Xbitlabs X1900XTX croosfire review

[Cookie Monster]

Link

Conclusion

It is not a news that the CrossFire multi-GPU technology has matured significantly since its first introduction in Septermber, 2005, along with the Radeon X800-series graphics cards. The Radeon X1800 CrossFire already offered enough stability, quality, reliability and robustness, so, the main question to the Radeon X1900 CrossFire is generally about performance.

A pair of two Radeon X1900 XT CrossFire is among the fastest graphics cards configurations money can buy these days: it features insane performance in modern games, it can enable extreme full-scene antialiasing and even has some proof for the future games. If you do want the highest performance, quality and can afford it, getting the Radeon X1900 XT/XTX along with the Radeon X1900 XT CrossFire Edition is definitely an idea to consider: it is really a fast and furious combination!

Unfortunately, the Radeon X1900 CrossFire tandem has some drawbacks: very often its speed is limited by texture fetching performance and/or memory bandwidth. As a consequence, the majority of games today run at very similar speeds on the Radeon X1800 and Radeon X1900 CrossFire configuration. The disadvantage of the relatively slow memory speed is so significant that in a lot of cases the new duet of graphics accelerators does not outperform the old champion tandem: the Radeon X1800 CrossFire.

The main advantage of the Radeon X1900 CrossFire duo is definitely its orientation on the future: it already demonstrates high framerates in games where pixel shader contain a lot of mathematical instructions. The upcoming games should take full advantage of the 96 pixel shader processors for sure.

In case we are talking about the market perspectives of the Radeon X1900 CrossFire, we should also note that there are more Nvidia SLI-supporting mainboards for AMD processors, which are the most popular among gamers these days, on the market compared to CrossFire-supporting platforms. The availability of SLI ecosystem along with the higher customer awareness about the technology allows Nvidia not to release any direct competitors for the Radeon X1900 CrossFire configuration shortly and do not lose much of sales to the rival. Nevertheless, we should point out that Nvidia has reasons to worry: CrossFire supporting systems are already available from makers of high-performance computers, such as Alienware and VoodooPC.

Highs:

* Extreme performance in loads of applications, primarily Direct3D;
* Supreme performance under ?high load? with FSAA and anisotropic filtering;
* Sufficient performance in a lot of games with Super AA enabled;
* Alpha-textures antialiasing;
* Future proof ? 512MB of onboard memory, the most efficient Shader Model 3.0 implementation to date, 96 pixel shader processors;
* Support for FSAA with HDR.

Lows:

* Excessive power consumption;
* Dual-slot cooling system;
* Outperformed by competitors in OpenGL and some other titles;
* Extreme price.

 

[dug777]

didn't you just post this?

 

[dug777]

oops, it was GamerX, same avatar tho...

RE POXY

 

[Cookie Monster]

AT moderaters.. is it possible for me to have a cookie avatar

 

[tuteja1986]

we know :! crossfire x1900xt are awesome and will be total pawnage when RD580 board come out next month

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: tuteja1986
we know :! crossfire x1900xt are awesome and will be total pawnage when RD580 board come out next month

I'm curious about this actually. From what I understand, the Asus AMR32-MVP Deluxe still has a ULi southbridge. Honestly, this doesn't instill a lot of confidence in me with ATI's new chipset. I don't really think I want a Crossfire motherboard that will depend in a NVIDIA owned company to provide support for the southbridge. What if there are issues...? There is enough finger pointing within companies when problems arise, I can't imagine what a con-call would sound like with Asus, ATI, and ULi (NVIDIA) on the phone if there was a problem that needed to be resolved. I imagine it would go something like this...

ATI: "well, there appears to be an issue with the southbridge"
ULi: "Actually, no.. the issue is with the northbridge"
Asus: "Well, from our testing, it looks like the southbridge"
ATI: "See, we told you it was the southbridge. These problems are unacceptable"
ULi: "Well, we feel that the issue manifests itself as an issue with the southbridge, but is actually due to issues with the northbridge. We were unable to duplicate these issues with an nForce4 chipset in our lab"
Asus: "Well, we really need to resolve this issue."
ULi: "We agree, this issue does need to be resolved, and we feel the best way to ensure quality is to discontinue the current line. We will be replacing the current chipset with a new one next month and discontinuing support for the current one effective immediately."

