ATi Crossfire Tested

[^eMpTy^]

I think the main thing to look at here is the impressive results ATI is getting with 2 cards. They get a far better performance increase with 2 cards than nvidia does with their version of SLI. This looks to be promising for those in the market for video cards and not a car.

no way...not even close...the AnandTech preview doesn't support such a statement at all...

 

[mikelz85]

well, the numbers are certainly there if you look at them, don't know what was up with UT2004, as those were shitty. Until someone throws a benchmark up with a 3.4ghz FX, I don't think anyone can say the 7800gtx SLI setup is limited, while the xfire setup is not. Of course, I'll probably get jumped on by all the people that take hypothetical situations way too seriously, but whatever, that's what this forum has become. I think they need a video card gen may forum, and a seperate one for real video card discussion.

 

[Rollo]

My apologies for not reading what you have read so go ahead an retch all over, all i had read pointed that this was compitble with any and all games the way ATi designed it, that was the benefit over NVIDIA's SLI - i also was not aware NVIDIA had a fall back profile - as i understand SLI was that if NVIDIA did not have a profile, it would not work with dual cards where as ATI will and can always use both cards in their provided modes NVIDIA did not have.

But thank you for clarifying that, now i know better.

ATI only has tiling as a different mode. Both have AFR and SFR, although I've been told ATIs form of SFR is static, not dynamically balanced. (therefore less effiicient)

In the nVidia control panel you can set it to use AFR or SFR on non-profiled games.

Having two or one fall back SLI modes doesn't guarantee benefit, or that the game will even run right- you have to test that. The defaults only provide a starting point.

Sorry to be surly.

 

[tornadotsunamilife]

Also it is to my understanding that the master and slave card do not have to be the same card? (ie X850 master, X800 slave) If this is true (I stress I'm unsure on this and I retract anything I say if I'm wrong) then surely this provides a more promising upgrade path rather than it's competitor.

I'm just trying to weigh up the pro's and con's of each technology.

 

[Rollo]

Also it is to my understanding that the master and slave card do not have to be the same card? (ie X850 master, X800 slave) If this is true (I stress I'm unsure on this and I retract anything I say if I'm wrong) then surely this provides a more promising upgrade path rather than it's competitor.

I'm just trying to weigh up the pro's and con's of each technology.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2432&p=10
You're sort of right. The problem with this is that it will synch to the slowest card because you can't have one card rendering every other frame, or half of it, faster than the other. So, there's a really good reason to have them be the same card- maximizes benefit.

Con of all X8xx Crossifire is SM2/FP24 feature set and watching everyone with SLI play games like SC:CT, Far Cry, and Riddick with options on while you still have to use 2003 features. How much you want to bet this trend continues rather than stopping, especially in light of ATI getting SM3 cards later this year?

 

[^eMpTy^]

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2432&p=10
You're sort of right. The problem with this is that it will synch to the slowest card because you can't have one card rendering every other frame, or half of it, faster than the other. So, there's a really good reason to have them be the same card- maximizes benefit.

Con of all X8xx Crossifire is SM2/FP24 feature set and watching everyone with SLI play games like SC:CT, Far Cry, and Riddick with options on while you still have to use 2003 features. How much you want to bet this trend continues rather than stopping, especially in light of ATI getting SM3 cards later this year?

Although it's nice of ATi to make CrossFire work with x800s...I kinda wonder if it'll be worth it in the end...seems to me like anyone who could afford a new motherboard and a master card, could afford an R520 or a G70...

 

[tornadotsunamilife]

I was wondering how exactly a SM3.0 card could work in conjunction with a SM2.0 card, seems like a struggle but if they pull it off then it appeals to more people.

 

[^eMpTy^]

I was wondering how exactly a SM3.0 card could work in conjunction with a SM2.0 card, seems like a struggle but again appeals to more people in the end.

Judging from the different master cards that have already been announced I would say that R520 most definitely will NOT work with x8x0 cards...

 

[tornadotsunamilife]

LOL fair enough, I mean the R520 architecture is extremely different to the X8X0's

 

[BullseyeBob]

^empty^ and Rollo, why do you guys try so hard to convince the rest of us to hate ATI? Do you not have any games to play on that Nvidia hardware you love so much?

