crossfired 1950xtxs = dissapointment

infin@

Gawd
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
812
I have been running these cards for little over 8 months and have been very happy with the results. The addition of a second card bumped my 3dmark06 score 5k from around 7k to 13k. Most of the games I have been playing showed major improvements in both frame rates and image quality thanks to the advanced AA and anisotropic filtering options. (CSS, HL2, Quake4, Fear, Medieval TW)
I wanted to wait for the second or third batch of DX10 video cards before I upgraded from my current card setup. That looks to be a while off as of right now so I'm planning on playing on them until the new year. No biggie.
What frustrates me is the problems I have been having as of late with some of the new titles coming out. Bioshock, the UT3 demo, and the Cryis demo have all shown negative performance gains when crossfire is enabled. Now I realize that they are nvidia sponsored games or whatever, but seriously WTF! If the game doesn't crash out of the gate (which it does 5 times out of 7) the average frame rate drops by as much as 5fps!! I hate just having this extra card sitting in my case idling and rendering nothing, but enabling makes things worse!
Immature drivers are to blame I'm sure, and the problems with the demos are really just minor annoyances. Just wanted to rant a little bit and see if anyone else is getting fed up with the driver support from amd/ati. I am just tired of a game coming out and it taking a month before I have the required drivers to play it smoothly. sigh.
 
It's the same way with nvidia. Dual card configs have to be adjusted for each games through drivers and game patches.
 
I have been fairly happy with my setup.

I so wish the two cards would actually double the peformance. ;)
 
I think this is the last time I go with a dual card config. Over clocking my crossfire setup past the limits of the ccc overdrive option was a pain in the ass to configure. I wish ati would release some kind of super advanced overdrive option that would allow you to adjust the voltage as well as upping the frequencies past the 1.1ghz memory, 700mhz core limits.
Upgrading from one card is already expensive, but the prospect of having 2 1950xtxs sitting in boxes in my closet is the main reason why I'm not upgrading for a while.
 
Just to think, I plan on selling my two cards and upgrading to two more ATI cards.

I never thought I would spend close to $1000 on just video cards. Its just madness. ;)
 
Guess this is the price to pay to be "hip" with CF/SLI :cool:

QFT, damn urge for a bigger epenis. After dropping around $650 (canadian) on my cards they are probably worth 1/3 of that now, not to mention the water blocks I installed on them. sigh
 
I have had my X1900 Crossfire setup for over a year now and while tweaking is sometimes necessary for optimal performance I must say I love it to death. IQ and framerate are fantastic in everything I play @ 1680x1050. World in Conflict is the only thing I can't totally max out so far. Bioshock was a dream, no issues. I do hate the dongle though, that thing is so cumbersome. I am very happy with the purchase, it has kept me at all high settings longer than most other 3D platforms I've owned.
 
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