Crossfire dont understand it

[alphaqforever247]

the part i dont understand is the video cards what is a x1900CF edition vs a reagular x1900xt. i know with sli u juss get 2 lets say 7800gtx to run sli. is it the same with CF juss buy 2 x1900xt or u need 1 x1900xt and a 1900CF edition??? and if soo does the brands have to be the same. and also why is CF like that.

 

[ReDgUaRd008]

You need a Crossfire Edition and a Regular Card. And any brand will work.

 

[Trimlock]

as long as its not 2x CF editions, yea you can use just strictly the CF version

 

[rcf1987]

Personally I think CF was poorly put together. Ati was worried about SLi so they just through something together.

 

[MrGuvernment]

arent they, or havent they already ditch the master card crap - it was only somehting put into place to support the x1800 ine ?

 

[Brent_Justice]

No, the CrossFire edition is still needed.

To have multi ATI video cards one has to be a regular card and the other a "CrossFire Edition". This is because the CF edition has the hardware compositing chip and special digital connection to connect the cards together with the external dongle.

You can use a CF card as a standalone card, an X1900 XT CrossFire is just an X1900 XT with the composite chip and special DVI link, so it will work just like a single X1900 XT as a single card. But if you want two of them you'll have to get a regular X1900 XT or XTX, the clock speeds will remain at default, no downclocking is done even though the X1900 XT CF is an X1900 XT, it won't downclock your XTX.

You need a CF card of the same generation and model to work with whatever you want to hook it up with. If you have an X1800 XT for example there is an X1800 CrossFire Edition card for that model.

However, with the X1600 you don't need a CF Edition card, two of any two X1600's will work in CF mode because they don't use an external dongle, they communicate solely through the PCIe bus.

The X1800/X1900's are so fast though that the PCIe bus isn't enough for them, so that is why they need a secondary external connection. SLI uses the bridge chip on top, ATI uses an external dongle cable.

Hope that helps

 

[gersson]

Master card is kinda annoying but it works well.

You need 1 CF edition and one regular.

I just bought a Crossfire ATI card for $500 on zipzoomfly.

So I have:

1 x1900 Crossfire Edition card
1 x1900XT(X) card.

Put them in a Crossfire Motherboard like the A8R32-MVP (which I own) and you're set.
An Nvidia nForce 4 SLI chipset will not allow crossfire @ all. So make sure you use an Xpress chipset mobo (prefereably the Xpress 3200)

 

[Trimlock]

arent they, or havent they already ditch the master card crap - it was only somehting put into place to support the x1800 ine ?

it was the last ditch attempt to get multi card support for the X800 line up, since it had zero development pre release for it, i think it was some kind of miracle they were able to achieve it so late in the game, it had its costs though

Personally I think CF was poorly put together. Ati was worried about SLi so they just through something together.

CF is definetly not poorly put together by any standpoint other then production, it works well, and it works fine, so far anyone that has wanted to build a CF set has been able to do so with little to no head aches (plus this argument hardly needs to be in this thread), they didn't just throw something together, definetly not something that can support up to 14xAA with out taking a 70% dive in performance ... thats not exactly something i'd call "thrown" together

 

[Brent_Justice]

It had a very "thrown together" feel at the start, more so than SLI did at the start. Oh the troubles I could tell you about I've had with CF, I could write a novel, and I know Kyle can as well.

It has improved quite a bit though.