...well maybe not exaclty like that, but you get my point...

 

[Cooler]

Originally posted by: nitromullet

Originally posted by: tuteja1986
we know :! crossfire x1900xt are awesome and will be total pawnage when RD580 board come out next month

I'm curious about this actually. From what I understand, the Asus AMR32-MVP Deluxe still has a ULi southbridge. Honestly, this doesn't instill a lot of confidence in me with ATI's new chipset. I don't really think I want a Crossfire motherboard that will depend in a NVIDIA owned company to provide support for the southbridge. What if there are issues...? There is enough finger pointing within companies when problems arise, I can't imagine what a con-call would sound like with Asus, ATI, and ULi (NVIDIA) on the phone if there was a problem that needed to be resolved. I imagine it would go something like this...

ATI: "well, there appears to be an issue with the southbridge"
ULi: "Actually, no.. the issue is with the northbridge"
Asus: "Well, from our testing, it looks like the southbridge"
ATI: "See, we told you it was the southbridge. These problems are unacceptable"
ULi: "Well, we feel that the issue manifests itself as an issue with the southbridge, but is actually due to issues with the northbridge. We were unable to duplicate these issues with an nForce4 chipset in our lab"
Asus: "Well, we really need to resolve this issue."
ULi: "We agree, this issue does need to be resolved, and we feel the best way to ensure quality is to discontinue the current line. We will be replacing the current chipset with a new one next month and discontinuing support for the current one effective immediately."

...well maybe not exaclty like that, but you get my point...

That would really be bad.

 

[nitromullet]

I agree, that's why if I go Crossfire (which looks pretty attractive from the article posted), I would go with the DFI RDX200 CF-DR which is all ATI... Hopefully, there will be more all ATI solutions available when RD520 is actually available.

 

[fierydemise]

Xbit is dead on with their assessment, the same thing could be said of SLI, extreme performance at extreme cost and power consumption. Both SLI and crossfire are good options for the enthusiast who demands top end performance but for most people a complete waste.

 

[SpeedZealot369]

I wouldnt get crossfire until it matures a little. I'm not paying all that money and getting bottlenecks, no sir-ey.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: SpeedZealot369
I wouldnt get crossfire until it matures a little. I'm not paying all that money and getting bottlenecks, no sir-ey.

Well, Crossfire is definitely looking better these days than it did with the x850. The main problems are that it requires a special card, which has shown to be more expensive than the regular cards, and the lack of a universally recommended motherboard. All the boards are just okay, I haven't really seen a single one get high marks everywhere like you see with some of the nForce4 SLI boards.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: Cooler

Originally posted by: nitromullet

Originally posted by: tuteja1986
we know :! crossfire x1900xt are awesome and will be total pawnage when RD580 board come out next month

I'm curious about this actually. From what I understand, the Asus AMR32-MVP Deluxe still has a ULi southbridge. Honestly, this doesn't instill a lot of confidence in me with ATI's new chipset. I don't really think I want a Crossfire motherboard that will depend in a NVIDIA owned company to provide support for the southbridge. What if there are issues...? There is enough finger pointing within companies when problems arise, I can't imagine what a con-call would sound like with Asus, ATI, and ULi (NVIDIA) on the phone if there was a problem that needed to be resolved. I imagine it would go something like this...

