Sli with 8800 ultras if it beats crossfire 3870x2 when it finally hits.

Also if you can wait be aware that skulltrail launches in feb 2008. This platform will be the best out there if money is not an issue plus it can do sli and crossfire and has 4x pci-e slots so you can go either way and finally not be locked into crossfire on an intel chipset and thus have sli out of the question after buying an intel chipset mobo. If you wait till skulltrail not only will you have the best system out there and the best flexablity with regards to gpu setups, but we will also have more info on the gpu front and thus you will be able to make a well informed decicion baised on more then just speculation.

edit: sorry for the long post but I felt that I had to back up my point with a lot of info. On top of this I was bored in math class and had nothing to do

GTFouts! You and I are on the same Wavelength. I will have almost the identical system you described up and running Tuesday night. I already have a black custom UFO case with two liquid cooling loops and a fan controller / LEDs mounted in the front. I am upgrading the major components and the parts arrive monday. I'm sticking with a single video card as I already have an 8800GTX. I'm planning to O/C it to 4ghz. It should run stable there with the parts and cooling I have.

MountainMods Black UFO Case
Asus Maximus Extreme Mobo (Using built in Chipset water block)
Intel QX9650 (Using Danger Den TDX 775 Water Block)
Corsair Dominator TWIN3X20481800C7D Ram
Twin WD Raptor 150GB 10,000RPM HDDs. Thought about getting 2 more and doing raid 10 for stripe and mirror, but not sure If I'll just do raw performance or go for a mirror for safety.
I have two power supplies actually in that case since the UFO supports it. A PCP&C 510 SLI and a OCZ Powerstream 700W. I can put the hard disks, fans, and pumps on one and the rest of the system on the other.
Bigfoot networks Killer NIC
Creative Fatal1ty Sound Card
Nvidia 8800GTX Graphics Card with Danger Den Water Block (the full one, not the small maze block).

I will run two loops, one for the CPU and Chipset and One for the Video Card. The UFO Case as plenty of space for the multiple radiators and fans.

Here were a couple of pics of the current system:

It's worthy to note that apparently Crossfire scales better than SLI. The current trend of thought is that Crossfire will handle 4 GPUs better than SLI. Don't quote me on this, maybe someone can verify, but that's what I've heard.

I did this unit to try to future proof it as best I could as far as cooling goes. Yes, it does have a ridiculous amount of cooling capability, but consider Skullrail. 2 cpu's, 4 video cards, thats alot of O/C'd heat for one loop, even 2 loops. I will be able to split things up as I wish and thats important to me, which is all that matters in the end, now isnt it? Here are a few pics for now. I plan on doing a complete write up on this so everyone can see just how crazy some people can get with this water cooling.

GTFouts said:

I did this unit to try to future proof it as best I could as far as cooling goes. Yes, it does have a ridiculous amount of cooling capability, but consider Skullrail. 2 cpu's, 4 video cards, thats alot of O/C'd heat for one loop, even 2 loops. I will be able to split things up as I wish and thats important to me, which is all that matters in the end, now isnt it? Here are a few pics for now. I plan on doing a complete write up on this so everyone can see just how crazy some people can get with this water cooling.

Click to expand...

Nice job man. I like the custom work. You definately have a variant of the same case, I couldn't do it the same way with the version of that case I have, but I like the layout a lot the way you are doing it. My big radiator is on the backside behind the motherboard where the hard drive rack would go since I mount my HDDs in the 5.25 bays. Great work so far. I look forward to seeing the writeup.