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HardOCP's ATI CrossFire Evaluation: Please give it a read and let us know what you think about the technology.
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Brent_Justice said:The Resolution/Refresh problem is a problem of the current compositing chip and single link TMDS transmitters.
It is a problem that can be fixed for the next generation.
Twig and Berries said:you can't mix and match gpu's with sli so am I the only one that doesn't see ati's implementation as not a dissadvantage?
Twig and Berries said:you can't mix and match gpu's with sli so am I the only one that doesn't see ati's implementation as a dissadvantage?
Old_Way said:"you can't mix and match gpu's with sli so am I the only one that doesn't see ati's implementation as not a dissadvantage?"
With the setup being limited by the speed of the slower card, it's not much of a disadvantage.
dnavarro said:Also, NVIDIA's newest drivers (so far beta REL 80) support mixing and matching GPU's in SLI
provoko said:Bugs can be fixed. But crossfire will always be impractical if ATI keeps the current dumb dongles, stupid primary secondary configuration, and horrible instillation/drivers.
You would think the competitor would make things simpler and easier.
forcefed said:I cant believe ati is actually gonna be releasing these cards to the market with a 1600x1200@60hz limitation, thats like buying a lambo with a 100mph limit... whats the point?
Jbirney said:thanks to xfire Firingsquad said it best....xfires only real contributions was to force nV to also include this and better AA support as both were annoced first on xfire...
forcefed said:I cant believe ati is actually gonna be releasing these cards to the market with a 1600x1200@60hz limitation, thats like buying a lambo with a 100mph limit... whats the point?
You see, the data is transmitted over the DVI connectors through an external cable. The chip that drives the DVI connection on the master card is the Silicon Image SiL 1161 chip. This single link chip receives the output that is passed over the external link from the slave card and passes it on the master card....
We see this as a major flaw in the current CrossFire platform because the performance may be there to run at 1600x1200 or higher, but you will be limited to only 60Hz at 1600x1200, which is not good for a gamer. There is also no support for high widescreen resolutions at all with this limit. What is the point of CrossFire if you cant run it at a high resolution with a high refresh rate? Why did ATI forget about, or worse ignore widescreen users who run large LCDs?
Crossfire was released after the 7800GTX so yes it is fair to compare them. Expecially when the 7800 GTX does everything stated above at a better price. Currently this is ATI's best offerings, and needs to be put againts both comparable price solutions and best performance solutions. It pretty much lost bothBulletproof said:"Alternatively, you can purchase just one single GeForce 7800 GTX, which is CHEAPER than the CrossFire needs mentioned above and it runs on all current PCI-Express motherboards. In our performance testing, the single GeForce 7800 GTX was able to match or beat the CrossFire platform in performance and image quality. The 7800 GTX also defeats the CrossFire platform in features for future game titles. "
Is the 7800 GTX meant to compare with the X850 though? I though the R520 was supposed to be it's competitor?
DocFaustus said:Crossfire was released after the 7800GTX so yes it is fair to compare them. Expecially when the 7800 GTX does everything stated above at a better price. Currently this is ATI's best offerings, and needs to be put againts both comparable price solutions and best performance solutions. It pretty much lost both
When the R520 comes out, it too will be subject to the same tests.
Overkill?ir0nw0lf said:As usual, great review, right to the point, no sugar-coating like *cough* other sites tend to do. My question is this: why were there no 7800GT, 7800GT SLI or 7800GTX SLI benchmarks in this for comparison?