DH Preview: ATI's Crossfire tested

Zardon · Sep 26, 2005, 01:29 PM

Considering how fast paced the PC industry moves you would have thought that a delay of over a year since SLI was introduced would have given Nvidia such a massive market segment share that it would be unbeatable. Unfortunately though, despite SLI being available it was far from the perfect solution at the time of launch with issues such as lack of game compatibility and having to use matched cards being factors that made the purchase undesirable for many hardware enthusiasts. It has to be said however that Nvidia have improved SLI game support in recent months and their hardware will take some beating, we aim to not only test crossfire but to show you some comparisons against Nvidia in both single and dual configurations.

read the preview here

studbagel9 · Sep 26, 2005, 02:35 PM

This is pretty much the most thorough preview anyone could've asked for. It is also about as unbiased as it gets. Thanks for the excellent arcticle Zardon. The last two major articles I've seen from here (This and the Lost Coast) have been some of the best I've ever read from this or any other site. Alright, enough ass kissin', time to buy me a Crossfire system!

Vikingod · Sep 26, 2005, 02:54 PM

That was an absolutely great preview guys, thank you very much. Very thorough and and informative. Can't you just give us a hint at how the r5xx series performs, come on, just a hint. lol.

Sandok · Sep 26, 2005, 02:57 PM

Wow that was amazing. Details, info, the lot! Great work!

WxChaser · Sep 26, 2005, 03:09 PM

I thought the review was hard hitting, accurate and no bias was shown. Excellent job Stu! Kudo's to you for putting in the hard work on the benchmarking and giving all the pertinent details.

Lowfat · Sep 26, 2005, 03:15 PM

14X Super AA looks amazing...

Drakon · Sep 26, 2005, 03:35 PM

I agree. Very good unbiased review, guys

[hobo]eclipse · Sep 26, 2005, 05:09 PM

does NVIDIA have any type of technology that does similar things wth the AA and AF as ATI does with crossfire and SAA, such as utilizing the power of both card to improve AA\AF. The IQ shot with 14x SAA was quite impressive and would be a major point of consideration in purchasing a pair of either, one question, why no AF in the Lost Coast IQ shots with the SAA??

Thanks alot for the article guys, top notch all the way around, Now for some DOD:S later !!

No_Style · Sep 26, 2005, 05:14 PM

Good work, DH. Great effort, ATI.

I just have a few questions:

Why such a radical approach? Why external dongles and slave/master cards? It really appears to be a step backwards to me. (Seeing how other areas of computing moved away from Slave/Master relationship.. ie: SATA) Am I wrong to assume ATI went down this path just for the sake of being different?

Oh and the limitation of 1600 x 1200 @ 60 Hz is a real downer for those high-resolution CRT gamers.

pr0digal jenius · Sep 26, 2005, 05:21 PM

most excellent review *thumbs up*

Looks like a good technological setup, so long as it gets a larger market share then ATi's current IGP chipsets have(and perhaps it'll include an ATi north and southbridge, as opposed to outsourcing the southbridge to companies like ALI)

I'm also worried about whether or not the rabbit in ATi's hat is big enough anymore, seeing how a 7800 in every case except FEAR holds it's own against TWO 850XTs, often times throwing down a 2-3FPS victory. Couple that with the upcoming 80 series Forceware's that are giving the user free reign over SLi as well as fully enabling multithreading, and in some games throwing up an additional 10-14 FPS, and I think ATi may just miss the bus.

But like I said, they've astounded me before(read: 8500, 9700), so let's hope they don't dissappoint

also, I wonder how much that 1600x1200 @ 60Hz is dependent on the drivers telling the cards that's the limit, or if some fancy INF/BIOS work can unlock that? My guess is due to the downsampling used in SSAA, higher resolution isn't possible, but even 1600x1200 @ 85 would be a huge improvement

Necrosis · Sep 26, 2005, 06:01 PM

I know this info wasn't available during testing.

It looks like the Beta 78.05's fix the Lost Coast issues.

Also, shouldn't the 80.40's have these features?

