DriverHeaven Crossfire Review

[Corporate Thug]

http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/X18Crossfire/index.htm

Unfortunately we were unable to source two 512mb GTX?s for this article (including trying to buy them online) so we were limited to using 256mb cards in SLI. Obviously if you are able to get your hands on the 512mb models you?ll see a reasonable increase in performance over the 256mb model in SLI and this should be taken into account when viewing the results.

so dont ask why they didnt use the best that nvidia has to offer

As far as performance is concerned there really are no issues with the X1800XT Crossfire, it performs higher than the single card solution from ATI and Nvidia. When compared to the competing dual card solution from Nvidia, Crossfire performs well again and although it doesn?t win every test, on the whole it is the faster solution of those tested.

Stability and IQ are as you would expect from a £800 investment with no issues to be reported. With the Super AA work now being processed by the FPGA chip on the master card this also allows you to gain higher IQ with less of a performance hit over the previous generation of Crossfire. You also have the future benefit of being able to use AA and HDR when games start supporting those features together which you don?t have with competing products.

 

[Conky]

I was tempted to post a link to this review myself only I didn't want to be called a fanboy! :laugh:

Looks like they didn't have any problems getting it running.

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: Crazyfool
I was tempted to post a link to this review myself only I didn't want to be called a fanboy! :laugh:

Looks like they didn't have any problems getting it running.

OMG shut up, Crossfire sux oomg liez and biased crap.

 

[Killrose]

Supposedly the inquirer has two 512mb 7800GTX's and they would not work no matter what platform they were tried in. Yet 2x256mb 76800GTX's were no problem in the same platforms. But of course, that was the inquirer.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Lonyo

Originally posted by: Crazyfool
I was tempted to post a link to this review myself only I didn't want to be called a fanboy! :laugh:

Looks like they didn't have any problems getting it running.

OMG shut up, Crossfire sux oomg liez and biased crap.

Hehe. For every good review, you know there will be one with issues. Just being the devil's advocate here. Guru3D Crossfire review

 

[Corporate Thug]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Originally posted by: Lonyo

Originally posted by: Crazyfool
I was tempted to post a link to this review myself only I didn't want to be called a fanboy! :laugh:

Looks like they didn't have any problems getting it running.

OMG shut up, Crossfire sux oomg liez and biased crap.

Hehe. For every good review, you know there will be one with issues. Just being the devil's advocate here. Guru3D Crossfire review

the guru review said that the game crashing might be a driver issue and they were using 5.12. the DH review used 5.13 and no problem...driver fix?

 

[LikeLinus]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Originally posted by: Lonyo

Originally posted by: Crazyfool
I was tempted to post a link to this review myself only I didn't want to be called a fanboy! :laugh:

Looks like they didn't have any problems getting it running.

OMG shut up, Crossfire sux oomg liez and biased crap.

Hehe. For every good review, you know there will be one with issues. Just being the devil's advocate here. Guru3D Crossfire review

Thanks Mini-Rollo.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Corporate Thug

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Originally posted by: Lonyo

Originally posted by: Crazyfool
I was tempted to post a link to this review myself only I didn't want to be called a fanboy! :laugh:

Looks like they didn't have any problems getting it running.

OMG shut up, Crossfire sux oomg liez and biased crap.

Hehe. For every good review, you know there will be one with issues. Just being the devil's advocate here. Guru3D Crossfire review

the guru review said that the game crashing might be a driver issue and they were using 5.12. the DH review used 5.13 and no problem...driver fix?

Sure, it could be that. ATI keeps chugging away at those drivers, and it should keep getting better and better. Has anyone else noticed that Xfire seems to take a bigger AA hit than SLI? But on a single card level, the Nvidia cards take bigger AA hits? Ah, again, it could be the drivers.

 

[Matt2]

Looks like Crossfire and SLI are gonna match up well.

One X1800XT is faster than one 7800GTX 256mb, so its not surprising that X1800XT Crosffire is faster than 7800GTX SLI.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: LikeLinus

Hehe. For every good review, you know there will be one with issues. Just being the devil's advocate here. Guru3D Crossfire review

Thanks Mini-Rollo.[/quote]

Is it our turn to have a problem now Linus? What happens when I ignore your PM's? Let me know now because I wouldn't want to send you into a psychotic frenzy.

 

[LikeLinus]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Originally posted by: LikeLinus

Hehe. For every good review, you know there will be one with issues. Just being the huge troll and Rollo lover that I am. Guru3D Crossfire review

Thanks Mini-Rollo.

Is it our turn to have a problem now Linus? What happens when I ignore your PM's? Let me know now because I wouldn't want to send you into a psychotic frenzy.

