Crossfire Reviews

[crazydingo]

I think DSquat was suggesting that 1x 6800GT was a far better idea rather than buying 2x 6600GTs at once.

2x 6600GTs only makes sense if you buy one now and decide to add another one down the road.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: Rollo

Originally posted by: munky
I agree with the ppl that said crossfire was a rushed job so far, and the main reason is because Nvidia designed the gf6 with SLI in mind, whereas Ati didnt design the x800's with the possibility of multi-gpu solutions. So, Ati just had to make compromises to slap on that ability onto the x800's.

The interesting part, however, is whether or not they'll remedy those problems with the r520, which they knew would be going against g70 SLI cards when they designed them. So, in theory, they could (and probably should) abandon the whole idea of the external dongle, master/slave cards, and maybe even make it work on any board with 2 pci-e slots, with or without an internal connector. That would most likely alleviate the present limitations of crossfire, and at the same time allow them to "invade" Nvidia's SLI market, if anyone with a dual pci-e board could have dual gpu's, even those boards that are not "officially" SLI-compatible (like mine for example).

As it stands right now, Crossfire is just in it's infancy, but it might develop into a technologically superior solution if Ati is willing to re-design it the way it should have been done from the start.

This is all nice wishful thinking Munky, but I've seen rumors the Master/Slave carries on to the the R520, as does the dongle and the motherboard requirement. If they're true, ATI execs are going to wish they had dumped the other 60% of their stock.

Nobody believed me when I said ATI has always been a second/third best company, and that the only success they've had was due to the acquisition of ArtX. I've been a video card junkie for more than a decade, and for most of that ATI has been my "I'm buying this lesser hardware because it's interesting" company.

BTW- if you want to see some hilarious spin on this, head over to the Rage3d.com forums and check out the "Another triumph for ATI!" posts. Crossfire ended up looking like a high school science project and these guys are posting HL2 benches where it's ahead by two fps and shouting "Another glorious victory!" :roll:

Yeah, that is pretty funny... I also love when people come in here and say "The X800 is faster than the 6800U in some games" That is about the equivilent of saying the cup is half full. Meaning, so what if it is a tad faster in "many" games? That just means that in some games it is also slower... Because if you are not faster, what are you? Slower...

As for the HL2 benchmark... Wasn't there a bribe that Gabe Newell took from ATI to optimise the game for their cards? I was almost sure I read that, but I could be wrong.

ATI has fumbled quite a few times already... I wonder what else they can screw up? I guess I will have to be looking forward to the R600, since the R520 appears to be a downer, bigtime.

 

[DidlySquat]

Unlike Rollo, most people try to buy the best product for them, and not buy a bad product just to be able to "play" with it. This is fine for you to do, but when you go around and tell people that 6800NU SLI is a "great" setup, you are misleading them. You should say, "it's a great setup to experiment with, if you are someone like me who likes to benchmark stuff". Based on the same logic I expect you to go out and buy x-fire so you could experiment and/or benchmark it, but I don't think anyone can recommend it.

 

[Bona Fide]

I'm actually interested in the Crossfire capabilities of R520. If a dual-X850 setup can keep pace with a 7800GTX, a dual-R520 should be able to match or beat a dual-7800GTX setup.

Can't wait!

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: crazydingo
I think DSquat was suggesting that 1x 6800GT was a far better idea rather than buying 2x 6600GTs at once.

2x 6600GTs only makes sense if you buy one now and decide to add another one down the road.

Even then, it does not make sense... :laugh:

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: DidlySquat
Unlike Rollo, most people try to buy the best product for them, and not buy a bad product just to be able to "play" with it. This is fine for you to do, but when you go around and tell people that 6800NU SLI is a "great" setup, you are misleading them. You should say, "it's a great setup to experiment with, if you are someone like me who likes to benchmark stuff". Based on the same logic I expect you to go out and buy x-fire so you could experiment and/or benchmark it, but I don't think anyone can recommend it.