Quote:

Full Feature List Of Nvidia ForceWare Release 80
Speculation is heating up on when Nvidia will release the new ForceWare Release 80. My best bet is that this is in a 2 weeks timeframe. Before that though we will see 78.05 released. Today we bring you the full feature list of Release 80:

NVIDIA SLI – more features and capabilities
Ability to use graphics cards from different vendors and use with different memory sizes
Dynamic SLI enabling/disabling
Auto display detection in SLI mode
Primary display switching in SLI
Upcoming games such as F.E.A.R and Quake 4 already have built-in SLI Profile

Mobile GPUs now supported in NVIDIA.com drivers
Mobile users can now get new features and performance with every driver update
OEMs like Alienware, VoodooPC, Falcon Northwest allow NVIDIA.COM drivers to be enabled for their new GeForce Go notebooks
Driver updates maintain all OEM hotkeys and power management settings

New multimedia and PureVideo HD enhancements
HDTV Enhancements such as Preview mode to determine panel capabilities, Fullscreen calibration tool, DVI hot-plugging, Japanese D-connectors, Hotkeys cycle HDTV modes
PureVideo Quality Improvements such as Improved 3:2 and 2:2 pulldown detection and correction, High Definition spatial-temporal de-interlacing support available for GeForce 6600 passive through GeForce 7800 GTX.

http://fileismissing.blogspot.com/

brutusmaximus · Sep 26, 2005, 06:30 PM

superb review guys, good information, after reading that I think ill wait on future hardware seems a bit of a mess IMO. I mean what on earth are they thinking about 1600x1200 60hz limitations? I guess they could hand out the hardware to bittech all the time as they ONLY ran tests at 1024x768 !!!!! Lets spend a fortune on hardware to game at 1024x768 and nothing else. I used to love bittech, but its going down the tubes big time this year.

mike2h · Sep 26, 2005, 07:29 PM

great review. was really surprised at your performance reports on the mb. it seems to be performing much better than i expected. think ati might have winners in both areas.
i think it would be a total waste of $$ to buy crossfire with anything but r520+. definetly going to make that release even more interesting.
going to be fun to see what nv has in store to counter the r520/crossfire. dont you just love it when companies compete like this!
bty, could you please try writing a crappy review, or at least a not so good one? i am getting tired of thanking you guys for great reviews.

Sandok · Sep 26, 2005, 07:39 PM

Ya but tehcreport also just did a review and the USB speed probs and PCI express ethernet prob seem stuck with that ATI southbrigde...

I'm not sure what I'm talking about if ever...

***craig5320*** · Sep 26, 2005, 08:05 PM

Excellent article. good stuff, keep it coming..

The_Neon_Cowboy · Sep 26, 2005, 08:24 PM

Cool , good read

klevo · Sep 26, 2005, 08:31 PM

I think a Crossfire setup with current ATi cards (X8xx) is really not the best option. Let`s wait and see what the next generation will bring.

mike2h · Sep 26, 2005, 08:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sandok

Ya but tehcreport also just did a review and the USB speed probs and PCI express ethernet prob seem stuck with that ATI southbrigde...

I'm not sure what I'm talking about if ever...

i thought they were using a different southbridge now? will have to wait & see how that plays out. if that is true of their current mb release, it is not good news.
the very good news for ati is that intel is coming out with a chipset that supports cf.

riles9262 · Sep 26, 2005, 09:27 PM

Most excellent, I think that's the best review so far.

Vikingod · Sep 26, 2005, 09:37 PM

Question...
Do the Crossfire series motherboard support dual 16x PCIe (like the up and coming A8N32-SLI Deluxe) when in crossfire or does it scale down to 8x for each card when running in Crossfire mode?

mike2h · Sep 26, 2005, 09:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sandok

Ya but tehcreport also just did a review and the USB speed probs and PCI express ethernet prob seem stuck with that ATI southbrigde...

I'm not sure what I'm talking about if ever...

you are right, just read it. i knew uli had made a compatible sb for this mb, i assumed ati would use it. i am sure several of the better mb manafcturers will.

Asmoday · Sep 26, 2005, 10:29 PM

Great review Stu!