ATI: "well, there appears to be an issue with the southbridge"
ULi: "Actually, no.. the issue is with the northbridge"
Asus: "Well, from our testing, it looks like the southbridge"
ATI: "See, we told you it was the southbridge. These problems are unacceptable"
ULi: "Well, we feel that the issue manifests itself as an issue with the southbridge, but is actually due to issues with the northbridge. We were unable to duplicate these issues with an nForce4 chipset in our lab"
Asus: "Well, we really need to resolve this issue."
ULi: "We agree, this issue does need to be resolved, and we feel the best way to ensure quality is to discontinue the current line. We will be replacing the current chipset with a new one next month and discontinuing support for the current one effective immediately."

...well maybe not exaclty like that, but you get my point...

That would really be bad.

Hmmm... this is really becoming quite sticky. I've been doing more research on the ULi vs. the ATI SB, and it really seems like all the motherboard manufacturers (except DFI) went with the ULi SB for a reason. I'll definitely have to pay attention to the A8R32-MVP Dlx reviews.

 

[Steelski]

WHY OH WHY???????? are they still using the 6.1 drivers? that dont offficially support the hardware. Please be aware of that when reading this review!

 

[coldpower27]

Xbitlabs is on a 2-3 month cycle for drivers. So They will probably go to Catalyst 6.3 or 6.4 directly.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: nitromullet
I'm curious about this actually. From what I understand, the Asus AMR32-MVP Deluxe still has a ULi southbridge. Honestly, this doesn't instill a lot of confidence in me with ATI's new chipset. I don't really think I want a Crossfire motherboard that will depend in a NVIDIA owned company to provide support for the southbridge. What if there are issues...? There is enough finger pointing within companies when problems arise, I can't imagine what a con-call would sound like with Asus, ATI, and ULi (NVIDIA) on the phone if there was a problem that needed to be resolved. I imagine it would go something like this...

...well maybe not exaclty like that, but you get my point...

seeing as how there aren't 'issues' now, i don't really see how issues might come up *later*

likely asus did this because it was the fastest way to get a new board out. use a southbridge you know (from the A8R), and your engineering/validation/etc costs decrease. rumor has it that asus had these boards ready to go back when R580 was launched a month ago. the fact that ati doesn't think it is ready yet, but asus does, tells me there is likely engineering work going on at the other motherboard makers (many of whom didn't adopt the xfire discrete graphics version of RD480 anyway). it may just be that ati's other motherboard vendors didn't want to be a month later to market

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster
AT moderaters.. is it possible for me to have a cookie avatar

the Mods NEVER enter Video nor read ANY posts here [unless you get their attention in FI]
[and then it's a well-armed group of SWAT Mods]

try a PM or post a request in FI

Anyway, i am impressed with how quickly ATi is "catching up" to nVidia . . . what's it been . . . less than 2 years?

 

[BFG10K]

XBit have good reviews but they really need to stop capping out at stone-age resolutions like 1600x1200.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: nitromullet
I'm curious about this actually. From what I understand, the Asus AMR32-MVP Deluxe still has a ULi southbridge. Honestly, this doesn't instill a lot of confidence in me with ATI's new chipset. I don't really think I want a Crossfire motherboard that will depend in a NVIDIA owned company to provide support for the southbridge. What if there are issues...? There is enough finger pointing within companies when problems arise, I can't imagine what a con-call would sound like with Asus, ATI, and ULi (NVIDIA) on the phone if there was a problem that needed to be resolved. I imagine it would go something like this...

...well maybe not exaclty like that, but you get my point...

seeing as how there aren't 'issues' now, i don't really see how issues might come up *later*

likely asus did this because it was the fastest way to get a new board out. use a southbridge you know (from the A8R), and your engineering/validation/etc costs decrease. rumor has it that asus had these boards ready to go back when R580 was launched a month ago. the fact that ati doesn't think it is ready yet, but asus does, tells me there is likely engineering work going on at the other motherboard makers (many of whom didn't adopt the xfire discrete graphics version of RD480 anyway). it may just be that ati's other motherboard vendors didn't want to be a month later to market

I'm talking about RD580... We have no idea if there are issues or not. My point is basically that it looks like the ULi SB is still the better was to go on the next generation of Crossfire boards, and considering that NV is pushing SLI really hard I doubt that they would do much to help ATI compete with them in this space. For ATI's sake, ultimately, they are going to have to learn how to build a competative SB or get VIA to do it. I could be wrong, but I doubt that you will see any Crossfire boards with a ULi SB after this round. I bet that all the deals with motherboard makers planning on combining RD480/580 with ULi 1575 were made prior to NV's aquisition of ULi.

