Crossfire - ATi's version of Multi Card Rendering!

[NoWayDude]

But if the performance is at least on par with SLI, the feature set is a clear edge in ATI's favor.
Can you expand on this?
Why is the feature set in clear ATI favour if they perform equaly?
Both setups seem to have more or less the same "oditis" for what they are
Both interconect true a 3rd party device (either the dongle on the back. or the bridge), both require a special motherborad.
The only diference is NV requests for PPL to buy exact same card type, and ATI is at the moment, saying that the system will work with X8x0 cards + Crossfire card
Also, you can get prety much any Nvidia SLI cards in stores, while ATI is aparentely saying that Crosfire card would have to be bought directly from them.
Does it affect theyr sales in Europe?
What is the feature set that gives the edge to ATI?
So far i'm seeing or at least being advertised a good thing as the new AA method, but, like everyone else, i'll wait for independent reviews before making an educated guest.
P.S-Btw, some of the NV partners are designing SLI capable boards without the bridge connector

I also like this quote in the tweaktown article :
Further, 3DMark05 is known to favour nVidia cards, so it’ll be interesting to see some results using other benchmarks.

[jAkUp]

what?? 3dmark05 does not favor nvidia cards! A single x850xt gets like 7k in 05

[SH64]

what?? 3dmark05 does not favor nvidia cards! A single x850xt gets like 7k in 05

You mean something like 6K .. but yeah its much higher than what a single 6800U can get.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-x800xl-512mb_25.html

[Beng]

I also like this quote in the tweaktown article :

Quote:
Further, 3DMark05 is known to favour nVidia cards, so it’ll be interesting to see some results using other benchmarks.

I think they meant to say is that DST is on by default in 3DM05 for Nv cards. Ati doesn't have this (performance increasing) feature.

[NoWayDude]

I think they meant to say is that DST is on by default in 3DM05 for Nv cards. Ati doesn't have this (performance increasing) feature.

We are all aware that 3DM05 supports DST for NV cards, but also fod S3 Deltachrome.
Still, the quote from them is open to a lot of interpretations, that are in the end, always badly interpeted.
The only time 3DM05 favours NV, is on SLI setup, and that has nothing to do with "favouring" a IHV.

[AthlonXP1800]

A tad faster, works in all games, various cards mixing, Super AA modes (increases AF too, so gaming with 14xAA and 32xAF is possible). Imho it's impressive.

We also managed to run ultra-high quality benchmarks at 1280x1024 (the highest resolution that the monitor supported), with 6xAA and 4xAF enabled. Under these settings we recorded a 3DMark05 score of 7399 – quite a significant drop but nothing is set in stone until we’re able to run further benchmarks.

No I am not impressive with it. On 3DMark2005 at 14x Super AA and 32xAF, you will get approx 2300 3DMark with 2 x X850 XT PE cards, it probably will be quite good 5000 3DMark on 2 x X900 XT PE cards. I think ATI introduce 14x FSAA and 32xAF at the wrong time, they should introduce it next year with R600 launch with 2 x R600 will give impressive 7500 to 10,000 3DMark on 14x FSAA and 32xAF.

Dont expect games to run at high fps at 1600x1200 on 2 x X850 XT PE with 14x FSAA and 32xAF 10 fps, I dont call that very impressive either. :)

[Treason]

Dont expect games to run at high fps at 1600x1200 on 2 x X850 XT PE with 14x FSAA and 32xAF 10 fps, I dont call that very impressive either. :)

Exactly! What is ATi trying to prove with this new 14x AA? A 1% increase in market share? :rolleyes:

[ChrisRay]

Hey the good news is you know how to get super sampling on ATI hardware now. Buy a second card. The mystery is over.



But if the performance is at least on par with SLI, the feature set is a clear edge in ATI's favor.

That is completely debatable. It will depend upon actual performance of these modes. Nvidia has had more Anti Aliasing modes for over 3 years now. And it didnt require a second card to use them. We could argue feature sets till your blue in the face. No one is arguing that ATI's new AA modes are an advantage to their multi GPU rendering. But feature set? Do you really want to go down that long road?

[Morrow]

Looks like ATI made another paper launch and we won't see any crossfire cards for real till August

Hexus (http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews/review.php?dXJsX3Jldmlld19JRD0xMjI2)

At least SLI is working and useable for many months.

[Clay]

Looks like ATI made another paper launch and we won't see any crossfire cards for real till August

Hexus (http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews/review.php?dXJsX3Jldmlld19JRD0xMjI2)

At least SLI is working and useable for many months.
I'd still like to get some more definitive information about motherboard support for the ATI Crossfire chipset. Seems like I'm either missing something or there is some contradictory info out regarding whether or not the chipset will be required on mobos or not. I've only seen SiS mentioned, no other IHVs such as ASUS, DFI, etc. Also, I'm curious as to how ATI's current Southbridge current bugginess and lack of features (SATA2, etc) will possibly delay their mobo release.

[Riptide]

Looks like ATI made another paper launch and we won't see any crossfire cards for real till AugustIf that is true then it doesn't look good. How much longer until the new cores are out? Isn't it only supposed to be another 3-4 months?

LOL, perhaps it'll be like last time. They'll launch the new cores in 3-4 months but it'll be at least another 2-3 months before you can actually buy the high end part.