WxChaser · Sep 27, 2005, 01:02 AM

There is a new southbridge already under development by ATI to be seen later in next iteration of the motherboards.

mike2h · Sep 27, 2005, 01:29 AM

kinda makes you wonder if ati is pulling one of nvs little tricks of using consumers to beta test(nv does it with drivers) with this mb release. just an observation.
aside from getting these mbs in the pipeline(which is very important) before they release r520 master cards, there is no real point to the release of crossfire at this time. especially as far as the 8xx cards go.

The_Neon_Cowboy · Sep 27, 2005, 03:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vikingod

Question...
Do the Crossfire series motherboard support dual 16x PCIe (like the up and coming A8N32-SLI Deluxe) when in crossfire or does it scale down to 8x for each card when running in Crossfire mode?

8x to both cards just like in SLI, unless your useing only one card then it get 16X.
Seems 8X is plenty bandwith so that doesn't matter too much. Also image / data
is passed from one card to the other via the link.

They need to get these boards out!!!

Falstaff · Sep 27, 2005, 05:01 AM

excellent article Allan and Stewart, worthy of setting an industry standard....
Only one typo...but hey, I can live with that..I make them all the time....LOL

Drakon · Sep 27, 2005, 05:04 AM

Quote:

Only one typo...but hey, I can live with that..I make them all the time....LOL

Ain't that the truth!

mike2h · Sep 27, 2005, 06:44 AM

SFOSOK · Sep 27, 2005, 09:36 AM

I like the pic, Crossfire = backfire the theme?

Also those of you wondering about Super AA, Nvidia has one that works a little better but both are almost pointless right now because of the FPS dive it takes (even at low resolutions).

There was an article on the site but I can't seem to find it now.

knuth · Sep 27, 2005, 10:05 AM

I'd still opt for a single card solution any day. Duel cards are way too over the top and ineffecient as far as economics go.

Sep 26, 2005, 01:29 PM	#1
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,480 Rep Power: 168	DH Preview: ATI's Crossfire tested Considering how fast paced the PC industry moves you would have thought that a delay of over a year since SLI was introduced would have given Nvidia such a massive market segment share that it would be unbeatable. Unfortunately though, despite SLI being available it was far from the perfect solution at the time of launch with issues such as lack of game compatibility and having to use matched cards being factors that made the purchase undesirable for many hardware enthusiasts. It has to be said however that Nvidia have improved SLI game support in recent months and their hardware will take some beating, we aim to not only test crossfire but to show you some comparisons against Nvidia in both single and dual configurations. read the preview here

Sep 26, 2005, 02:35 PM	#2
studbagel9 Rolling the Hard Six Join Date: May 2003 Location: Lock Haven, PA Posts: 767 Rep Power: 0	This is pretty much the most thorough preview anyone could've asked for. It is also about as unbiased as it gets. Thanks for the excellent arcticle Zardon. The last two major articles I've seen from here (This and the Lost Coast) have been some of the best I've ever read from this or any other site. Alright, enough ass kissin', time to buy me a Crossfire system! __________________ Last edited by studbagel9; Sep 26, 2005 at 02:42 PM.

Sep 26, 2005, 02:54 PM	#3
Vikingod Int'l Fish Liaison Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: By the light of lamp I sit and type... Posts: 16,183 Rep Power: 99	That was an absolutely great preview guys, thank you very much. Very thorough and and informative. Can't you just give us a hint at how the r5xx series performs, come on, just a hint. lol. __________________ *How You Can Help DriverHeaven By Using Digg*

Sep 26, 2005, 03:15 PM	#6
Lowfat Xtreme Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Grande Prairie, AB, Can Posts: 4,137 Rep Power: 82	14X Super AA looks amazing... __________________ 27" iMac: i5 750 * 80GB X25-M G1 * 4GB DDR3 * HD4850 Workstation: i7 920 @ 4.2GHz, 1.87V * EVGA Classified * 80GB ioXtreme * 40GB X25-V * 9GB DDR3 * XFX HD5970 * 1000W Antec * CM Stacker 832 * 2HDDVD HTPC: Pentium G6950 @ 4.2GHz, 1.24V * H55-USB3 * 2GB DDR3 * 30GB Vertex * 1050W Enermax Revo85+ * Silverstone FT01BW * 2BDROM Audio: Xonar Essence STX * M-Audio Q40s * Onkyo TXSR606 * Kef IQ1s