All of that being said, my interest is still piqued with regards to Crossfire. My local Micro Center has X1800 Xfire Ed's in stock for $450 AMIR, which makes the prospect more attractive from my perspective. It really just depends on what the motherboards look like.

 

[Paratus]

Ugh me use 12X10.
Me go bang rocks

BANG BANGl

 

[Matt2]

ATI is still shooting themselves in the foot in a couple of areas:

1. Mastercard. -Get rid of this and I just might be on board.

2. Where's the rest of the Crossfire lineup? -This is where Nvidia really has the advantage. They have SLI options all the way up and down the price ladder.

 

[nib95]

Originally posted by: Matt2
ATI is still shooting themselves in the foot in a couple of areas:

1. Mastercard. -Get rid of this and I just might be on board.

2. Where's the rest of the Crossfire lineup? -This is where Nvidia really has the advantage. They have SLI options all the way up and down the price ladder.

I wouldnt call that a shot in the foot.

Because -

A) Usually the best single card on the market performs better or comparably then the most common SLI set ups (currently 7800 GT(?).

B) Those who want dual set ups of the best of the best can already afford the extra dough for the crossfire edition of a card from the off.

C) Just as with issues with the whole Crossfire edition business, Nvidia shares a similar issue which is that many of their GPU's are no longer in production and are replaced just about the time when users require/want the secondary SLI counterpart.

In other words, both companies have issues with their dual GPU set ups, but I wouldnt say ATI shot themselves in the foot at all.

 

[CaiNaM]

Originally posted by: nib95
C) Just as with issues with the whole Crossfire edition business, Nvidia shares a similar issue which is that many of their GPU's are no longer in production and are replaced just about the time when users require/want the secondary SLI counterpart.

example please.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: CaiNaM

Originally posted by: nib95
C) Just as with issues with the whole Crossfire edition business, Nvidia shares a similar issue which is that many of their GPU's are no longer in production and are replaced just about the time when users require/want the secondary SLI counterpart.

example please.

Good call. They had eVGA 6800 Ultra's at Micro Center for $250... I was almost tempted to build myself the l33test rig of 2004 for $500.

 

[nib95]

Originally posted by: CaiNaM

Originally posted by: nib95
C) Just as with issues with the whole Crossfire edition business, Nvidia shares a similar issue which is that many of their GPU's are no longer in production and are replaced just about the time when users require/want the secondary SLI counterpart.

example please.

The example are people around us, I know many people who have just bought 7800 GT's and GTX's (or in the last 2 months) in the hope of upgrading to SLI in a month or two, but the 7900 GT and GTX will be replacing the 7800 range (bar the GTX 512mb version). The two cards will not be coexisting, but being replaced.

So where are they to buy that second SLI card in a few months (besides eBay)?

The solution is to just go single top end GPU after a sale of your existing one.

 

[Rolcahl]

Originally posted by: nib95

Originally posted by: CaiNaM

Originally posted by: nib95
C) Just as with issues with the whole Crossfire edition business, Nvidia shares a similar issue which is that many of their GPU's are no longer in production and are replaced just about the time when users require/want the secondary SLI counterpart.

example please.

The example are people around us, I know many people who have just bought 7800 GT's and GTX's (or in the last 2 months) in the hope of upgrading to SLI in a month or two, but the 7900 GT and GTX will be replacing the 7800 range (bar the GTX 512mb version). The two cards will not be coexisting, but being replaced.

So where are they to buy that second SLI card in a few months (besides eBay)?

The solution is to just go single top end GPU after a sale of your existing one.

Does this mean that the 7800 series are being completely phased out?