Crossfire previews

[nRollo]

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2432

http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/mvp/

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=Nzc4

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=146

As I see it:

Pros:
Compatibility
Ability to use existing X800 card if you have one
Perhaps performance
Super AA

Cons:
Too late- mid 2005 for a multichip SM2 set?!?!?
Compatibility- the version it will use on old games is tiling, which offers least benefit. On top of that, you don't really need SLI for old cpu limited games.
G70 SLI will crush this before it gets to market.

To me it seems like "too little, too late". Time will tell.

 

[nRollo]

Where I think the niche for this will be is the X800XL AMR.

Who will pay $570 for a X850 master and $400+ for an X850 when they can get two G70s for a little more?

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: Rollo
Where I think the niche for this will be is the X800XL AMR.

Who will pay $570 for a X850 master and $400+ for an X850 when they can get two G70s for a little more?

Me me me me me me!

*jumps up and down*

 

[n7]

I'm not a fan of SLI or Crossfire.

I'll keep upgrading my single card solutions thankyou very much.

 

[MegaWorks]

Originally posted by: n7
I'm not a fan of SLI or Crossfire.

I'll keep upgrading my single card solutions thankyou very much.

Same here.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Avalon

Originally posted by: Rollo
Where I think the niche for this will be is the X800XL AMR.

Who will pay $570 for a X850 master and $400+ for an X850 when they can get two G70s for a little more?

Me me me me me me!

*jumps up and down*

????
You mean you want X800XL AMR, or you want to pay $970+ for two X850s when MSRP on G70s is $550?

 

[Greenman]

Originally posted by: Rollo
Where I think the niche for this will be is the X800XL AMR.

Who will pay $570 for a X850 master and $400+ for an X850 when they can get two G70s for a little more?

So around a thousand bucks for video. Let me say that again, One Thousand Dollars for video. I can see three reasons for spending that much;
1. You use it to make a living, and more speed means less hours on a project.
2. You make a lot of money without working very hard, so you skip those new dolphin skin boots with the Bald Eagle feathers so you can afford the cards.
3. You're a pale friendless virgin with an empty life and nothing else to do, so you buy new video cards instead of having your teeth fixed.

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: Rollo

Originally posted by: Avalon

Originally posted by: Rollo
Where I think the niche for this will be is the X800XL AMR.

Who will pay $570 for a X850 master and $400+ for an X850 when they can get two G70s for a little more?

Me me me me me me!

*jumps up and down*

????
You mean you want X800XL AMR, or you want to pay $970+ for two X850s when MSRP on G70s is $550?

The latter makes chills run up my spine. Oh baby.

 

[GTaudiophile]

G70 SLI will crush this before it gets to market.

And who says we won't see a R520 Xfire demo tomorrow?

 

[DanDaMan315]

Originally posted by: Greenman

Originally posted by: Rollo
Where I think the niche for this will be is the X800XL AMR.

Who will pay $570 for a X850 master and $400+ for an X850 when they can get two G70s for a little more?

So around a thousand bucks for video. Let me say that again, One Thousand Dollars for video. I can see three reasons for spending that much;
1. You use it to make a living, and more speed means less hours on a project.
2. You make a lot of money without working very hard, so you skip those new dolphin skin boots with the Bald Eagle feathers so you can afford the cards.
3. You're a pale friendless virgin with an empty life and nothing else to do, so you buy new video cards instead of having your teeth fixed.

Thats why they call them Enthusiasts.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Greenman

Originally posted by: Rollo
Where I think the niche for this will be is the X800XL AMR.

Who will pay $570 for a X850 master and $400+ for an X850 when they can get two G70s for a little more?

So around a thousand bucks for video. Let me say that again, One Thousand Dollars for video. I can see three reasons for spending that much;
1. You use it to make a living, and more speed means less hours on a project.
2. You make a lot of money without working very hard, so you skip those new dolphin skin boots with the Bald Eagle feathers so you can afford the cards.
3. You're a pale friendless virgin with an empty life and nothing else to do, so you buy new video cards instead of having your teeth fixed.

