Crossfire question

[slowpogo]

I'm building a system and have decided on a Radeon X1800XT video card. I'm trying to decide whether I should get a Crossfire mobo...

For the time being, a lone X1800XT should be more than adequate for my needs. My question is about the future. Say I purchase a Sapphire 512MB X1800XT now, and in a year or so I have the cash and the desire to upgrade my PC with a second video card and utilize Crossfire.

Is it possible or likely that a company would discontinue a high-end graphics card like the X1800XT within the next, oh, 18 months?

OR is it possible that Sapphire, for example, would tinker with the BIOS or in some other way "improve" on their 512MB 1800 card over the next 18 months, releasing a slightly different version, making the model I bought extinct and thus very hard to find?

I'm basically worried about waiting too long to grab a 2nd card and being left in the cold.

I think you can see what I'm driving at. Thanks in advance to anyone reading..

 

[alpha88]

The price of the 1800XT won't go down in 18 months, it will most likely go up. So you're best off getting two now, or just getting a single faster one in a year.

 

[Firsttime]

To run crossfire you need a crossfire edition card I think. Those cards are quite hard to find from what I have read, so if you wanted to go the crossfire route I would get the crossfire edition card now and the other card later. However you would be better off just getting a nice card and being done with it, I would get a x1800xt or x1900xt and be done with it. Something better will be around for cheaper by the time you would get around to getting the second card.

 

[slowpogo]

 

[slowpogo]

I thought the "crossfire edition" cards just eliminated the need for an external dongle. I thought you could still run two vanilla ATI cards in crossfire.

 

[Firsttime]

I am not a guru or anything but this is what ATI says.

 

[CaiNaM]

currently you need a master/slave combo.

rd520 boards with catalyst 6.4 and up are supposed to allow x1800gto and lower (so not the x1800xt) to run with 2 "vanilla" cards in crossfire, however afaik currently it's only x1300/1600 that's been verified as having done so.

 

[slowpogo]

WOW...looked up "x1800 crossfire edition" on pricegrabber and found that the card ranges from $450 to $600. An x1800xt is $300. I don't get it. And strangely, the "crossfire edition" card, from ATI, did not have any extension to its name, the box just says "x1800". Anyone who can explain any of this?

Anyway, screw crossfire...I'm going to grab an x1800xt and be done with it.

 

[Bull Dog]

Yep just grap the card. When you need more power, just upgrade to the current generation's middle-range high-end card.

 

[Kromis]

I think the X1800 is already discontinued...being replaced with the X1900GTs