ATI Crossfire Beats Nvidia SLI

Wow, it won in two games and 3D Mark in Windows Vista.

Still smells like bullshit given that SLI usually scales better than Crossfire and the HD 2900XT is significantly slower than the 8800GTX.
 
Who said this?

quotehardocpjs9.gif
 
You aren't going to get reliable information from a system integrator (or the "personal" blog of a system integrator employee). I don't care if it's AMD, NVIDIA, XGI or Intel - it's very difficult to be able to see validity in it, because, inevitably, they're selling you the exact end-product, whereas hardware sites are selling space for resellers to attempt to sell you the product.
 
Oh and I forgot to add, there was a bug in the drivers they used which only allows one of the GTX's to work properly, the other just sits there basically.
 
And this comes as a surprise to who, exactly? SLI has been broken in Vista for some time now, with no end in sight. So yeah, if you really want the most powerful dual GPU solution under Vista, there's only one choice: ATI.

Of course, there's two sides to every coin: if you enabled AA on the HD 2900 XT, the scores would be a lot closer. Really, who pays $400+ for a card that tanks with FSAA turned on?

Lucky for us, Nvidia hardware is fast enough that most people won't feel the itch for two high-end cards. Dual HD 2900 XTs require a nuclear reactor, plus a set of full-size cooling towers to operate safely :D
 
If you guys looked at the review posted they benchmarked the XTX and not the XT which is already kinda cheating since they are using XTX benchmarks in an XT article...:rolleyes:
 
I like how he calls benchmarks lies and then counters with his own benchmarks.

Really though this test is worthless. Yes nvidias vista support is a fiasco and they need to be taken to task for it. Then again there isn't a current real world dx10 game worth playing out, so any benchmarking you do at this point is a shot in the dark at what may or may not happen. Hardly the kind of information you'd want to base a product purchase off.

On the other hand real life dx9 testing for actual games, in common game engines, is possible right now, and ATi looks pretty stupid currently in that aspect. And this information is a valid reason to purchase a product today.

And while we are at it he's talking dual GPU's. There is a lot more to this situation then just the video cards, it's the entire platform.

If you really wanted to make a compelling argument for picking the 2900xt over the 8800gts this is where to do it. As intels chipsets with crossfire support tend to perform a lot better, with less issues, then nvidias nforce 680i sli.
 
Also, isnt the XTX just an uberclocked version of the XT? Hence why they arent making the XTX because its too hot.
 
It would be an extremely interesting test to have a 3rd-party *ahem*Site we are on*ahem* give this a try. Under Vista, everything I have seen indicates that Crossfires scales *better* than SLI. I'm not too sure how you are going to do an apples to apples comparison, though, since the motherboards would have to be different, thus introducing a second variable.
 
Caffeinated said:
It would be an extremely interesting test to have a 3rd-party *ahem*Site we are on*ahem* give this a try. Under Vista, everything I have seen indicates that Crossfires scales *better* than SLI. I'm not too sure how you are going to do an apples to apples comparison, though, since the motherboards would have to be different, thus introducing a second variable.
Click to expand...

Hopefully soon we'll be able to even the playing field with the Intel X38 boards, but SLI support is still up in the air at this point. All I know is my 2 2900XTs perform great in Vista with my Bad Axe 2, I'm happy with their performance and I will leave it at that.
 
RussianHAXOR said:
Also, isnt the XTX just an uberclocked version of the XT? Hence why they arent making the XTX because its too hot.
Click to expand...

No the XTX is the 65nm R650 chip, but according to whomever, it worked slower than the XT with a higher gpu and memory frequency, and ran hot so they dropped it. Or atleast postponed r650
 
Really? Why would they have a 65nm part come out at the same time as an 80? Also, why would it run hotter if it runs at a smaller die.
 
Simpson5774 said:
No the XTX is the 65nm R650 chip, but according to whomever, it worked slower than the XT with a higher gpu and memory frequency, and ran hot so they dropped it. Or atleast postponed r650
Click to expand...

I've never heard this. I've always heard it was to be a higher frequency part with 1GB of ram.
 
Simpson5774 said:
No the XTX is the 65nm R650 chip, but according to whomever, it worked slower than the XT with a higher gpu and memory frequency, and ran hot so they dropped it. Or atleast postponed r650
Click to expand...

No. The XTX is the same as the XT, only they cherry pick the cores (which means we'll see higher frequencies than the ones used in the XT by default) and used 1 GB of GDDR4. Not only will this card be rare, but it will also have quite an hefty price tag, with a minimal performance boost. I really don't understand why would ATI/AMD want to launch this...
 
Dan_D said:
I've never heard this. I've always heard it was to be a higher frequency part with 1GB of ram.
Click to expand...

Yah, same here. Thats why i was so surprised to hear the words 65nm and i dont think it was ever slower, just hotter.
 
I donno much about the 6 series vs the X series, or much about the 9000's vs the FX's, but I do know about X1k vs the 7 series, and it seems to me X1k took that one in stride.