Sep 26, 2005, 05:09 PM	#8
[hobo]eclipse ...just bummin 'round Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 2,731 Rep Power: 78	does NVIDIA have any type of technology that does similar things wth the AA and AF as ATI does with crossfire and SAA, such as utilizing the power of both card to improve AA\AF. The IQ shot with 14x SAA was quite impressive and would be a major point of consideration in purchasing a pair of either, one question, why no AF in the Lost Coast IQ shots with the SAA?? Thanks alot for the article guys, top notch all the way around, Now for some DOD:S later !! __________________ know your enemy who is beyond the law?

Sep 26, 2005, 02:57 PM	#4
Sandok DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 9,472 Rep Power: 56	Wow that was amazing. Details, info, the lot! Great work!

Sep 26, 2005, 03:09 PM	#5
WxChaser Super Moderator Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 404 Rep Power: 0	I thought the review was hard hitting, accurate and no bias was shown. Excellent job Stu! Kudo's to you for putting in the hard work on the benchmarking and giving all the pertinent details.

Sep 26, 2005, 03:35 PM	#7
Drakon DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Floatin'... Posts: 4,957 Rep Power: 47	I agree. Very good unbiased review, guys

Sep 26, 2005, 05:14 PM	#9
No_Style Styleless Wonder Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Ottawa, Ontario Posts: 6,034 Rep Power: 0	Good work, DH. Great effort, ATI. I just have a few questions: Why such a radical approach? Why external dongles and slave/master cards? It really appears to be a step backwards to me. (Seeing how other areas of computing moved away from Slave/Master relationship.. ie: SATA) Am I wrong to assume ATI went down this path just for the sake of being different? Oh and the limitation of 1600 x 1200 @ 60 Hz is a real downer for those high-resolution CRT gamers. __________________ "The Best Style Is No Style" Specifications Here

Sep 26, 2005, 05:21 PM	#10
pr0digal jenius Delete Me Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 14,648 Rep Power: 0	most excellent review thumbs up Looks like a good technological setup, so long as it gets a larger market share then ATi's current IGP chipsets have(and perhaps it'll include an ATi north and southbridge, as opposed to outsourcing the southbridge to companies like ALI) I'm also worried about whether or not the rabbit in ATi's hat is big enough anymore, seeing how a 7800 in every case except FEAR holds it's own against TWO 850XTs, often times throwing down a 2-3FPS victory. Couple that with the upcoming 80 series Forceware's that are giving the user free reign over SLi as well as fully enabling multithreading, and in some games throwing up an additional 10-14 FPS, and I think ATi may just miss the bus. But like I said, they've astounded me before(read: 8500, 9700), so let's hope they don't dissappoint also, I wonder how much that 1600x1200 @ 60Hz is dependent on the drivers telling the cards that's the limit, or if some fancy INF/BIOS work can unlock that? My guess is due to the downsampling used in SSAA, higher resolution isn't possible, but even 1600x1200 @ 85 would be a huge improvement

Sep 26, 2005, 06:30 PM	#12
brutusmaximus DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 520 Rep Power: 65	superb review guys, good information, after reading that I think ill wait on future hardware seems a bit of a mess IMO. I mean what on earth are they thinking about 1600x1200 60hz limitations? I guess they could hand out the hardware to bittech all the time as they ONLY ran tests at 1024x768 !!!!! Lets spend a fortune on hardware to game at 1024x768 and nothing else. I used to love bittech, but its going down the tubes big time this year.