[red_star]

I guess PCI Express is all about dual GPU setup, for now. The real world advantage of PCI Express over AGP is none. I guess we aren't gonna see any advantage of it in the near future, 2-3 years from now.

Personally, SLI/Crossfire solution is too expensive for me. However, I can afford a new high-end video card and that's more than enough. Give me 32 pipes baby, and everything is going to fly :)

I think r520 is going to be way way better then G70. I wish i can get AMD 64. My brother got 3700+ 1Mb cache and that thing blows out my P4, even though i'm running 6800GT and he is running 9800XT.

I think i will wait for Longhorn, before major PC upgrade.

[Riptide]

I guess PCI Express is all about dual GPU setup, for now. The real world advantage of PCI Express over AGP is none.I've been saying that for a while. Other than SCSI disk controllers and a few other relatively specialized applications there just isn't going to be much benefit from it for a while. Memory bandwidth on the graphics card has been and still is a much higher priority than bandwidth over the bus. Remember DIME, the ability to store textures from games in main RAM over AGP? It was a heavily touted feature that ended up being practically worthless.
Personally, SLI/Crossfire solution is too expensive for me. However, I can afford a new high-end video card and that's more than enough. Give me 32 pipes baby, and everything is going to fly :)
I might go PCI Express when they force me to do so. As in, if I can't get the latest/greatest video card in AGP then @ that point I've been effectively forced to switch.

[rohit]

Looks like ATI made another paper launch and we won't see any crossfire cards for real till August
OBV. that was expected, if ATi-Alone are goin to take complete control over the CF production, and distributing it all over the world, its gonna take time. So august/septembr should be expected.

The real world advantage of PCI Express over AGP is none. I guess we aren't gonna see any advantage of it in the near future, 2-3 years from now
Quite True.

I think r520 is going to be way way better then G70
Keep thinking, Time will tell.

[Beng]

Ati 'hired' Macci and he broke the 3DM05 WR with Crossfire:

*** no hotlinking please, use imageshack ***

*** no hotlinking please, use imageshack ***

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=892449

[SH64]

Impressive score , but what is that ? ..

Description : ATI Radeon Express 200 Crossfire Edition board w/ AMD FX55 @ 3401MHz, single ATI Radeon X850XTPE @ 850/702, OCZ VX @ 243 2/2/2/5, PC Power&Cooling 850W PSU, XtremeFrostByte III -85C on GPU, CPU @ -80C

:confused:

[AthlonXP1800]

Ati 'hired' Macci and he broke the 3DM05 WR with Crossfire:

*** no hotlinking please, use imageshack ***

*** no hotlinking please, use imageshack ***

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=892449

It very easy to point that the pictures are photoshop and it FAAKKEE, the real score is on Futuremark link with a score of 9063 3DMarks, that no ever beaten SLi and not a record breaker. :rolleyes:

[Dazz]

WTF i have had the pictures stripped and told not to hot link and there is a hand full of people doing the same thing in the very same thread and are left to get away with it this is predigest :mad:

[rohit]

culdnt' u chek it yo'self, before posting it..

Records are meant to be broken. not today, then 2morro...someone/sumthing will score hi'er.. :p

[AthlonXP1800]

Records are meant to be broken.

Exactly!

After completed 3DMark 2005 benchmarks and the score showed up, it will take only a few mins to published the result upload on ORB for everyone to view the project result. Records are meant to be broken, results on ORB are genius.

[Remij]

It very easy to point that the pictures are photoshop and it FAAKKEE, the real score is on Futuremark link with a score of 9063 3DMarks, that no ever beaten SLi and not a record breaker. :rolleyes:

Could it be possible that 9563 is the highest single card bench???(9063 is second now)

And also, could it be possible that they aren't yet able to submit it due to unapproved as-of-yet drivers, among other things?

I'm not saying its not fake..as I assume it is...but that score certaintly isn't unreasonable. 15000+ is probably pretty easy for this. And its also inline with what ati is saying about their crossfire performance in 3dmark05.

hmm, we'll have to see for ourselves I guess.

[Beng]

It very easy to point that the pictures are photoshop and it FAAKKEE,

I don't think Macci is a faker...

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=64513

[AthlonXP1800]

And also, could it be possible that they aren't yet able to submit it due to unapproved as-of-yet drivers, among other things?

No Macci used the same FM approved driver version 6.14.10.6546 for both single and dual X850 XT PE. Some guys at Xtremesystems forum think Macci hidden something by not published 15498 3DMarks score result.

[Beng]

No Macci used the same FM approved driver version 6.14.10.6546 for both single and dual X850 XT PE. Some guys at Xtremesystems forum think Macci hidden something by not published 15498 3DMarks score result.

Were did you read this? I read he used cat5.5 for the single card run, and 5.6 for Crossfire. The latter driver ain't FMA (it's also not officially out yet).
I suppose that the older 5.5 hasn't Crossfire support build in, or its Crossfire performance wasn't good enough because of the early beta stage.

[Clay]

WTF i have had the pictures stripped and told not to hot link and there is a hand full of people doing the same thing in the very same thread and are left to get away with it this is predigest :mad:
We can't babysit every second of the day.