the "weird handle" was used to align the card in industrial HMIs, some workstations (and some higher end PCs) that had a support bracket at the front to guide it in to support the card and keep it from bending. very cheap and easy to rivet to the front of a case, i'm honestly surprised that few consumer cases with these heavy GPUs don't simply use an adapted PCIX bracket instead of weird "support sticks" or something.
Thanks for the info! I saw couple of older Dell machines with this bracket but never owned one - good point, especially with the weight of the cards recently. Thanks for watching my video :)
Just found this channel, great video! Really shows the power that this beast of a graphics card can have when CrossFire works properly. I recently got one myself, and it's a very awesome card! Paid quite a bit more for mine though... 😅
no, the aluminum one is enough to cool it with the air provided from the case, the copper cooler is needed for better heat transfer after the air warmed up by the first gpu. this way, both gpus can operate at similar temperatures
Wow, thanks for checking the video! Very kind of you to say! I'm not planning to get rich of YT haha! But it would be nice to perhaps offset some of the cost of components in future :)
So it's basically a newer rerun of how the old Rage Fury Maxx was...buggy drivers and poor support, but pretty awesome for the 3 applications that worked properly on it.
@@nexus_tech crazy how expensive they have become. I was very lucky and found mine for free out of an old computer put out for trash years ago. I'm pretty sure I tested it in XP, and the experience was more or less what I said, lol. I'll have to try it again sometime. It's a pretty cool piece of hardware. It was ATi's last ditch effort to compete with the GeForce 256 and Voodoo cards while I'm pretty sure the Rage 6, aka Radeon cards were delayed. The old Radeon chips were a huge step up for ATi at the time, and they were much more efficient than nVidia rendering 32 bit color modes (yes, we played in 16 bit color back then, lol...Voodoo cards didn't even support 32 bit color until Voodoo 4/5, and those were so slow in 32 bit it wasn't even worth talking about if I remember correctly). With that and better bump mapping support, they were a real image quality treat if you could deal with a few less fps.
That's awesome 👌 I wasn't as lucky lol, owned Rage2 XL! Getting Voodoo3 was life changing.🙂 I'm going to build proper AGP rig and try all those classic cards
I maybe a little late to get a response. I have been playing around with one of these cards in an older system for fun, and I cannot get it to use crossfire for the life of me. Were you using the most recent drivers or an older one just curious it's driving me nuts.
Hello mate! I installed the CCC 13.1. Installer/Win will put the newer "2015" driver in which I then replaced by one from "2012". Update it manually from the C:\AMD folder :)
Released in 2008 if Im not wrong . So, that means the only drivers available are for windows xp and windows vista . You won't be able to make it work properly under windos 10 and 11. Anyway , I wanted to know if the dual gpu could help watch youtube videos in 1080p and 4k ? I know there's a setting in google chrome that force the browser to use the graphic cards for video decoding
Heey! Thanks for checking out the video! Check your settings in chrome, should be turned on - paste this into URL bar chrome://gpu - if not - head over to Menu > Settings > Advanced>System and check if HW acceleration is ticked. I don't think 3870x2 will handle 4K well, should do 1080p :) Those old AMD GPU's are working okay under Win10, it's more often the CrossFire that's not supported in games
@@srr1887 4K playback ? graphic cards capable or releaving the cpu in its task to decode 1080p has always been a hot topic these past 10 years , and the answer to that question has always been NO , all the task of decoding full HD is on the cpu
@@nexus_tech I think that would be much worse. Even 1024x768 was considered high end. 800x600 was the mainstream resolution most gamers were happy with
with UKs clay, this card it's good for mining. The only problem is when you reach the rookie part with hard stone. aside from that other useful things like door stop, self defence, Small GPU shed considering what a big brick is, Space heater, scaring foxes. 😅😂
Something is wrong with your card or platform. 3870s in crossfire perform much faster than this I feel. This is the sole reason I wanted to updated my retro PC to crossfire >.
Owned one back in 2008, lasted me almost a decade.
the "weird handle" was used to align the card in industrial HMIs, some workstations (and some higher end PCs) that had a support bracket at the front to guide it in to support the card and keep it from bending. very cheap and easy to rivet to the front of a case, i'm honestly surprised that few consumer cases with these heavy GPUs don't simply use an adapted PCIX bracket instead of weird "support sticks" or something.
Thanks for the info! I saw couple of older Dell machines with this bracket but never owned one - good point, especially with the weight of the cards recently. Thanks for watching my video :)
Just found this channel, great video! Really shows the power that this beast of a graphics card can have when CrossFire works properly. I recently got one myself, and it's a very awesome card! Paid quite a bit more for mine though... 😅
Test Drive Unlimited and Stalker are my favorite games. Shame the upcoming Stalker no longer uses its proprietary engine
I love those games so much !!!! haha! Well, I think it's going to be good game, with lots of potential mods :)
no, the aluminum one is enough to cool it with the air provided from the case, the copper cooler is needed for better heat transfer after the air warmed up by the first gpu. this way, both gpus can operate at similar temperatures
wow, this got recommended to me, awesome video! i wish you to get 1k subscribers soon so you get monetized!