You are so full of it. Rollo is the best example of buying the top of the line products, whether ATI or nVidia. Who cares what company he prefers? In the end, he buys the better product. Something you claim to do, yet you are defending ATI tooth and nail, despite it's poor execution this round. I have no problem with you being a fanboy, but keep in mind that makes you an insecure, weak individual, but I will certainly not deny you the right to be that way. Fanboy or not, mine as well admit defeat this round.

 

[niggles]

here are Gamespot's benchmarks: http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-18026-2586-x-x-x&body_pagenum=2

 

[M0RPH]

Originally posted by: ArchAngel777

ATI has fumbled quite a few times already... I wonder what else they can screw up? I guess I will have to be looking forward to the R600, since the R520 appears to be a downer, bigtime.

LOL. You've declared R520 a bigtime downer even though it hasn't even been released yet. You know nothing about its performance and you don't even know all the details about its feature set. Nah, you're not biased. :roll:

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: M0RPH

Originally posted by: ArchAngel777

ATI has fumbled quite a few times already... I wonder what else they can screw up? I guess I will have to be looking forward to the R600, since the R520 appears to be a downer, bigtime.

LOL. You've declared R520 a bigtime downer even though it hasn't even been released yet. You know nothing about its performance and you don't even know all the details about its feature set. Nah, you're not biased. :roll:

I guess you didn't notice the word "appears" in my post... It sure does not look promising from my point of view. If I was a fanboy, I would admit that, at least. Again, even if the card is released and on part with the 7800 GTX in terms of performance, it STILL lost this round.

 

[rbV5]

Lets try and keep close to the topic "Crossfire Reviews", there are plenty of threads that have Topical discussion on the video cards and whatnot.

 

[Aquila76]

Originally posted by: biostud
no fanboiyism here, but who the fvck are going to buy two videocards with a 1600x1200@60Hz limitation??????

Not to mention the ghetto-style DVI cable link on the back of the rig. I guess they had to for the X8xxx series, but why would they continue that for the new X1xxx series?

EDIT: Any word if you could SLI nVidia cards on a Crossfire mobo? AFAIK, it's all in the video card drivers.

 

[Drayvn]

Originally posted by: Rollo
For those who haven't seen this:

Crossfire blows up on ATI

The motherboard review did come out better than expected, but why would you give up SLI for better OCing capabilities unless you absolutely knew you'd never have a second card?

MAybe because someone wants to get the best motherboard even tho they may never use the second slot?

Theres far more of those ppl than there are of ppl who want dual GPU.

 

[ronnn]

Actually the reviews I read said that crossfire worked well, but the resolution was limited and the day of the x850 line is over. So if the r520 is a success and crossfire works as well (with the suggested higher resolutions) - I can see some people wanting 2 cards (especially if it wins the big 3d05 crown) - so if the mb is better - just one more selling point. But I do agree that most people are not going to ever buy 2 cards.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Drayvn

Originally posted by: Rollo
For those who haven't seen this:

Crossfire blows up on ATI

The motherboard review did come out better than expected, but why would you give up SLI for better OCing capabilities unless you absolutely knew you'd never have a second card?

MAybe because someone wants to get the best motherboard even tho they may never use the second slot?

Theres far more of those ppl than there are of ppl who want dual GPU.

Heh- I think I'll let time and user experience tell us a little more about ATIs new motherboards before I crown them "the best motherboard".

 

[5150Joker]

Originally posted by: M0RPH

Originally posted by: ArchAngel777

ATI has fumbled quite a few times already... I wonder what else they can screw up? I guess I will have to be looking forward to the R600, since the R520 appears to be a downer, bigtime.

LOL. You've declared R520 a bigtime downer even though it hasn't even been released yet. You know nothing about its performance and you don't even know all the details about its feature set. Nah, you're not biased. :roll:

Hey don't worry, ArchAngel tends to make stuff up as he goes along. Yesterday he was telling me about how he flamed me in some OT thread that doesn't exist. Shortly thereafter he started professing his gay fantasy's about mens thongs to me.

To me the ATi reference crossfire board is pretty good, still not up to NF4 quality yet due to it's southbridge but pretty close. In 6 months time it should be revised enough to easily be a Nforce contender and that's when I predict things will become very interesting.

