X800256mg/bit or 2x X1600pros

[Neavo]

So which is better?
X800 256mg 256bit
or 2x X1600 Pro crossfire setup?
I want to make a crossfire Rig,
i own the X800 XL 256mg/bit Card,
and was wondering if i should get teh X1600's or
wait until i can go with X1800's.
im a firm ATI buyer so those of you with Nvidia plz dont respond.
i already have 2x 7800GTX's...big mistake.
so... i need suggestions on this sort of thing.
thanks a bunch.
Neavo
________________
AMD 64 3500+ Venice
2gg corsair dual channel
2x PCIE
X800 XL 256mg/bit
8 Channel Realtek
Dual display (thanks DELL)
Gyro mouse. (lol)

 

[Zap]

Why were the two 7800GTX cards a mistake? If they were, then you'd be better off with a single X1900XTX and selling your X800XL rather than going Crossfire. I've heard that Crossfire doesn't work as smoothly as SLI. Personally I'd just rather have the single faster card.

 

[Neavo]

it was a mistake because I am a firm ATI person,
and people kept saying that the 7800's were a better card
then the X1800 (prolly true in some respects) and so
i spent 1K on those cards, 512 mg and all
And i SLi'd them and was serverely dissapointed.
its sad, i really wanted them to rock on! but they dont.
im more pleased with my X800 then those two rather powerful cards.
it doesnt run my games with all the details but it runs it a whole lot smoother.
i mean they arent bad cards, its just i wouldnt recommend them to anybody.
I hear the 7900's suppose to come out and htats suppose to be awesome.
but then ATi will respond to that with a better card and itll never end.
With this new job i have, im getting some money up to upgrade my system.
X1900XTX tho? thats suppose to be the best card out there. ill try it.
another thing, To Crossfire, do the cards have to be the same? or can you
X1800XL and crossfire that with a X1600XT?

 

[mwmorph]

you have to be in the same family to crossfire.

a x160xt crossfired with a x1600pro will drop the x1600xt to x1600pro speeds i believe.
a x1900xt corssifred with a x1600pro just wont work.

 

[v8envy]

In addition, crossfire of non-entry level cards (anything faster than a X1600, basically) will not give you very good results without a master card. You'll be transferring data over your PCIe bus, and compositing using your GPU (and CPU?). Not so good.

I haven't seen any benchmarks on crossfired X1600XTs without a master from any reliable sites. Mostly because I suspect it's not price effective, and the performance is abysmal. It'll cost $300 to do it (if not more), and a lower priced 7800GT (or 7900GT [or $160 X850XT]) should blow that setup out of the water.

Get the X1900XT if you've got cash to burn. Even with limitless funds it's hard to justify the tiny improvement of the XTX over the XT.

Also, please elaborate on why the 7800GTX are a huge mistake. Did I read that right, you got your 512 meg GTX cards for $1K each? If so, upgrading to any available consumer card won't give you a perceptible performace improvement. You should debug your current rig rather than sidegrade to virtually identical performance of the X1900XT or 7900GTX.

The 7800GTX 512 alone should run circles around an X800. You seem to have some sort of other issues, probably related to power or heat. Try running only one 7800GTX at a time and then see how it compares to your X800. Also make sure you're not overclocking anything.

p.s. NV multi-card solution is pretty much widely regarded as more mature, less problematic than the ATI one. If you have problems with SLI, there's a pretty good chance crossfire won't be any better.

p.p.s. crossfire requires an ATI chipset motherboard, AFAIK.

 

[CCityInstaller]

I would stay away from any idea of running dual X1600 series cards. I feel they really under perform for the money, especially if you are considering running them in Crossfire. I have owned cards from both ATI and Nvidia over the years, but have always been a fan of ATI's IQ vs Nvidia. I just recently made the change to PCI-E and I went with an X1800XT since I couldn't afford to spend more then $350 on a video card and it is wonderful. I can run every current game at max detail with 4x AA (other then F.E.A.R) on my 17" LCD with 90+ fps. I plan on picking up another one for X-fire a little later when the prices come down, hopefully by mid summer. One thing you need to keep in mind is that you need a X-fire enabled MB to use dual ATI cards. I am currently running the Asus A8R-MVP, and am very pleased for $95 it cost me.

 

[L00PY]

IIRC, ATI (or whichever mobo manufacturer it was) sent out 2x1600Pro's with the latest Xpress 3200 chipset (or whatever their newest Crossfire revision) board to the review sites. Try searching for some of those reviews for benchmarks -- they did pretty well if memory serves. For some reason, I think I remember reading that the newest / upcoming Crossfire revision allows for running higher series cards without a master. I'm a lot less certain about that though.