[/quote]

Yawn. You done Mini-Rollo?

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Sure, it could be that. ATI keeps chugging away at those drivers, and it should keep getting better and better. Has anyone else noticed that Xfire seems to take a bigger AA hit than SLI? But on a single card level, the Nvidia cards take bigger AA hits? Ah, again, it could be the drivers.

Trying to get back on topic...

They only had one game where they compared noAA/AF to AA/AF at the same resolution (B&W2), and it looks like ATI took less of a hit there.

NVIDIA also takes more of a hit with SuperAA.

Or were you referring to that other article (the Guru3D one?)

Edit: Looked at the Guru3d review... God, this is one of the ugliest reviews I have ever seen. No titles on the graphs (so I have to read the preceding and following paragraphs to try to figure out what game and settings they are at), they use five different shades of red/orange (can't even color-code by company???) for the graphs, and it's nearly impossible to compare the AA to non-AA numbers.

 

[Matt2]

Originally posted by: LikeLinus

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Originally posted by: LikeLinus

Hehe. For every good review, you know there will be one with issues. Just being the huge troll and Rollo lover that I am. Guru3D Crossfire review

Thanks Mini-Rollo.

Is it our turn to have a problem now Linus? What happens when I ignore your PM's? Let me know now because I wouldn't want to send you into a psychotic frenzy.

Yawn. You done Mini-Rollo?
[/quote]

Pretty immature for someone with 4,832 posts dont you think? :roll:

 

[LikeLinus]

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: LikeLinus

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Originally posted by: LikeLinus

Hehe. For every good review, you know there will be one with issues. Just being the huge troll and Rollo lover that I am. Guru3D Crossfire review

Thanks Mini-Rollo.

Is it our turn to have a problem now Linus? What happens when I ignore your PM's? Let me know now because I wouldn't want to send you into a psychotic frenzy.

Yawn. You done Mini-Rollo?

Pretty immature for someone with 4,832 posts dont you think? :roll:[/quote]

You must not actually read keysplayr2003 or Rollo's post. If they want to threadcrap and constantly trash on ATI......

 

[Keysplayr]

Everyone here who is not looking to pick a fight knows I did not thread crap.

You are officially ignored.

Matthias: Yes, I was referring to the Guru review. I havent had a chance to check out any others yet. You say the review is ugly? Ok. But is the information there?
I'll search for a few others to see how results vary. For the most part, Xfire does pretty well.

 

[rbV5]

The 14x SSAA modes is what makes it look damn tempting. I also see that my BBA X1800XT has the newer "twenty" PCB and 6 power coil design, so perhaps it will be a decent overclocker as well. SLI and Crossfire do a decent job with COD2 at 16x1200 as well, looks like a dual GPU solution is needed for playable framerates at those resolutions.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Originally posted by: LikeLinus

Hehe. For every good review, you know there will be one with issues. Just being the devil's advocate here. Guru3D Crossfire review

Thanks Mini-Rollo.

Is it our turn to have a problem now Linus? What happens when I ignore your PM's? Let me know now because I wouldn't want to send you into a psychotic frenzy.

[/quote]


LOL- I forgot about that.

Yeeearrrggg!

He so cwazy.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Crazyfool
I was tempted to post a link to this review myself only I didn't want to be called a fanboy! :laugh:

Looks like they didn't have any problems getting it running.

You wouldn't hear it from them if they did. DriverHeaven is a reknowned bullshit ATI fanboy site.

Last year they made a big production of setting a 6800Ultra on fire.

Their benchmarks always mysteriously show ATI cards performing much higher than anyone else.

If anyone is stupid enough to believe Driver Heaven, I think they should run out and buy an X1800XT Crossfire system right away.

 

[nRollo]

BTW- please do not misconstrue my contempt of Driver Heaven as contempt for X1800 Crossfire.

I think X1800 Crossfire has great performance on mainstream games when it's working right.

I just think it's tiling default that you can't change, and possible driver issues, make it unacceptable for now.

When ATI gets some experience with multi card I'm sure this stuff will clear up.

 

[Killrose]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
[Hehe. For every good review, you know there will be one with issues. Just being the devil's advocate here. Guru3D Crossfire review

LOL at the old movie they dug up. Everything appears to be smoking but the gun!

 

[Nirach]

With any luck Crossfire, when it's totally ironed out (I bet by CCC6 ) will be a more than equal contender for SLI.

Although, it's certainly offputting that a lot of different places (Naming no names so they can't be called crap and biased) are having different capabilities with setting both SLI and Crossfire up. Anyone hazard a reason for that?

 

[dug777]

Looks very impressive.