Firingsquad's X1900 CrossFire Performance Preview

[Ackmed]

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati...1900_crossfire_performance/default.asp

As most of us know, the SLI platform has a few key advantages over Crossfire right now. FS does a good job of pointing out the positives, and negatives of both. Their biggest complaint about Crossfire seems to be the $50 higher MSRP price for a Master card. What they liked best was the much faster SuperAA performance over SLI AA. But as they mentioned, SLI AA was an after thought, just added via drivers to compete with ATi.

Two things I wish they had added, I wish they would explain that the "XTX Crossfire", has only one card running at XTX speeds. The other is running at XT speeds. Its really a XT 1.5 if you will. Most people dont know that they two run at difference speeds, and it makes it look like both cards are running at XTX speeds. They explain this in a X1900 review, but in the Crossfire review I think it should be mentioned again.

Secondly, why no AA tests in Lost Coast with HDR? Both NV and ATi can do HDR+AA in Lost Coast. They didnt use HDR+AA in SS2, and Farcry obviously, as that wouldnt be comparable, but why not in Lost Coast? Why 8xAF in Lost Coast with HDR? It was 16x without it.

One editorial mixup for now is they list the same graphic in IL-2, 1024x768 four times. It looks like NV will dominate that game though by the one they did show.

The thing that shocked me the most, was the BF2 scores. BF2 is the reason I bought my first GTX, because my X850 couldnt run it fast enough for me. But now the X1900XTX is about even with SLI'd GTX's. BF2 got me to get a GTX, CoD2 and F.E.A.R. got me to get another and SLI them. Now the XTX is about even with SLI'd GTX's as well in F.E.A.R., and about 7 frames behind them in CoD2. Thats just crazy.

Anyways, I thought it was a good read, Im sure we'll see another article like this after the G71 is released. I am really liking FS over the past year or so. They put out a lot of good articles like this, and even image quality articles.

 

[5150Joker]

Man the X1900 XTX simply dominates in those benchmarks especially by beating 256 gtx SLI! I like FS reviews myself, they do a really good job of picking balanced titles. I can't wait till ATi release Cat 6.2

 

[otispunkmeyer]

i usually take their results with a pinch of salt tbh, some of the things they do, or rather dont do just smacks of them trying to "fix" the results, worth the read but not worth taking it in

either way, we dont need 1 dodgy bench from FS to tell us the X1900XTX is the best card out their right now, and ATI.....well ****** done with the hard launch! X1900XTX is definately giving my 7800GT'S a run for their money, i would love to side/up grade to a X1900 just to have the same power from one card rather than 2

 

[5150Joker]

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer
i usually take their results with a pinch of salt tbh, some of the things they do, or rather dont do just smacks of them trying to "fix" the results, worth the read but not worth taking it in

either way, we dont need 1 dodgy bench from FS to tell us the X1900XTX is the best card out their right now, and ATI.....well ****** done with the hard launch! X1900XTX is definately giving my 7800GT'S a run for their money, i would love to side/up grade to a X1900 just to have the same power from one card rather than 2

What makes their reviews dodgy? If you're going to bad mouth a site, back it up with evidence. I've found their results very reliable by comparing them to my own tests. Or is it that any site that doesn't evangelize nVidia (like HardOCP) in an ATi review "dodgy"?

 

[tuteja1986]

Originally posted by: 5150Joker

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer
i usually take their results with a pinch of salt tbh, some of the things they do, or rather dont do just smacks of them trying to "fix" the results, worth the read but not worth taking it in

either way, we dont need 1 dodgy bench from FS to tell us the X1900XTX is the best card out their right now, and ATI.....well ****** done with the hard launch! X1900XTX is definately giving my 7800GT'S a run for their money, i would love to side/up grade to a X1900 just to have the same power from one card rather than 2

What makes their reviews dodgy? If you're going to bad mouth a site, back it up with evidence. I've found their results very reliable by comparing them to my own tests. Or is it that any site that doesn't evangelize nVidia (like HardOCP) in an ATi review "dodgy"?

Yeah , i like firing squad and XBIT LAB review a lot. My 3 favorite GPU review site is Firing squad , anandtech and XBit lab. Ones i use to read hardco and driver heaven review but not anymore. haven't since start of this year.

