HardOCP's ATI CrossFire Evaluation

Very good read! I agree with the review as it seems to have hit all of the major point’s right on the head about the technology itself. SLI sounds like it has better implementation all the way around, despite some of ATI’s promises.
 
Looks good. Seems the X8x0 Crossfire solution still needs plenty of price/performance justifictation for not going the nf4 SLI route. Can't wait to see the results of XI800 next week.
 
Like you said in your conclusion, there really isn't a point to purchasing the current gen CrossFire cards, when a single 7800GTX is just as fast/faster, is cheaper overall, and has more features.

With the release of the X1800 cards right around the corner, I'm actually surprised that ATI would even go ahead with releasing the X850 Crossfire cards. I can't see more than a handful of people purchasing these cards, especially since the people who want CrossFire/SLI are the people that know a 7800SLI or X1800 CF setup will absolutely destroy an x800 CF setup.

Great review though, too bad we weren't reading it about 6 months ago. :)
 
I use a CRT, so the refresh rate thing is an issue for me. Considering that it is a hardware limitation imposed by the dreaded "dongle," is there any chance that the new x1800 cards will be able to work around this problem? They will be using the dongle, too, right? Also, how does overclocking work (or not work) with Crossfire?

Other than that, it looks fast but just too late to market, coming post 7800 series as it has. Obviously this is for R520. The other problems looked like driver growing pains and everybody has had problems with BF2.
 
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.
 
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.
Click to expand...

Does anybody know if it has been fixed, or will this question have to wait for NDAs and R520 reviews?
 
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.
 
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?
 
The tech preview gave me high hopes for Crossfire, but once again the [H] comes through with an honest assessment of the finished product. It also appears from what Brent wrote in the article that Crossfire has NO multi-monitor support. Sorry ATi, but I MUST HAVE MY DUALLY MONITORS! I'm glad to know my money went to the NF4 SLI Setup.

Crossfire does merit a revisit provided ATi can get rid of those nasty 60hz refresh limits, and the lack of multi monitor support.
 
"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.
 
Also, NVIDIA's newest drivers (so far beta REL 80) support mixing and matching GPU's in SLI :)
 
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?
Click to expand...

You can't "mix and match" GPUs with crossfire either - one card is the "master" and the other card is whatever you happen to have. Can't just grab two random ATI cards and have them work together; so, no, I don't see that as an advantage for ATI. In fact, as explained in the article this thread is about, it might actually be a disadvantage when you have a lower end x800, for instance, but still pay high-end x800 prices for the "master card." Then, once you install them both, your "high end" master card drops pipes to match up with the slower card. With Nvidia, if you have a low end card, you pay low end prices to add another in SLI.
 
Kind of disappointing, glad I stopped waiting for ati and went nvidia.

Hopefully with the next generation of cards, crossfire becomes competitive in price, performance, and features, instead of not being competitive in any of those areas.

That 1600x1200 + refresh thing is killing them, though, even if they get the other stuff working. How can you sit there with a crossfire rigged capped at 1600x1200 when the guy next door isn't with SLI... or even with a single GTX?
 
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?
Click to expand...

From the 81.26 Forceware release notes

"Mix and match vendors - for example, pairing an SLI supported graphics card from MSI with one from BFG or XFX"

http://www.tcmagazine.info/comments.php?shownews=10753&catid=3

Oh and ATI better put some better chips in their new r520 cards, cause limiting those new fellas to 1600x1200@60hz would really hurt *looks at 2405fpw*

Oh and I also read the review over at driver heaven....heh. I love how they basically never enabled any AA on any of the tests and magic, CF looks better, what a SHOCK!

still, from a old school ATI user, this is lame.
 
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.
Click to expand...

I also understand that the latest 80.xx series of drivers allows mixing of different cards w/ different clockspeeds, but same GPU.
 
dnavarro said:
Also, NVIDIA's newest drivers (so far beta REL 80) support mixing and matching GPU's in SLI :)
Click to expand...

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...


I really dont see why people are soo down on the tech as most of these issues were know before. The dongle was know a long time ago, and while thats a point, it dont see it being a deal breaker...as both require some time of connector. The limit on the res/refresh also was know about a few weeks ago. The only real dissapointing thing was the hit that the super AA modes take (suppoed to be fixed by drivers). What was good to see that xfire did work out for the most part well. I mean given you have 3 different modes and lots of ways it has to share data, I was expecting some much higher driver overheads which would result in lower xfire scores.... the real neat thing will be to see how the R520 does before we can say xfire is good or it sucks...
 
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.
Click to expand...

Well ATi was trying to make Crossfire work with their pre-Crossfire cards, which weren't built with any kind of multi-gpu in mind (As far as the PCB goes I guess), It's a hacknee solution if you ask me. ATi needs to get pro-active in development of thier boards rather than reactive.
 
