Asus’ EAH 3870 X2 TOP Edition came late to our party – we weren’t able to receive it along with the initial rush of top-end cards from AMD/ATI. Fortunately, this gives us a base for comparison, specifically with GeCube’s similarly off-the-wall designed HD 3870 X2.

                                            Design convention continues to advance from the simple PCB+Fan of yore.
 

Both cards are based on ATI’s reigning chipset combination – two R670s in a crossfire configuration mounted on a single PCB along with a PCI-E 1.1 Bridge chip to tie everything together. The main difference that these two models offer to the consumer on top of the reference design is a specialized cooler, and factory overclocks. In the case of the Asus, this is referred to as the TOP version of the card, differentiating it from the more mundane, stock-clocked and re-skinned Asus 3870 X2.

                                             Note the clear space above the GPU core, which is only covered by a thin copper plate.                            

Before going on with the specifications and features that probably three fourths of you already know, let’s start with the cooler design, and why it makes this Asus such a special buy, if you do take the plunge. The card is the same length as the reference design, plus or minus a few millimeters. Two fans adorn the flattish plane of the card face, with cool hexagonal thumb bolt-screws outlining both. The fan shroud is made of seemingly brushed black aluminum, though I suspect it is simply stainless steel. Not that it matters’ no part of this shroud is in actual contact with any heat=producing components on the card – and herein lies the beauty of this cooling solution’s design.

                                             Attention to detail appeals to the modder in me.

Remove the shroud, and what you’d see is simply two copper plates covering the GPUs and selects chip components, both connected to the heatpipe ends of its respective heatsink assemblies. The heatpipes lead to a mesh of aluminum fins lifted over the PCB – giving lots of space around which air can circulate. The fans are places diagonally across the GPU centers, again leaving breathing space above the GPUs. The design makes full use of the 3870’s long PCB design, and looks good doing so – especially compared to the reference, single fan design that is massive but still looks undernourished with its single fan and unadorned heatsinks.

                                             Looking like the front air dam of a fast car, the radiator extends beyond the GPU and chips for extra cooling.

The fans are also offset in a way that enables additional airflow to be routed around said empty space, although the majority of airflow will still hit the aluminum fin-radiators. Other design elements also deserve mention – a large plate attached to the rear panel exclaims “Dual” – which I feel is pretty cheesy, but it does set off the bare black metal nicely. A very well-appreciated design change is the parallel (to the PCB) power connectors. Compared to the reference design wherein you plug in your power seemingly onto the board, the Asus orients the plugs so that you can plug in from the top, making for easier cable routing. On the other hand, the power connectors consist of a four-pin and a six-pin design – I much prefer Gecube’s dual four-pin connectors. One final consideration in Asus’ design: the bridge chip is uncovered, which may or may not be a point of concern – I’m sure it outputs less heat than the twin GPUs, but a simple heatsink would have sufficed to allay fears of overheating.

                                             Two GPUs and the PCi Bridge can be seen clearly in this shot.

The other main difference in this version of the 3870 X2 lie in its clocks. The TOP Edition increases core clock speeds from 825MHz to 851MHz, with memory clocks reaching 1.9GHz from a base of 1.8GHz. This version of course retains the standard trappings of the 3870 X2 cards such as 512 MB of GDDR3 for each GPU, a 512-bit memory interface when both GPUs work in tandem, twice the 3870’s number of stream processors (640), texture units (32), and ROPS (32), as well as twice the number of DVI connectors (4) that works similarly to the GeCube’s ( 2 connectors work for boting up; no Crossfire when using four monitors at once). Performance however is hardly double that of the single 3870 cards. We have not yet had the opportunity to test this using ATI’s latest 8.3 drivers, but judging from previous benchmarks performed on the ATI reference and GeCube’s HD 3870 X2, the Asus will surely give the high end Nvidia cards reason to worry – at least for the 8800 GTX and the Ultra. This Asus 3870 X2 TOP presents an interesting chance to match up ATI’s best with Nvidia’s similarly dual GPU 9800 GX2, but that’s for another story. For roughly P20k and change or even lower, this hefty piece of hardware will give gamers and hardware enthusiasts alike the option to go ATI red in their next high-end videocard purchase, without the wallet – deflation associated with purchasing any of its peers. More pictures to follow.

                                             A thin copper plate is welded directly to the heatpipe. The fans are offset from the GPU cores.

                                              What's a piece of hardware without a little bit of fluff?

                                              Four DVI ports for the compleat computer user.

                                             I'm getting a bit spoiled - but this is actually a pretty good bundle, especially Opposing Fronts.