Crossfire previews

[Creig]

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

Too little too late? That's fanboy talk.

ATI has seen that there is a market for multi-GPU capable motherboards and have decided to enter the market. They've also taken the featureset of SLI and added a few more of their own. What's so wrong with that? Just because Nvidia was the first to market the idea doesn't necessarily mean they'll hold on to the top spot.

So it's "nVidia is crushing ATI now, when this comes out nVidia will still be crushing ATI" for top performance.

Why don't we wait for actual benchmarks instead of doing our Miss Cleo imitation.

Why would anyone pay $1000 for two SM2 ATI cards with a total of 32 pipes that they have to run on a motherboard Anand has called "buggy"*

Wow. A pre-release motherboard that was officially announced only days ago is currently considered "buggy". Shocking.

when they could buy two SM3 cards, second gen no less, with 48 pipes on comparatively mature motherboards for $1100 MSRP?

And HOW long are we going to have to wait for G70 cards to hit MSRP? A year? How many people are currently buying 6600GT SLI setups (8 pipelines each, remember) when 16 pipe cards are currently available?

I like how ATI contracted another firm to do the southbridge for these demos but expects their OEMs to use their inferior ones as well!

Yet another stunning revelation! A chipmaker wanting companies to use their chip! If ATI can sort out their SB bugs then, great, I hope the OEMs use them. If not, then I'm sure the OEMs will use the ULi alternative and the ATI SB can be used later on. ATI has stated that the bugs will be worked out in time, so let's just sit back and see.

 

[Gstanfor]

Originally posted by: Creig
Wow. A pre-release motherboard that was officially announced only days ago is currently considered "buggy". Shocking.

I can remember back to the very first m/b chipset ATi released (forget the name now, but was intended as competition for nForce - side note have never, ever, seen an ATi chipset based m/b offered for sale in australia, at least not by the distributors/retailers I deal with) - funnily enough it had a problem with, you guessed it, the ATi southbridge, they were going to use an ALi (I think ULi were still ALi back then) southbridge instead. This scenario repeats itself every single time ATi releases a m/b chipset. They make VIA look competent by comparison...

 

[Acanthus]

It isnt the motherboard design Creig, its the actual southbridge... which means there is a problem with the silicon that the mobo manufacturers dont want to deal with.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: Greenman
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.

Yeap, #3 looks like the common denominator.

 

[Acanthus]

Hey im getting my teeth fixed AND plan on G70 SLI

The dental bills are higher

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
Hey im getting my teeth fixed AND plan on G70 SLI

The dental bills are higher

All 3 of my kids are getting braces in the next 18 months. It's going to devastate my finances. The only saving grace is that I signed up for the flexible medical spending plan and the braces will all be tax free.

ps - I love new technology and SLI/AMR intrigues me. To prevent myself from feeling bad about having my priorities in order I make fun.

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
It isnt the motherboard design Creig, its the actual southbridge... which means there is a problem with the silicon that the mobo manufacturers dont want to deal with.

Yes, I realize it's the SB itself, not the whole MB. But all I've heard so far is that there are "bugs". I haven't read anything yet saying if they're hardware based or software based.

 

[Megatomic]

Hmm, maybe a chip revision will fix this. There have been significant improvements from A01 to A02 (and so forth) in the past.

 

[Genx87]

They taunt the lack of having to use a card to get their dual card config working. But if you want to configure the thing to not use two cards and have all 16 lanes you do.

Seems like they reversed Nvidias idea and I am not terribly impressed with their plan. Basically took the lowest denominator and went with it.

Instead of a connector on the inside of the case we are going back to 1997 with an external VGA or I guess the 2005 version of it an external DVI connector?

This is supposed to be an improvement? /yawn

AFR doesnt seem like a terribly great idea. I can see increased compatibility but I dont see how the performance increase will be as great as split screen. If there is a particular area of a scene that is a bottleneck. Instead of allowing the scene to scale between the cards and allow for the maximum performace from each you are stuck with both cards having the same bottleneck and thus a lowered performance.

Split screen looks like the best plan at the moment and it is good they are including it.

The 32x32 checkerboard just seems like it will have high overhead compared to the other two rendering options.

The pro of being able to run the card with a cheaper version seems like a gimick. Who is going to go get an x300 and then this? Total waste of money because the clock + pixel units are disabled.

Now all of this will of course be forgotten if ATI can get the thing to whip Nvidias solution. But as it stands right now it is late and nothing special from what I can tell.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
Hmm, maybe a chip revision will fix this. There have been significant improvements from A01 to A02 (and so forth) in the past.