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?
 
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?
Click to expand...

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...
Click to expand...

Competition, even when poorly provided, helps the customers (US!) get good deals and new cool stuff. Even though X-Fire looks less then appearling at the moment, it will push Nvidia to improve SLI.
 
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?
Click to expand...

Well there are some that are locked to an LCD monitor that can not display even that res, so for them its an opition (a bad option but at leas its there) :)

However your missing the bigger point, and that is why would anyone even consider this when ATI's next gen is less than 10 days away?
 
All HardOCP and HardForum pages are taking about 15 seconds to load for me. On the Crossfire review, the big images (the ones that pop up) aren't loading at all.
Is anyone else having this problem? All other sites are fine for me.
 
Kyle/Brent:

This wording could be tweaked a bit as there is some miss-understanding:

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 can’t 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?
Click to expand...

Well while thats true, its not the full answer. xfire was supposed to work with all existing x800 class cards. With that in mind, the DVI connction on all of those cards is limited to 165 mhz. So it really does not matter which SiL chip ATI eneded up using as the Slave card was nver gonna to be able to send data any faster to the master card, which mean its the slaves output that limits the res/refresh (not the master cards chip). Thus the res/refresh limit is due not to ATIs "forgettfulness of largescreen/res" but more of a design trade off when they wanted to ensure that all of those x800 class cards would work. Now in no way shape or form am I saying its was good idea for them to do that. Just a lot of bad press has been made about the SiL 1161 chip as being the root cause when really the limitation lies elsewhere... And your right it something that is more or less "easy" to fix for the next gen. The way your stamement reads is that is all due to the master card SiL 1161 chip...when in fact that chip is not the real cause...
 
i have a 2001fp so that works out perfectly for me.
out of curiosity are they planning a x1800 crossfire release at the same time of the other x1800's or is it gonna take forever to get those?
 
wow amazing...it pwns 6800ultra sli even in Doom3..it also beats a 7800gtx...but costs a lot more :p
 
Cant wait to see how many people buy this setup even with its limitations and it being more expensive with little to no performance gains over a single 7800GTX.
 
"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?
 
Bulletproof 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?
Click to expand...
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.
 
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.
Click to expand...

While thats true, there still is some info to gain by looking at the 6800 and the single 850 numbes which shows that xfire is not that bad. Besides anyone that thinks xfire on the x800 cards stands a chance to be as fast as or fater than nv 7800 should loose the right to post here :)
 
its all about comparisons, buddy. it is a competitor cause its out on the market. directly? no but who cares, it's direct competition is late to the race.


edit.... too late heh
 
When I first read the article I kept thinking "to little, to late"....but then after thinking about it and reading again it was just "to late". Honestly, nVidia cheated from a competition point of view since they borrowed the technology from 3dfx indirectly. Would I do the same thing...you BET! It is all about making money to them. So in this round...nVidia wins.

However, ATI has shown that they can do it another way and they can do it competitively (based upon equal tech aka. excluding 7800GTX). So...I'll wait and see.

-tReP
 
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?
 
First and foremost, great review. Secondly, I feel like im in the enemies territory :p as I like nVidia and well, just look at my sig. Anyways, It was about where I placed it before the review, for the most part below a 7800GTX. But I am interested to see it with an X1800 in the X850XT's place. I think why a 7800GTX SLI was not included in this review was becuase probably becuase since a single 7800GTX was beating CF, 7800GTX's in SLI would have really beat it, but X850XT are older technology, kinda like comparing apples to oranges, you just cant do it. But if you compare apples to other apples, its a fair contest, aka X1800 to 7800GTX. But overall, if the X1800 performs as they say it should, it should be a very interesting review of that and 7800GTX in SLI.

Added: I also find it stupid what ATi did with that dongle. First off, people already have enough cables in the back of their comp, why need more! Secondly, limiting the refresh rates was a bad move. Most games today are played a high resolution like 1600x1200, if not higher, and to have 60Hz at that res hurts and is stupid. They better fix it and maybe one day not even need a dongle, like SLI now doesnt really need a connector.
 
Anyone else having problems accessing the review?

Actually it appears [H] is running pretty slow right now.
 
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?
Click to expand...
Overkill?
It gets beat by a single 7800GTX. When the x1800 CF comes out there better be some 7800 SLI numbers alongside.

Like most others I'm pretty dissapointed by this too... why would they even release this?
An 'extreem high end' system that cant do more then 60hz = garbage, the resolution cap is garbage as well. They must have had too much money already invested in the x850 crossfire cards and are trying to push em out on the ATIdiots

ATI drops the ball yet again.
 
it wont load for me either, but i will not pass judgement (even though i have an SLi rig) Untill the X1800 CF benchmarks come out
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top