Apart from the unique ASUS Trinity, we have seen many more common muti-GPU options in the foray, including the HD 3870 X2 and the 9800 GX2. It all begun when NVIDIA sandwiched two PCBs in one card a couple of years ago and came up with the GeForce 7950 GX2. In this review, we will be pitting the Trinity up against ASUS' HD3870 X2 and XFX's stock 9800 GX2.

Both the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 and the NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GX2 do not utilise MXM technology to integrate more than one graphics core into a product, neither do they have an interesting heatpipe network for cooling. For ATI, they have decided to place two GPUs on one side of a single PCB. Whereas for NVIDIA, they've gone a bit unconventional; two PCBs with one GPU each, but the two PCBs are arranged like a mirror image of each other, allowing a cooling unit to be slotted in between both PCBs.

 

ASUS EAX3870X2 1GB


The ASUS EAH3870X2: Dual fan custom-cooling setup by ASUS themselves.

 


Memory chips on the back of the EAH3870X2.

 


Four DVI ports for all your display needs. The white DVI ports are dual-link while the yellow port is single-link.

 

 

XFX GeForce 9800 GX2 1GB


The GX2 looks very industrial with the nVidia reference cooling design.

 


6-pin and 8-pin PCI Express power cables are required to quench this monster's thirst.

 


Two dual-link DVI outputs plus an HDMI output on the back of the GX2.

 


An SLI connector to enable SLI with another 9800 GX2 for quad-SLI goodness.

 

While you're oogling at the cards, don't forget about the performance tests that we prepared for your eyes... Read on!