Im hoping so, nvidia needs some competition for Nforce 4 to bring those prices down.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
It isnt the motherboard design Creig, its the actual southbridge... which means there is a problem with the silicon that the mobo manufacturers dont want to deal with.

there is an available SB alternative that is completely bug-free.
[ati just wants to use its "own"]

and it won't be long for G70s at MSRP (August)
:thumbsup:
[you'll see]

 

[ddogg]

turned into yet another flamefest in here :beer:

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Creig

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

Too little too late? That's fanboy talk.

Not at all. ATI has sold me the R300 core three times now, 9700P/9800P/X800XTPE, they won't be selling it to me again, that's for sure. With G70s going into production in two weeks, and this version of SLI based on a technologically dated gpu not available till after that, I'd say "too little, too late" covers it.
If the G70 offers similar performance to X850XT AMR, I don't know why anyone on the planet would buy this at the proposed prices?
Let's see:
Buggy ATI motherboard that's currently not even on the market, $569 master card, and a bigger psu vs mature tech NForce 4 SLI motherboard and G70 with possibility to add another?
Tough call for the X850XT PE owner. :roll:

ATI has seen that there is a market for multi-GPU capable motherboards and have decided to enter the market. They've also taken the featureset of SLI and added a few more of their own. What's so wrong with that? Just because Nvidia was the first to market the idea doesn't necessarily mean they'll hold on to the top spot.

There's nothing wrong with them entering the market, the problem is they're entering it with the same dated SM2 stuff they haven't been able to sell as single cards (<30% of high end according to Mercury Research) at a time when nVidia is launching a single card that may well outperform it in every way.

So it's "nVidia is crushing ATI now, when this comes out nVidia will still be crushing ATI" for top performance.

Why don't we wait for actual benchmarks instead of doing our Miss Cleo imitation.

True dat.

Why would anyone pay $1000 for two SM2 ATI cards with a total of 32 pipes that they have to run on a motherboard Anand has called "buggy"*

Wow. A pre-release motherboard that was officially announced only days ago is currently considered "buggy". Shocking.

Could this be the same Creig who said:

I didn't realize that somebody pointing out a product bug is then required to be subjected to personal attacks by forum members

?

when they could buy two SM3 cards, second gen no less, with 48 pipes on comparatively mature motherboards for $1100 MSRP?

And HOW long are we going to have to wait for G70 cards to hit MSRP? A year? How many people are currently buying 6600GT SLI setups (8 pipelines each, remember) when 16 pipe cards are currently available?

Time will tell Creig ol' buddy, but for ATIs sake they better hope it is.

I like how ATI contracted another firm to do the southbridge for these demos but expects their OEMs to use their inferior ones as well!

Yet another stunning revelation! A chipmaker wanting companies to use their chip! If ATI can sort out their SB bugs then, great, I hope the OEMs use them. If not, then I'm sure the OEMs will use the ULi alternative and the ATI SB can be used later on. ATI has stated that the bugs will be worked out in time, so let's just sit back and see.

[/quote]
I wonder how you'd post about this if nVidia forced OEMs to use faulty hardware?

 

[housecat]

Scoreboard:
Rollo-1, Creig-0

I think we're going to have to start calling Rollo, R-OWN-O!

 

[ddogg]

Originally posted by: housecat
Scoreboard:
Rollo-1, Creig-0

I think we're going to have to start calling Rollo, R-OWN-O!

LOL...thats some major pawning there

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: housecat
Scoreboard:
Rollo-1, Creig-0

I think we're going to have to start calling Rollo, R-OWN-O!

Like anybody here really thinks your constant prattle counts for anything. :roll: I'm sure Rollo is SO glad to have you on his "side".

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: Rollo
I wonder how you'd post about this if nVidia forced OEMs to use faulty hardware?

Funny. The article I read said they were "pushing" the OEMs to use their SB, not "forcing". If they were "forcing" them to use it, then the ULi SB wouldn't be an open option, would it?

Luckily, ATI has partnered with ULi to offer working South Bridges that are compatible with ATI's CrossFire North Bridge.

And as I already said, if the ATI SB isn't up to snuff by the production deadline, then they should opt to use the ULi SB and ATI should continue to work on it until it's ready.

 

[housecat]

I am on the side of truth, Creig. I dont think R-own-o cares if I'm on his side or not, he is whipping you with one hand behind his back anyway.
I just keep score.

You use a 9500 and degrade SLI as if you are even in the market. You can pretend, but no one is falling for it.

