X1800 Crossfire Review at Hexus

[RajunCajun]

Link to first page of review

Link to conclusion page

Hope this is not a repost - did a quick search and didn't find a previous post.

 

[dug777]

interesting...

 

[secretanchitman]

he likes crossfire, but he wouldnt want to buy it himself.

i agree. its a cool idea, but the external linking crap turns me off. i personally think SLI is better. i kinda wish you could use different cards for SLI, but they have to be in the same series...like 6800GT w/ 6800Ultra, or 6600GT with 6800nu, 7800GT w/ 7800GTX 512MB.

 

[JBT]

bah this is getting hard waiting for the next gen cards. Right now my X800XT is working alright for CSS and BF2 but I'm starting to get the upgrade itch....

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: secretanchitman
he likes crossfire, but he wouldnt want to buy it himself.

i agree. its a cool idea, but the external linking crap turns me off. i personally think SLI is better. i kinda wish you could use different cards for SLI, but they have to be in the same series...like 6800GT w/ 6800Ultra, or 6600GT with 6800nu, 7800GT w/ 7800GTX 512MB.

my only problem with external linking is that you can't just pair any 2 cards off the shelf, you have to get a special xfire edition card. i don't really give a rat's ass what the physical connection between the cards is, whether its an external bridge or an internal one.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: JBT
bah this is getting hard waiting for the next gen cards. Right now my X800XT is working alright for CSS and BF2 but I'm starting to get the upgrade itch....

Why not buy SLI or Crossfire and get next gen performance now then?

 

[Zenoth]

I can't wait for single boards with two GPU cores.

Because the two boards / two times heat / two times power consumption / two times noise factors really isn't for me. It gives me an archaic feeling ... not sure how to explain. I'll simply wait years if I have to, even if I can financially afford SLi / Cross Fire at the moment. I'm just not interested. But I'm going to wait for another technology, another "method" to increase performance over single board / GPU core architectures. Namely a single board with two GPU cores. And I am aware that won't be on the market for a long time. Although things change very fast in the PC market. It's usually exponential. So we might all be surprised to see such a thing happen in early 2007 / 2008.

I mean, if Intel plans to create 8 Cores CPUs by 2008 ... who knows what will happen to the GPU technology by then.

I find it interesting when it comes to benchmarking, completely excluding gaming, but other than that, it's a complete waste of money, in my humble opinion.

 

[Cooler]

Originally posted by: Zenoth
I can't wait for single boards with two GPU cores.

Because the two boards / two times heat / two times power consumption / two times noise factors really isn't for me. It gives me an archaic feeling ... not sure how to explain. I'll simply wait years if I have to, even if I can financially afford SLi / Cross Fire at the moment. I'm just not interested. But I'm going to wait for another technology, another "method" to increase performance over single board / GPU core architectures. Namely a single board with two GPU cores. And I am aware that won't be on the market for a long time. Although things change very fast in the PC market. It's usually exponential. So we might all be surprised to see such a thing happen in early 2007 / 2008.

I mean, if Intel plans to create 8 Cores CPUs by 2008 ... who knows what will happen to the GPU technology by then.

I find it interesting when it comes to benchmarking, completely excluding gaming, but other than that, it's a complete waste of money, in my humble opinion.

I rather have 2 GPUs on die then sli or crossfire.

 

[Zenoth]

See ? I'm not alone in my thinking about SLi / Cross Fire. It's a waste I say ! A waste ! You hear me nVidia ?! You hear me ATi ?! A waste !!!



Nah seriously. It's a waste. But I think I already said that.

 

[5150Joker]

The Crossfire system is crap. Hopefully ATi ditches it in favor of a solution similar to nVidia where you do not need a master card. The dongles don't bother me much but the need for a master crossfire card does.

 

[BFG10K]

Better Crossfire benchmarks here.

 

[route66]

Originally posted by: Zenoth
I can't wait for single boards with two GPU cores.

Because the two boards / two times heat / two times power consumption / two times noise factors really isn't for me.

First, you realize that making a dual core GPU adds to the complexity, power consumption and heat output of the GPU? Therefore you'd still have a hot, loud and a power drain.