 

[5150Joker]

Originally posted by: tuteja1986

Originally posted by: 5150Joker

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer
i usually take their results with a pinch of salt tbh, some of the things they do, or rather dont do just smacks of them trying to "fix" the results, worth the read but not worth taking it in

either way, we dont need 1 dodgy bench from FS to tell us the X1900XTX is the best card out their right now, and ATI.....well ****** done with the hard launch! X1900XTX is definately giving my 7800GT'S a run for their money, i would love to side/up grade to a X1900 just to have the same power from one card rather than 2

What makes their reviews dodgy? If you're going to bad mouth a site, back it up with evidence. I've found their results very reliable by comparing them to my own tests. Or is it that any site that doesn't evangelize nVidia (like HardOCP) in an ATi review "dodgy"?

Yeah , i like firing squad and XBIT LAB review a lot. My 3 favorite GPU review site is Firing squad , anandtech and XBit lab. Ones i use to read hardco and driver heaven review but not anymore. haven't since start of this year.

Sites that I like for vid card reviews:

1. Rage3D (Ratchet does an excellent job and is very impartial).
2. FiringSquad
3. Beyond3D
4. X-Bit

Sites that I think have "ok" reviews but could use improvement:

1. Anandtech

Sites that I feel have biased editors/authors:

1. HardOCP - this is especially true with their latest X1900 review where Brent makes it a point to evangelize or as he puts it "editorialize" for nVidia.
2. DriverHeaven - they have an ATi bias, everyone knows this but despite that sometimes their benchmarks aren't all that bad.
3. nVNews - garbage site.

 

[Ackmed]

Heh, thats funny. Its about spot on how I look at review sites. I used to (and still do pretty much) like Hard's reviews. Brent does a good job, and participates in the forums if you have any questions or comments. However, the editors comments seem one-sided to me lately.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: 5150Joker

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer
i usually take their results with a pinch of salt tbh, some of the things they do, or rather dont do just smacks of them trying to "fix" the results, worth the read but not worth taking it in

either way, we dont need 1 dodgy bench from FS to tell us the X1900XTX is the best card out their right now, and ATI.....well ****** done with the hard launch! X1900XTX is definately giving my 7800GT'S a run for their money, i would love to side/up grade to a X1900 just to have the same power from one card rather than 2

What makes their reviews dodgy? If you're going to bad mouth a site, back it up with evidence. I've found their results very reliable by comparing them to my own tests. Or is it that any site that doesn't evangelize nVidia (like HardOCP) in an ATi review "dodgy"?

no its not about evangelizing Nvidia... a few of their past reviews simply dont match up to the rest of the reviews online, and im with ackmed in questioning why they never tested lost coast with AA and HDR, and why they decided to use lower settings on some tests than when they tested with a single card. its just odd. i want to see what these things can do pushed to the max....and it seems the harder you push the new x1900 the more it beats on the 7800's.

i even said i would really like to buy a single 1900XTX to replace my 7800GT's since that card on its own delivers most of the performance if not more in a single solution....i could do with less heat and more space at the moment so im strongly considering it

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer

Originally posted by: 5150Joker

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer
i usually take their results with a pinch of salt tbh, some of the things they do, or rather dont do just smacks of them trying to "fix" the results, worth the read but not worth taking it in

either way, we dont need 1 dodgy bench from FS to tell us the X1900XTX is the best card out their right now, and ATI.....well ****** done with the hard launch! X1900XTX is definately giving my 7800GT'S a run for their money, i would love to side/up grade to a X1900 just to have the same power from one card rather than 2

What makes their reviews dodgy? If you're going to bad mouth a site, back it up with evidence. I've found their results very reliable by comparing them to my own tests. Or is it that any site that doesn't evangelize nVidia (like HardOCP) in an ATi review "dodgy"?

no its not about evangelizing Nvidia... a few of their past reviews simply dont match up to the rest of the reviews online, and im with ackmed in questioning why they never tested lost coast with AA and HDR, and why they decided to use lower settings on some tests than when they tested with a single card. its just odd. i want to see what these things can do pushed to the max....and it seems the harder you push the new x1900 the more it beats on the 7800's.

i even said i would really like to buy a single 1900XTX to replace my 7800GT's since that card on its own delivers most of the performance if not more in a single solution....i could do with less heat and more space at the moment so im strongly considering it

I have no problem with FS reviews, actually I like them. When I do benchmarking, I check mine against theirs before posting to make sure I didn't pull some game specific bonehead play and accidently mislead people one way or the other.

(not that I'd ever make a mistake! )