View Full Version : Crossfire Benchmarks(Anandtech)
You know though .. whats still bugging me is the requirment of a master & slave cards. what if i cant get one of them for some reason ?? or for someone like me who purachse most of his hardware from local stores ? i guess it will be like the pirates treasure maps where you get the second half & you have to travel the whole world to get the other half heh ..
in fact that makes nVIDIA's requirment of getting 2 identical cards sounds much better to me now.
Riptide
07-23-05, 02:13 AM
Assuming availability isn't disastrous this time around you should be fine. One would hope they learned their lesson from the X800XTPE debacle.
AthlonXP1800
07-23-05, 02:13 AM
You know though .. whats still bugging me is the requirment of a master & slave cards. what if i cant get one of them for some reason ?? or for someone like me who purachse most of his hardware from local stores ? i guess it will be like the pirates treasure maps where you get the second half & you have to travel the whole world to get the other half heh ..
in fact that makes nVIDIA's requirment of getting 2 identical cards sounds much better to me now.
:lol: Oh yeah, if you cant get a master card in store, you out of luck so maybe you could find it on ebay at ridiculous price. :D When Nvidia release Forceware 80 driver, it will support mixed cards as well as diifferent video BIOSes in SLI.
macatak
07-23-05, 02:16 AM
When Nvidia release Forceware 80 driver, it will support mixed cards as well as diifferent video BIOSes in SLI.
heh..i was just looking for a link to that.
AthlonXP1800
07-23-05, 03:10 AM
heh..i was just looking for a link to that.
Here (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=24044).
Blacklash
07-23-05, 08:50 AM
No chance, it far too late for that in Sept when it launch for $549, it couldnt outrun 7800GTX at $450.
After carefully studying the 7800GTX AA modes and HDR performance I would probably go that way myself if this is all happening as late as Sept.
That is not to suggest I won't consider the R520. I will. Honestly right now I am interested in what nVidia has further up their sleeve. Aka the card that is a cut above the 7800GTX.
After viewing the Firingsquad article showing the 7800GTX mated with various CPUs I am not sure how important that next card is though. Even the best CPUs can barely use the muscle the GTX offers. These cards will be most meaningful for those that game at extreme resolutions.
macatak
07-23-05, 09:44 AM
After viewing the Firingsquad article showing the 7800GTX mated with various CPUs I am not sure how important that next card is though. Even the best CPUs can barely use the muscle the GTX offers. These cards will be most meaningful for those that game at extreme resolutions.
Going by that FS article if you look at the 1600x1200,4AA,16AF results there was only two games that benefited from the faster CPU's(Pacific Fighters & IL-2), all the rest of the games were GPU limited, well that was my interpretation of it. :)
PeterJensen
07-23-05, 10:51 AM
Krank up HL2 to 2048x and that crossfire solution would get spanked.
ChrisRay
07-23-05, 12:02 PM
After carefully studying the 7800GTX AA modes and HDR performance I would probably go that way myself if this is all happening as late as Sept.
That is not to suggest I won't consider the R520. I will. Honestly right now I am interested in what nVidia has further up their sleeve. Aka the card that is a cut above the 7800GTX.
After viewing the Firingsquad article showing the 7800GTX mated with various CPUs I am not sure how important that next card is though. Even the best CPUs can barely use the muscle the GTX offers. These cards will be most meaningful for those that game at extreme resolutions.
Not on SLI setups. Which are CPU limited in the vast majority of games even @ 1600x1200 resolution. Paticularly a 7800GTX SLI setup.
Not sure if i understand this but if you have a Crossfire mobo wouldn't you be able to use either 2 x X850's or 2 x R520's or doesn't it work like SLI where you can put 2x6600, 2x6800, 2x7800 cards in the same mobo :confused:
Xfire implemetation is different from nvidia SLI.
Xfire needs a master card (no pun intended :P) which basically is a X850XT-PE with an image composition chip. It takes the image from the "slave" card and mixes it with its own for the final output.
Oh, they have moded the master cards PCB circuitry. and i though people would just flash the regular x800xt to x800xt-master card, and xfire would work (simple) :p
Roadhog
07-23-05, 04:51 PM
I say game over for ATI...
I think it is really stupid that you have to buy a new motherboard with a special "ATI chipset" just to use the 2 cards.
Treason
07-23-05, 10:00 PM
I say game over for ATI...
I think it is really stupid that you have to buy a new motherboard with a special "ATI chipset" just to use the 2 cards.
Just look at this forum. Only two replies for the performance increasing Catalyst 5.7 thread. I don't think anyone here uses an ATi video card anymore. So you're right, it's game over.
zoomy942
07-23-05, 10:10 PM
i thought it was convient that there were no HL2 benchmarks with the 7800SLI, only the 6800SLI.. and thats the only place the crossfire preformed well.
I say game over for ATI...
I think it is really stupid that you have to buy a new motherboard with a special "ATI chipset" just to use the 2 cards.
