CrossFire and AIWs: Is It Doable?

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PGHammer

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The question basically is this: I'm a major AIW fanATIc. In fact, all of the ATI cards I've ever owned (save one) have been AIWs of various sorts, including my current AIW 9700 Pro. I'm looking to build a new system of the PCIe flavor, and, of course, I'd prefer to build it around an AIW (in fact, the AIW X1900, since it's going for cheap right now; in fact, cheaper than the AGP-based AIW X800XT). However, CrossFire has a lot to recommend in terms of multi-GPU firepower (and the motherboard I'm building the system around, Intel's D975XBX, is CrossFire-ready), and I'd rather NOT shoot myself down by locking myself away from doing the CrossFire Dance just because I happen to own an AIW (especially since, from what I have heard, the X1900 Crossfire Edition will pair up with other X1900s just fine). However, there is nothing (not even from ATI) regarding compatibility of AIWs with Crossfire. Has anyone gotten an AIW to play nice in a CrossFire setup? What *gotchas*, if any, should I be aware of regarding an AIW-cored CrossFire setup? The system will *initially* be used with XP MCE 2005 (and either dual-booting with, or upgrading to, Vista Ultimate Edition when it ships).
 
I don't believe so. I DO know, however, from personal experience that using two ATI cards in one computer with one being an AIW gets rid of the AIW's features, making it more or less the same as the non-AIW version. This was with a PCI 8500 AIW and a Radeon 9000 AGP, though, so it might be different now with CF. This was with CCC, though. I believe it is a limitation of ATI's drivers.
 
PWMK2 said:
I don't believe so. I DO know, however, from personal experience that using two ATI cards in one computer with one being an AIW gets rid of the AIW's features, making it more or less the same as the non-AIW version. This was with a PCI 8500 AIW and a Radeon 9000 AGP, though, so it might be different now with CF. This was with CCC, though. I believe it is a limitation of ATI's drivers.
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You ran into that issue because your AIW was on the PCI bus, automatically making it the *secondary* card. (You can't use an AIW *as an AIW* and have it as the secondary card, per ATI's documentation.) Had you made your AIW 8500 the *primary* card, you would have been fine. There *is* a way to make your AIW primary, even with an AGP card, but would you really want slower performance?

In my planned configuration (in the typical CF fashion), the CF Edition card would be the slave, and the AIW would be the master/primary card, so *technically*, I shouldn't run into your issue.
 
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