Sep 26, 2005, 07:29 PM	#13
mike2h DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: norcal Posts: 6,483 Rep Power: 79	great review. was really surprised at your performance reports on the mb. it seems to be performing much better than i expected. think ati might have winners in both areas. i think it would be a total waste of $$ to buy crossfire with anything but r520+. definetly going to make that release even more interesting. going to be fun to see what nv has in store to counter the r520/crossfire. dont you just love it when companies compete like this! bty, could you please try writing a crappy review, or at least a not so good one? i am getting tired of thanking you guys for great reviews. __________________

Sep 26, 2005, 07:39 PM	#14
Sandok DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 9,472 Rep Power: 56	Ya but tehcreport also just did a review and the USB speed probs and PCI express ethernet prob seem stuck with that ATI southbrigde... I'm not sure what I'm talking about if ever...

Sep 26, 2005, 08:05 PM	#15
*craig5320* HH Administrator Join Date: May 2002 Location: Manchester, UK Posts: 6,781 Rep Power: 336	Excellent article. good stuff, keep it coming.. __________________

Sep 26, 2005, 08:24 PM	#16
The_Neon_Cowboy DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: U.S.A. Posts: 16,004 Rep Power: 81	Cool , good read __________________

Sep 26, 2005, 08:31 PM	#17
klevo 2 l33t Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Slovakia Posts: 587 Rep Power: 0	I think a Crossfire setup with current ATi cards (X8xx) is really not the best option. Let`s wait and see what the next generation will bring. __________________ My blog

Sep 26, 2005, 09:27 PM	#19
riles9262 Driverheaven brewmaster Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: British Columbia, Canada Posts: 4,839 Rep Power: 61	Most excellent, I think that's the best review so far. __________________ A beer a day keeps the doctor away.

Sep 26, 2005, 09:37 PM	#20
Vikingod Int'l Fish Liaison Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: By the light of lamp I sit and type... Posts: 16,183 Rep Power: 99	Question... Do the Crossfire series motherboard support dual 16x PCIe (like the up and coming A8N32-SLI Deluxe) when in crossfire or does it scale down to 8x for each card when running in Crossfire mode? __________________ *How You Can Help DriverHeaven By Using Digg*

Sep 26, 2005, 10:29 PM	#22
Asmoday Demonic Join Date: May 2002 Location: In the cold, dark north... Posts: 5,196 Rep Power: 80	Great review Stu! __________________ How You can help Hardwareheaven by using Digg

Sep 27, 2005, 01:02 AM	#23
WxChaser Super Moderator Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 404 Rep Power: 0	There is a new southbridge already under development by ATI to be seen later in next iteration of the motherboards.

Sep 27, 2005, 01:29 AM	#24
mike2h DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: norcal Posts: 6,483 Rep Power: 79	kinda makes you wonder if ati is pulling one of nvs little tricks of using consumers to beta test(nv does it with drivers) with this mb release. just an observation. aside from getting these mbs in the pipeline(which is very important) before they release r520 master cards, there is no real point to the release of crossfire at this time. especially as far as the 8xx cards go. __________________ Last edited by mike2h; Sep 27, 2005 at 06:20 AM.

Sep 27, 2005, 05:01 AM	#26
Falstaff Old Codger Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: USAFA Posts: 18,834 Rep Power: 176	excellent article Allan and Stewart, worthy of setting an industry standard.... Only one typo...but hey, I can live with that..I make them all the time....LOL __________________ REMEMBER THE DREAM DRIVERHEAVEN

Sep 27, 2005, 06:44 AM	#28
mike2h DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: norcal Posts: 6,483 Rep Power: 79	sorry, had to do it. __________________

Sep 27, 2005, 09:36 AM	#29
SFOSOK 939 Goin Strong Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Ontario Posts: 6,984 Rep Power: 74	I like the pic, Crossfire = backfire the theme? Also those of you wondering about Super AA, Nvidia has one that works a little better but both are almost pointless right now because of the FPS dive it takes (even at low resolutions). There was an article on the site but I can't seem to find it now. __________________ Warning - Explicit Content Preceeding METAL!!

Sep 27, 2005, 10:05 AM	#30
knuth DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Johannesburg, South Africa Posts: 73 Rep Power: 0	I'd still opt for a single card solution any day. Duel cards are way too over the top and ineffecient as far as economics go.