Wow, thanks for checking the video! Very kind of you to say! I'm not planning to get rich of YT haha! But it would be nice to perhaps offset some of the cost of components in future :)
Back when the 3870x2 came out I paired it with a water cooled phenomx4 black edition.
So it's basically a newer rerun of how the old Rage Fury Maxx was...buggy drivers and poor support, but pretty awesome for the 3 applications that worked properly on it.
Huh! I'd like to get my hands on one 🙂 I'd imagine it would be much better under XP and with older titles
@@nexus_tech crazy how expensive they have become. I was very lucky and found mine for free out of an old computer put out for trash years ago. I'm pretty sure I tested it in XP, and the experience was more or less what I said, lol. I'll have to try it again sometime. It's a pretty cool piece of hardware. It was ATi's last ditch effort to compete with the GeForce 256 and Voodoo cards while I'm pretty sure the Rage 6, aka Radeon cards were delayed. The old Radeon chips were a huge step up for ATi at the time, and they were much more efficient than nVidia rendering 32 bit color modes (yes, we played in 16 bit color back then, lol...Voodoo cards didn't even support 32 bit color until Voodoo 4/5, and those were so slow in 32 bit it wasn't even worth talking about if I remember correctly). With that and better bump mapping support, they were a real image quality treat if you could deal with a few less fps.
That's awesome 👌 I wasn't as lucky lol, owned Rage2 XL! Getting Voodoo3 was life changing.🙂 I'm going to build proper AGP rig and try all those classic cards
I got very lucky and got 2 for $20 USD, i do need another modular cable for my psu to run them both in quad crossfire though
I guess you bought them refurbished. Don't you fear they won't last long ?
@@tunkunrunk You can't get them new any longer. I just put noctua NT-H1 on the GPU dies and it's good to go.
I had a 4870x2 was as loud as a 747. Beast though.
Hah! But they looked the part, perhaps one of the best looking ?
I maybe a little late to get a response. I have been playing around with one of these cards in an older system for fun, and I cannot get it to use crossfire for the life of me. Were you using the most recent drivers or an older one just curious it's driving me nuts.
Hello mate! I installed the CCC 13.1. Installer/Win will put the newer "2015" driver in which I then replaced by one from "2012". Update it manually from the C:\AMD folder :)
當年 有幸買了兩張3870x2 做交火 可惜效能比單張還低
@Nexus Tech I think you would do better to use paper coffee filters for cleaning, they leave no lint.
Hi Alfred, Thank you! Great idea! I'm going to order some now :)
i ran 3 3870's in tri-fire lol monster
Hello there Stevin! I bet that must have been really amazing experience ! Thanks for checking out the video :)
Released in 2008 if Im not wrong . So, that means the only drivers available are for windows xp and windows vista . You won't be able to make it work properly under windos 10 and 11. Anyway , I wanted to know if the dual gpu could help watch youtube videos in 1080p and 4k ? I know there's a setting in google chrome that force the browser to use the graphic cards for video decoding
Heey! Thanks for checking out the video! Check your settings in chrome, should be turned on - paste this into URL bar chrome://gpu - if not - head over to Menu > Settings > Advanced>System and check if HW acceleration is ticked. I don't think 3870x2 will handle 4K well, should do 1080p :) Those old AMD GPU's are working okay under Win10, it's more often the CrossFire that's not supported in games
That there is a Linux distro that can make it work properly?
The final drivers are for Windows 8
Just go GT 1030. It was made for 4K playback. Also only 30w lmao
@@srr1887 4K playback ? graphic cards capable or releaving the cpu in its task to decode 1080p has always been a hot topic these past 10 years , and the answer to that question has always been NO , all the task of decoding full HD is on the cpu
I think,that you went to hard on the poor card in Heaven ,going x8.
Maybe, try to retest with x2 ????
Hello mate, Thanks for checking out the video 😀 I wanted to keep it consistent but agreed, it was not happy
uhhhmm I don't think these old cards were designed nor optimized to run games in full hd
Nope, 1600x1200 would be much better :) I don't have monitor supporting this resolution
@@nexus_tech I think that would be much worse. Even 1024x768 was considered high end. 800x600 was the mainstream resolution most gamers were happy with
Heaven works fine with xfire on newer platforms tho.. odd
What about mining with this card?
I'm not sure this would be possible, it's 512MB of memory is not enough?
with UKs clay, this card it's good for mining. The only problem is when you reach the rookie part with hard stone.
aside from that other useful things like door stop, self defence, Small GPU shed considering what a big brick is, Space heater, scaring foxes.
😅😂
Something is wrong with your card or platform. 3870s in crossfire perform much faster than this I feel. This is the sole reason I wanted to updated my retro PC to crossfire >.
very nice case！what is it？
Hello mate! Thank you! :) The test bench case is Thermaltake Core P3 Snow edition
@@nexus_tech Thanks！