You're apparently not a boater/skier/traveller/auto hobbyist/golfer/cyclist etc..
There are many ways to spend this (or much more) on your hobby.
<thinks about $1000. just spent on trolling motor/two batteries for fishing boat this month>

 

[fierydemise]

My bet is that in late july (when we see the official crossfire release) we'll also see the R520 (why do you think ATI pushed R520 release back?) and a couple R520 master cards at that point we'll see who wins this round, even though we have more info then we had before, and debunked a few rumors (no insanely long master cards) we still have to wait for benchmarks before we can really draw any conclutions.

 

[Blazin Trav]

I'm definately getting 7800 GLX SLI if I can... Crossfire looks to be a dud IMO.

 

[fierydemise]

Originally posted by: Blazin Trav
I'm definately getting 7800 GLX SLI if I can... Crossfire looks to be a dud IMO.

What about crossfire looks so bad?

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: Blazin Trav
I'm definately getting 7800 GLX SLI if I can... Crossfire looks to be a dud IMO.

Aside from the buggy ATi Southbridge, you have no groups on which to say that!

It looks like ATi has taken "SLI" a few steps further.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Add Super AA for older games to the list of "Pros", it definately sounds very interesting.

 

[JBT]

I will most likely just get one card from next gen. Unless of course I find an amazing job in which cause I will two cards.

 

[flatblastard]

I'm curious, will ATi board partners come out with new mobos with Xpress 200 graphics and a single x16 pci-e slot? Much like the msi rs480m2-il but with the updated south bridge I've been waiting for. I was told the sb450 was to fix to the bugs we saw with the sb400, but I guess not so far. Anyone wanna clarify a little for me because so far all I see is Crossfire and nothing new with the single slot solutions.(That's a lot of s's).

Edit: I'm not really interested in a mobo with two GPU slots if I'm only gonna use one. That is a choice the manufacturer can give us without fear of competing with themselves in other markets, IMO. Screw the darned terminator/IC's with BIOS/blah/blah/blah, just give us two different mobos to choose from, just like Nvidia NF4.

 

[ddogg]

Originally posted by: Rollo
Where I think the niche for this will be is the X800XL AMR.

Who will pay $570 for a X850 master and $400+ for an X850 when they can get two G70s for a little more?

well i doubt anyone would buy X850XT in "Crossfire" but ppl may buy R520s...
EDITEd: ur forgetting that R520 will also be compatible with this "Crossfire" just like how G70s are so although its late G70s will be compared to R520s in "Crossfire" not X850XTs

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: ddogg

Originally posted by: Rollo
Where I think the niche for this will be is the X800XL AMR.

Who will pay $570 for a X850 master and $400+ for an X850 when they can get two G70s for a little more?

well i doubt anyone would buy X850XT in "Crossfire" but ppl may buy R520s...

Exactly. I'd rather see R520 at this point than this.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
Add Super AA for older games to the list of "Pros", it definately sounds very interesting.

Agreed and done.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

hmm after reading that i still prefer the way nvidia does it

i mean come on, they have a dedicated bridge for the two cards to communicate, and then have dedicated silicon just for that comunication. ok it only works with like cards with like bios' but is this any better? you still have to fork out for only one of two cards just to run it. its not like you could with nvidia, buy a 6800GT, and then later add a second. if you have a x800xt you have to go pay a premium for a master card to do it.

and so much for running any card! itll only be x800 and x850 to start with, and running a x800xt with a x300 is just a no go......(not that youd want to anyway, but people did pimp this fact) the drivers adjust clock speeds to similar levels then makes the number of pipes the same, basically youd have a 8 pipe set up there.

not feelin much love from the ghetto external cable connection either lol, but each to their own

but i am intrigued by being able to support up to 6 displays if the mobo maker inculdes integrated graphics....which is neat

also G70 will be a single slot solution....which actually suprises me. lets hope nvidia arent pushing the envelope on this, i dont wanna card thats a few degrees away from becoming an inferno

 

[ddogg]

agreed...i might anyway change the stock cooling and put a Zalman VF700ALCU or something else appropriate on it....or even water cool it...which most ppl might do, so having a dual slot on their flagship card isnt goin to make much of a difference

 

[otispunkmeyer]

i dont get the bit about the fact the crossfire card and normal card share system ram? why? they have to consume some actual main memory to work properly? wonder how this will effect things

 

[ddogg]

we'll have to wait till Computex to see the results but im really waiting in anticipation to see who comes out on top...