Second, please tell me what a dual core GPU does? A GPU already does math in parallel, a second core won't help. For instance, whats the difference between 2x 12pipe GPU or 1x 24pipe GPU?

Dual core GPU is hype. Dual GPU on one board is a different story, since it may be cheaper to produce two high yield chips than to produce one low yield chip.

 

[Velk]

Originally posted by: route66

Originally posted by: Zenoth
I can't wait for single boards with two GPU cores.

Because the two boards / two times heat / two times power consumption / two times noise factors really isn't for me.

First, you realize that making a dual core GPU adds to the complexity, power consumption and heat output of the GPU? Therefore you'd still have a hot, loud and a power drain.

While this is true, intel and AMD have shown that the increase in heat and power can be a lot less than double. If NVIDIA/ATi can do the same thing it would work well.

Second, please tell me what a dual core GPU does? A GPU already does math in parallel, a second core won't help. For instance, whats the difference between 2x 12pipe GPU or 1x 24pipe GPU?

It will do exactly the same thing a second card in SLI will do, only faster, more conveniently and with half the amount of required memory.

Dual GPU on the board vs dual core GPU is pretty similar on end results, it's just a matter of who works on it.

I'd say dual on board is more likely to show up than dual core in shorter time frame mostly because the cost per chip is astronomical currently, and it's the board manufacturers that can take the risk of putting two on one board rather than the chip makers - if you make a dual core gpu it can only ever be a dual core gpu.

 

[Chocolate Pi]

Personally, I don't care about the master card thing. I mean, if I'm going to have a to buy a second card anyway, what issue is there is narrowing the requirement of what second card I have to buy? Buying a master card is no more difficult than buying a regualr card, unless I'm missing something.

However, the chipset is what gets me. If Crossfire won't work on nForce4 SLI, consumers like me could never upgrade to a Crossfire solution no matter how much we wanted, short of upgrading our motherboard and entire system around it.

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: Zenoth
I can't wait for single boards with two GPU cores.

Because the two boards / two times heat / two times power consumption / two times noise factors really isn't for me. It gives me an archaic feeling ... not sure how to explain. I'll simply wait years if I have to, even if I can financially afford SLi / Cross Fire at the moment. I'm just not interested. But I'm going to wait for another technology, another "method" to increase performance over single board / GPU core architectures. Namely a single board with two GPU cores. And I am aware that won't be on the market for a long time. Although things change very fast in the PC market. It's usually exponential. So we might all be surprised to see such a thing happen in early 2007 / 2008.

I mean, if Intel plans to create 8 Cores CPUs by 2008 ... who knows what will happen to the GPU technology by then.

I find it interesting when it comes to benchmarking, completely excluding gaming, but other than that, it's a complete waste of money, in my humble opinion.

theres already an asus dual gpu nvidia card. trying to quad sli is the insane thing
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/12/14/..._preview_of_the_nvidia_quad_gpu_setup/

 

[Zenoth]

Yep, I knew about that one.

But I meant "more standard", as in more than 2000 units for media reviews.

And, all I'm saying, mostly, is that I'd simply prefer going in a store, and buy one, dual-core GPU card, instead of two, single-core GPU cards. It's just the way I like to buy my things you know. It's personal more than anything else.

I am aware there's also more heat, and more power consumption. But that's especially if you consider today's technology and GPU architectures.

That's why I said that we wouldn't see that happen for a long time.

Who knows how more efficient GPUs will become in two or three years. Processors already have a good future. More miniaturization ... I mean Intel is preparing for 45nm CPUs with 8 ... not 2, not 3, but 8 cores on a single die. Think about it.

Like I said, who knows what will happen to GPUs in two or three years really. I guess we won't need two GPU boards inside our systems for better performance. We're heading towards a miniaturized, more efficient future, that's technically going to happen.

It's just somehow difficult to envision such a thing with today's architectures and standards in GPU engineering.

One thing is likely to happen, is that I'm not going to buy SLi nor Cross Fire. I'll stay with single-core GPU boards, until new, much more efficient technologies arrive in a few years. And if I die before that, then I'm gonna wait nVidia, ATi, Intel and AMD's staff in Hell and discuss what happened up there on the mortal realm.