I tend to go with the particular people here, who are right 90% of the time and wrong 10% of the time. And this isnt just rollo, he just happened to completely Roll-o(ver) your ass recently, yet again.
You are wrong 90% of the time, and correct about 10% of the time. Bad odds!
Place yer bets!

Instead of taking grip to my diversion as if its your way out of the argument you lost.. why not respond to his points?

 

[nitromullet]

The point is "too little, too late". As G70s are supposed to be in stores before this, and R520s MIA, to me it seems anti-climactic.

I won't disagree with you on the concept that this may be a "too little to late" for ATi in regards to Crossfire, however, at least ATi has something on display worth talking about at Computex. I don't think anyone was expecting R520 at Conmputex, but I certainly was under the impression that G70 would make its debut this week. IMO, if anyone is MIA, it's not ATi, at least they had Crossfire and the H.264 decoding demo running on R520.

...With G70s going into production in two weeks...

You know something the rest of us don't? All I've seen in terms of G70 are pictures of an apparently non-functional, over-heated, burnt up engineering sample. that's about 16" long.

 

[ronnn]

Originally posted by: housecat
Scoreboard:
Rollo-1, Creig-0

I think we're going to have to start calling Rollo, R-OWN-O!

Sad. Anyways no number of personal attacks will make sli as flexible as xfire. Still as the Nvidia fans have pointed out, the cost of dual gpu is huge (unless you get them given to you), and this leaves most of us mainly interested in the 3d05 bench fest. So if early numbers are correct, I guess ati may be the fastest for a while. :beer:

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: housecat
I am on the side of truth, Creig. I dont think R-own-o cares if I'm on his side or not, he is whipping you with one hand behind his back anyway.
I just keep score.

Hey housecat, since you like keeping score so much, how 'bout this one?

AnandTech Moderators - 2
housecat - 0

Now let's try keeping the thread on track. If you want to keep kissing up to Rollo, create a thread in OT about it.

 

[kingpinxB]

jsut a question for anyone who may know...

will we NEED to buy the R200 crossfire motherboard or(as one would assume) will this work on an already existing motherboard with dual PCI-E x16 like the DFI NF4 ultra-D

 

[nitromullet]

Anyways no number of personal attacks will make sli as flexible as xfire.

There has been a lot of talk about how many more features and how flexible Crossfire is, but we have yet to see a real launch, much less any pricing or availability. Currently, SLI has the greatest feature advantage of all: you can actually buy the components.

Besides, nVidia isn't known for sitting on their hands, I would not be surprised at all if nVidia had SSAA options avaialble for SLI in a a beta driver before ATi even gets Crossfire out the door... I don't think that this is a matter of it not being possible with SLI, but more that nVidia didn't think of it as a feature that would be desired by gamers. Remember, the SSAA option is intended for older games that won't otherwise see a benefit of running dual video cards, while SLI is targeted towards those who want to play the newest games at the highest resoltutions with all the eye candy turned on.

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: housecat
I am on the side of truth, Creig. I dont think R-own-o cares if I'm on his side or not, he is whipping you with one hand behind his back anyway.
I just keep score.

You use a 9500 and degrade SLI as if you are even in the market. You can pretend, but no one is falling for it.

I tend to go with the particular people here, who are right 90% of the time and wrong 10% of the time. And this isnt just rollo, he just happened to completely Roll-o(ver) your ass recently, yet again.
You are wrong 90% of the time, and correct about 10% of the time. Bad odds!
Place yer bets!

Instead of taking grip to my diversion as if its your way out of the argument you lost.. why not respond to his points?

Good one.

:roll:

 

[ronnn]

Originally posted by: nitromullet

Anyways no number of personal attacks will make sli as flexible as xfire.

There has been a lot of talk about how many more features and how flexible Crossfire is, but we have yet to see a real launch, much less any pricing or availability. Currently, SLI has the greatest feature advantage of all: you can actually buy the components.

Besides, nVidia isn't known for sitting on their hands, I would not be surprised at all if nVidia had SSAA options avaialble for SLI in a a beta driver before ATi even gets Crossfire out the door... I don't think that this is a matter of it not being possible with SLI, but more that nVidia didn't think of it as a feature that would be desired by gamers. Remember, the SSAA option is intended for older games that won't otherwise see a benefit of running dual video cards, while SLI is targeted towards those who want to play the newest games at the highest resoltutions with all the eye candy turned on.

Certainly it is not for sale or been tested by third parties, but if as announced - it will be the much better of 2 poor solutions. :music: