Hi all,

We have just published a review of the *Asus EAH3870 X2 1GB graphics
card*. If you could post a link on your site that would be very much
appreciated.

*Link:*
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/05/08/asus-eah3870-x2-1gb-graphics-card/1


*Picture:*
http://images.bit-tech.net/content_images/2008/05/asus-eah3870-x2-1gb-graphics-card/fp_img.jpg


*Quote:
*/"I have to say that I'm impressed with the Asus EAH3870 X2 graphics
card -- it's quite a step away from the reference design and innovation
like this should be encouraged. The inclusion of four DVI ports will be
a welcome addition for anyone looking to run more than a couple of
monitors on their workstation and what makes it even better is the fact
that, unlike Nvidia's SLI, ATI CrossFireX technology scales across
multiple displays.

There is no need to disable CrossFireX in order to enable multi-display
mode -- and believe me when I say that is a big thing for anyone like me
who is a gamer but also runs multiple displays. It's for that reason
alone that I have never used a GeForce 9800 GX2 or GeForce 7950 GX2 in
any system that isn't used for testing purposes -- it defeats the object
of having a single graphics card for me because it has all the
compromises of SLI.

It's not all rosy though because there are some things that aren't as
likeable about the Asus EAH3870 X2 1GB. The biggest one is of course
performance. In short, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 is not as competitive as it
needs to be and, if you took some games in isolation, you could make the
card look like exceedingly poor value for money compared to the GeForce
8800 GTS 512 and GeForce 9800 GTX, which are both retailing for under
£200. The 3870 X2, on the other hand, sits at about £240 (inc. VAT) at
best, and heads up towards the £280 mark at worst.

Another peeve of mine is with the fansink. Now, I accept that it's a
compromise that had to be made in order to accommodate the four
dual-link DVI ports on the PCI bracket, but that doesn't mean it's a
good thing. While the two fans don't really increase the amount of noise
pollution by a significant amount, it does mean there are now two points
of failure on the card -- you could say you're twice as likely to need
to change the card's heatsink later down the line when one of the fans
inevitably fails. There's also the fact that heat created by the GPUs is
no longer exhausted out of the back of the card, which means that you
end up heating up the inside of your chassis -- I doubt that's going to
be a major concern for most though.

On the whole though, I think that the Asus EAH3870 X2 is a good choice
compared to what's on offer from other partners on both red and green
fronts. It will undoubtedly please the multi-monitor crowd and that's
where I see this card making the most headway. A word of warning though:
Asus has two EAH3870 X2 cards---one with four DVI ports (this one), and
one that follows the reference design pretty closely---so if you're
unsure, please do check with the retailer before purchasing."/
*

*Cheers guys!

Tim Smalley
www.bit-tech.net