 

[rbV5]

To me the ATi reference crossfire board is pretty good, still not up to NF4 quality yet due to it's southbridge but pretty close. In 6 months time it should be revised enough to easily be a Nforce contender and that's when I predict things will become very interesting.

I'd like to seee some benchmarks now with it running diferent boards though. The SB actually looks very good without USB performance taken into consideration. That itself may not be such a big deal depending on what your USB uses are. There is also the ULI southbridge solutions like the Abit board I saw a little blurb on. Lets see some benches, and some boards for sale.

 

[5150Joker]

Originally posted by: rbV5

To me the ATi reference crossfire board is pretty good, still not up to NF4 quality yet due to it's southbridge but pretty close. In 6 months time it should be revised enough to easily be a Nforce contender and that's when I predict things will become very interesting.

I'd like to seee some benchmarks now with it running diferent boards though. The SB actually looks very good without USB performance taken into consideration. That itself may not be such a big deal depending on what your USB uses are. There is also the ULI southbridge solutions like the Abit board I saw a little blurb on. Lets see some benches, and some boards for sale.

Yeah unless you use the USB for large transfers, it doesn't really matter much. I'm curious to see what Asus and DFI come up with - Abit isn't even a contender in my mind anymore since they went the cheesy fatality route.

 

[rbV5]

Yeah unless you use the USB for large transfers, it doesn't really matter much. I'm curious to see what Asus and DFI come up with - Abit isn't even a contender in my mind anymore since they went the cheesy fatality route.

Yea, I was just using it as an example, you have to talk about "alleged" boards at this point anyway.

 

[Turtle 1]

Why are the nvidia people so happy X 850 Xt is right there with the sli 7800"s. The R520 crossfire aren't res limited . This is silly . nvidia camp saying look at us beat this X850 down . Hay boys its the X1800Xt crossfire you have to compete with not the x850. This is really funny happy for 7 days till the real truth settles in.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: gsellis

Originally posted by: biostud
no fanboiyism here, but who the fvck are going to buy two videocards with a 1600x1200@60Hz limitation??????

@60Hz.... If we are talking LCD on DVI, who cares? I have not seen a LCD that displays scan lines at 60Hz yet. Has anyone else? (notes though that all the testing we did was with video and not high frame rate games) Could this be an artificial limitation like it not doing PS4?

Well it still updates slower when it's 60 Hz vs. 75 Hz. Right now it would be hard for me to use 60 Hz on my LCD simply because the mouse is jerky.

 

[rbV5]

Well it still updates slower when it's 60 Hz vs. 75 Hz. Right now it would be hard for me to use 60 Hz on my LCD simply because the mouse is jerky.

Why does it update slower? I thought mouse updates were only relative to the response rate of the LCD, not the "refresh rate" setting. My understanding was that the refresh rate setting itself only affected the cards graphic output if Vsync were enabled, otherwise it means nothing to the LCD.

How can people stand gaming with LCD's if that were the case? I only use LCD for workstation and web browsing use, so I have no personal experience of that.

Additionally, it shouldn't matter whether it is in analog or digital mode correct? Whats a good test to illustrate what you describe, I'll test it out on my LCD.

 

[solofly]

I don't know about you guys but that Y-cable is a stupid idea. All we need is more cable clutter...

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: solofly
I don't know about you guys but that Y-cable is a stupid idea. All we need is more cable clutter...

Definately, a more elegant solution would be nice, however, its not the deal breaker like the resolution/refresh rate issue is. I could live with the dongle, I can't see turning my resolution down to use crossfire however.

 

[rbV5]

Here' the first Crossfire tech Sightings I've seen: DFI Crossfire motherboard UT RDX200 CF-DR for pre-order:

Aussie's

Canadians

Looks like ~$227US from ncix, and ~$258US from scorptec(if my currency converter is right) Ouch.

 

[Aquila76]

Originally posted by: rbV5
Here' the first Crossfire tech Sightings I've seen: DFI Crossfire motherboard UT RDX200 CF-DR for pre-order:

Aussie's

Canadians

Looks like ~$227US from ncix, and ~$258US from scorptec(if my currency converter is right) Ouch.

That's about what the SLI boards were when they first hit, IIRC.