The X1800 outperformed the 7800 wherever I looked (apparently die hard NV fans wern't lookin in the same place as I'm sure someone will quote me and plop me down at Toms claiming "LOOK AT THIS REVIEW!! YOUR FULL OF BULL!!"), unfortunatly for ATI it was a little late. The X1900 showed up far erlier then the 7900, it outperformend, and was suceeded by the X1950XTX, which, by use of a single core, was able to perform on par with Nvidias 7950GX2. Bad drivers still keep qual SLI down. The X1900 XT and X1950 XT were also able to hit a price/performance point that is holds its ground even today.

So, While I started out an Nvidia fan boy going into the 7 series, shamefully looking at the charts with the most slanted attitude in mind, in heinsight, the X1900 was a much better card.
 
MrWizard6600 said:
I donno much about the 6 series vs the X series, or much about the 9000's vs the FX's, but I do know about X1k vs the 7 series, and it seems to me X1k took that one in stride.

The X1800 outperformed the 7800 wherever I looked (apparently die hard NV fans wern't lookin in the same place as I'm sure someone will quote me and plop me down at Toms claiming "LOOK AT THIS REVIEW!! YOUR FULL OF BULL!!"), unfortunatly for ATI it was a little late. The X1900 showed up far erlier then the 7900, it outperformend, and was suceeded by the X1950XTX, which, by use of a single core, was able to perform on par with Nvidias 7950GX2. Bad drivers still keep qual SLI down. The X1900 XT and X1950 XT were also able to hit a price/performance point that is holds its ground even today.

So, While I started out an Nvidia fan boy going into the 7 series, shamefully looking at the charts with the most slanted attitude in mind, in heinsight, the X1900 was a much better card.
Click to expand...



Wrong. The 7 series ruled the roost for the better part of a year until the x1900 series caught up to them. The 7800GTX was released in May/June of 05' and ATI didn't have even close to an answer until they released the x1800xt (ATI's highest end card - there was no x1800xtx) series VERY late in the game (much like the R600) and it still.

The 7800GT effectively beat out its direct rival (the x1800xl) in nearly every game and benchmark and was almost as fast as the 1800xt and was definately faster than the x850xt PE (ATI's high end before the release of the x18xx series).

The x18xx series couldn't compete with the any 7 series card, so ATi released their refresh (the x19xx series) only 3 months after the introduction of the x18xx series. Upon that release, nVidia let loose their 7800GTX 512.

ATI's x1900 series beat up nVidia's 7800 series cards, but nVidia knew that and was prepared to release their refresh one week after ATI's x19 series - the 79 series. EVERYONE knows the 7900GTX and the x1900xtx traded blows with each other with ATI winning only in shader heavy games. nVidia only made one refresh after the 7900 release and that was the 7950GT, which doesn't even have a GTX model because its the same G71 chip as the GTX simply downclocked slightly to save cost. The only other exception would be the 7950GX2, but that wasn't a refresh - it was a concept and remains the fastest single slot card of last generation including the xtx.

nVidia wasn't worried about the 79 series competing against the ATI refresh (the x1950 series) because they were looking forward to the 8 series and didn't really care.

Get your facts straight before posting.
 
Dark Prodigy said:
Wrong. The 7 series ruled the roost for the better part of a year until the x1900 series caught up to them. The 7800GTX was released in May/June of 05' and ATI didn't have even close to an answer until they released the x1800xt (ATI's highest end card - there was no x1800xtx) series VERY late in the game (much like the R600) and it still.

The 7800GT effectively beat out its direct rival (the x1800xl) in nearly every game and benchmark and was almost as fast as the 1800xt and was definately faster than the x850xt PE (ATI's high end before the release of the x18xx series).

The x18xx series couldn't compete with the any 7 series card, so ATi released their refresh (the x19xx series) only 3 months after the introduction of the x18xx series. Upon that release, nVidia let loose their 7800GTX 512.

ATI's x1900 series beat up nVidia's 7800 series cards, but nVidia knew that and was prepared to release their refresh one week after ATI's x19 series - the 79 series. EVERYONE knows the 7900GTX and the x1900xtx traded blows with each other with ATI winning only in shader heavy games. nVidia only made one refresh after the 7900 release and that was the 7950GT, which doesn't even have a GTX model because its the same G71 chip as the GTX simply downclocked slightly to save cost. The only other exception would be the 7950GX2, but that wasn't a refresh - it was a concept and remains the fastest single slot card of last generation including the xtx.

nVidia wasn't worried about the 79 series competing against the ATI refresh (the x1950 series) because they were looking forward to the 8 series and didn't really care.

Get your facts straight before posting.
Click to expand...

Seems accurate to me, especially the 7950GX2, that card crushed everything ATI/AMD had, not to mention it yielded some quite high overclocks pushing it yet further, and of course quad SLI with this card provided performance that ATI/AMD could only dream of.
 