It wasn't so "stupid" when people bought a new motherboard for SLI.
If this process works on regular boards and if the performance holds true for next-gen cards than ATi has indeed taken a positive step.
The performance numbers are pretty good considering they are coming to the market second.
Competition in the dual-gpu market means a benefit for all users I would think since it helps lower prices and continue to provide choice.
It wasn't so "stupid" when people bought a new motherboard for SLI.
If this process works on regular boards and if the performance holds true for next-gen cards than ATi has indeed taken a positive step.
The performance numbers are pretty good considering they are coming to the market second.
Competition in the dual-gpu market means a benefit for all users I would think since it helps lower prices and continue to provide choice.
the difference was that the SLI cards had not been out for a year already and were still relevant to the fight for the performance crown. They spent money and time on Crossfire for this generation while some feel they should have just focused on the next...
john19055
07-24-05, 09:25 AM
I know crossfire is in it's early stages but IMO it would be a waste of money when you can get a 7800GTX and it is just as fast if not faster in a lot of the games and why would you want to waste that much money when the 850XT does'nt even support PS3 VS3,maybe when the R520 comes out it will look better.
the difference was that the SLI cards had not been out for a year already and were still relevant to the fight for the performance crown. They spent money and time on Crossfire for this generation while some feel they should have just focused on the next...
Brian, there is nothing to suggest this tech will not apply to upcoming products from ATi, therefore it is not a waste of money and time. It is an investment into something that the general public is now using.
Consider the iPod. Many thought it a waste, but now the same companies that poo-pooh'd apple have jumped on the bandwagon.
It happens. I would rather have multiple players in the market than have to worry about Nvidia v/s Intel.
Considering the x8xx series is doing pretty well wrt performance, it is a decent option. People are still buying nv40's, they have not stopped buying them just because the 70's came out.
I just don't see how ATi announcing something like this and demonstrating the performance that it is capable of is somehow bad news? Are they late? Yes, but it does not negate the fact that they have good tech here.
Buenamos
07-24-05, 03:00 PM
Just look at this forum. Only two replies for the performance increasing Catalyst 5.7 thread. I don't think anyone here uses an ATi video card anymore. So you're right, it's game over.
You do realize that these are nvidia forums right? If you want responses to ATI threads, go to rage3d. I think ATI is doing a great job and IMO has better drivers as well. I just had a x800xt pe a week ago and the only reason I upgraded to this was b/c I figured I had some spare money laying around and I wouldn't be able to upgrade in college b/c of obvious reasons.
Brian, there is nothing to suggest this tech will not apply to upcoming products from ATi, therefore it is not a waste of money and time. It is an investment into something that the general public is now using.
Never said it wouldn't apply to future products, but the focus of the engineering and R&D crews should have been on incorporating Crossfire into the next generation. How much money was spent just to say "we can do that, too" in a product that is already overdue for an overhaul.
As many others have said in this thread, Crossfire will be a significant expense (motherboard ~$150 and GPU ~$400) in order to have less performance and fewer features than a single card solution from NVIDIA that is already availble for less than $550.
That R&D money would have been better suited to making Crossfire an on-chip, every GPU solution instead of an add-on to the existing and future products. This increases the number of necessary SKUs for stores to carry in theor stock, adds to the cost of the multi-card solution and limits the AICs involvement in presenting special solutions. To me, Crossfire is a bad business casen. It is a Band-Aid me-too offering that will end costing ATI more than they can make off of it.
Cross-Fire looks very promissing but I wouldn't invest money in a sm2 card. R520 is much more interesting. Now as I look at it, I am not sure if either SLI or Cross-Fire would do me any good. I want dual monitors for one which seems restricted on both SLI and Cross-Fire, plus I use LCD's and not CRT making my resolution rather low unless I invest in a rather large sum for a monitor that can do 1600x1200 in which the 7800GTX by itself has no problems limiting highend CPU's. Performance is so strong on single cards now it seems almost pointless (in my case) to buy two of anything video card wise.
Well maybe ATI will be able to sell the stock piles of X850's by getting people to buy two of them at a time instead of one ;).
Roadhog
07-24-05, 04:49 PM
what im trying to say is that... people who already have SLI already, arent going to buy a different motherboard just so they can have crossfire.
Ninja Prime
07-24-05, 05:38 PM
what im trying to say is that... people who already have SLI already, arent going to buy a different motherboard just so they can have crossfire.
I think you're all putting too much into SLI. I mean, seriously, how many people actually use this feature? 4 or 5? Probably all of them here on this board.... ;)
I don't think it's gonna be "game over" for anyone over SLI.
what will be most intresting is xfire (2 x r5xx's) v/s sli (2 x g7x's).
I think Crossfire on the X850 is "almost good enough, but too late", I wouldn't worry much about ATI going bye-bye, specially since only a couple of years ago the same was said about nvidia because of the FX fiasco.
But even if Xfire isn't a great option, at least it will help drive SLI prices down.
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