I won't say that the GX2 crushed everything ATi had, it is faster than everything ATi had but it should be faster because it is two cards in a single slot so it is not a fair comparison if you campare it with an ATi's single card. The GX2 should only be compared with Sapphire Dual X1950Pro. If you want to compare the GX2, you should at least compare it with a Crossfire setup because the GX2 is two 7900GT in one slot.
 
alg7_munif said:
I won't say that the GX2 crushed everything ATi had, it is faster than everything ATi had but it should be faster because it is two cards in a single slot so it is not a fair comparison if you campare it with an ATi's single card. The GX2 should only be compared with Sapphire Dual X1950Pro. If you want to compare the GX2, you should at least compare it with a Crossfire setup because the GX2 is two 7900GT in one slot.
Click to expand...

Actually, if you want to be really fair, you should compare the GX2 with a card using similar tech from ATI, which simply never existed.
IMHO, the GX2 was last generation's marvel. I was quite impressed with it, when NVIDIA introduced it.
 
Frosteh said:
Seems accurate to me, especially the 7950GX2, that card crushed everything ATI/AMD had, not to mention it yielded some quite high overclocks pushing it yet further, and of course quad SLI with this card provided performance that ATI/AMD could only dream of.
Click to expand...

Well, Quad-SLI never actually worked as intended. Most of the times, it yielded performance very similar to a normal SLI setup. Only in a few cases, it actually showed some awesome performance numbers. Nevertheless, it is true, that ATI/AMD never produced anything like the GX2, so Quad-Crossfire was never an option.
 
alg7_munif said:
I won't say that the GX2 crushed everything ATi had, it is faster than everything ATi had but it should be faster because it is two cards in a single slot so it is not a fair comparison if you campare it with an ATi's single card. The GX2 should only be compared with Sapphire Dual X1950Pro. If you want to compare the GX2, you should at least compare it with a Crossfire setup because the GX2 is two 7900GT in one slot.
Click to expand...

It's a single slot card end of story, it's a perfectly fair comparison to any single ATI card, like a lot of other cards it took up 2 banks inside your PC but then again so does my 8800GTX. Not only that but it only used 1xPCIe power connector which is the same as the high end ATI part.

The card upon release didn't cost much more than the 7900GTX which at the time had fallen in price anyhow, so anyone hunting for a 7900GTX had little reason not to spend the little extra for the large performance increase.

Maybe "crushed" was a bit over the top but it certainly beat it by a substantial margin although performance, as with all SLI based tech, was variable from game to game.
 
Silus said:
Oh, I'm aware of that card, but not only it arrived too late (IIRC it was released when there were already 8800's out there), but it's also not an ATI design, but rather one of their partners.
Click to expand...

Never heard of it, looking at the review, it was compared to the 8800 cards so must have been very late in the game, iterestingly enough no comparison to the GX2, but if you check relative performance the 7950GX2 is on par with the 8800GTS 320 in a lot of benchmarks where as the ATI card falls behind in the link, as long as them numbers are reasonably accurate that would put relative performance lower than that of a 7950GX2
 
if you really want to be fair

the X1900XTX provided better IQ then the 7900GTX, but ran hotter and used more power, while most of the time was faster

the 7950GX2 was faster then a single 1950/1900xtx but sli vs xfire they traded blows, and ATI still provided better IQ,
 
I typically buy nVidia cards for a variety of reasons, but if I could have afforded an upgrade last year it would have been an X1950-series. Not only was it a strong performer, but the intro MSRP was great and prices only got better, plus the HQ AF and the good scaling with AA were attractive. The overall value for money equation was heavily in ATi's favor. The 7900GS was and is awesome for the price, but I just couldn't get past the IQ tradeoff. When I plunk down the big bucks, I just hate the thought that I'm foregoing features that are available in the market.

I'm still broke this year, but now the choice would be 8800 series.
 
We will have a "real" 2900XT CrossFire evaluation on Monday of next week. It is ready to go now, but given the holiday we will wait to publish it when it gets more readers. Again it looks like real world gaming is showing a different picture than the canned benchmarks.

Radeon HD 2900 XT CrossFire is most certainly a waste. It just does not deliver the kind of performance advantages ATI needs to compete with what NVIDIA already has in the marketplace. Sapphire has created a very complete retail package that would suit any ATI fan well and Sapphire should not be looked down on for the substandard gaming experience that ATI has delivered this generation. I would say stay away from Radeon HD 2900 XT in CrossFire at this time; it just isn’t worth it when better can be had for cheaper.
Click to expand...
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
if you really want to be fair

the X1900XTX provided better IQ then the 7900GTX, but ran hotter and used more power, while most of the time was faster

the 7950GX2 was faster then a single 1950/1900xtx but sli vs xfire they traded blows, and ATI still provided better IQ,
Click to expand...

Turning off optimisations for the 7xxx range closed the IQ gap considerably, while I would agree even then that ATI had the "crown" when it came to IQ, with optimisations turned off I would also say that the difference was negligable. Texture crawling or "Shimmering" was a bit of a problem for some people but using the clamp optinions seemed to fix that for the most part.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top