 

[FanATIc]

^empty^ and Rollo, why do you guys try so hard to convince the rest of us to hate ATI? Do you not have any games to play on that Nvidia hardware you love so much?

simple, they arent trying to impose this train of thought on just everyone else, they want to keep reassuring themselves they're right as well. Its the same as in politics. Just ignore them, what i did. Though rollo can be stupid funny (such as ULI making junk showing he either cant read or doesnt want to read) so i read his stuff.

 

[^eMpTy^]

^empty^ and Rollo, why do you guys try so hard to convince the rest of us to hate ATI? Do you not have any games to play on that Nvidia hardware you love so much?

From my perspective it's you who are trying to convince everyone that ATi is perfect...and frankly, they're not...luckily most people are smart enough to actually read the reviews instead of listen to !!!!!! dribble...so I guess it's no big deal...

 

[Chris_B]

Snore, threads that mention ati and nvidia and f@nboy should be locked on sight.

 

[tornadotsunamilife]

From my perspective it's you who are trying to convince everyone that ATi is perfect...and frankly, they're not...luckily most people are smart enough to actually read the reviews instead of listen to !!!!!! dribble...so I guess it's no big deal...

Who said ATi are perfect? I have never seen that in any text anywhere (and I've been to some strange places). And nobody is trying to convince anybody, I'm sure people who can afford such things know to make a decision.

 

[FanATIc]

Who said ATi are perfect? I have never seen that in any text anywhere (and I've been to some strange places). And nobody is trying to convince anybody, I'm sure people who can afford such things know to make a decision.

those two, and prime1 as well, do its religously. The dongle sucks, CrossFire blows, ATI cant make motherboards, R520 will be a peice of shit compared to the Ultra and too late, if you're graphics card doesnt have support for HDR and SM3.0 your gaming experiance will be severely hindered, i could go on but why. The main message they attempt to spread every thread is that ATI failed and should give up etc etc...this is what they do. You can say what you want about me but i dont put down nVidias products and i never have. All i try to do is show an option to bias and for that im hung by their type.

edit-typo

 

[^eMpTy^]

Who said ATi are perfect? I have never seen that in any text anywhere (and I've been to some strange places). And nobody is trying to convince anybody, I'm sure people who can afford such things know to make a decision.

From the first page of this thread:

Looks good to me. I'm glad they are getting things working right be4 releasing it. I can just imagine buying a dual card set-up that's full of bugs and shit and not getting anywhere with it for months until finally, proper drivers and profiles start showing up. That would piss me off. Glad to see Crossfire will come out when its ready and working.

This is what I'm talking about. People say I'm trying to convince people ATi sucks, I'm not, I'm trying to counter ignorant nonsense like this.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills...how the hell do you read AnandTech's preview of CrossFire, which is buggy as hell, no CrossFire AA, no Control Panel AA, doesn't work unless you have the cards in the right slot etc...and come away with "good job ATi for waiting so long to release CrossFire"...

I just don't understand this mentality whatsoever.

CrossFire is behind SLi by 8 months and counting, and it's buggier now than SLi ever was. And as long as nobody tries to tell me that's a good thing, I have no problem.

 

[tornadotsunamilife]

Well interestingly I've been strongly against all the 'must have SM3.0 now or die' debates going on. It just sems like a waste at the moment that's all. More on-topic, please make up your own decisions! Not one which someone on another continent makes.

 

[Chris_B]

CrossFire is behind SLi by 8 months and counting, and it's buggier now than SLi ever was.

And your whole judgement on crossfire being buggy is because 1 site previewed hardware and software that was still not final. Id hate to see you be a friggin games reviewer, you'd review a beta of a game then cry like a child about it being buggy and not bother trying the retail version.

 

[tornadotsunamilife]

But at the end of the day, the performance IS there. If this is a just a buggy bit of technology that is behind SLi and wont be out for awhile still then you must agree that it will be very good if this is it 'poorly implemented'.

 

[FanATIc]

For the record SLI's phyical life cycle has gone as such:


January- Garbage, few cards in retail, none at MSRP. Beta performance on latest official drivers
Febuary- Garbage, no profiles outside of the 8 or so games it shipped working with still. You can pay 1000+ dollars for this though!
March to Now- User profiles and more pre-set profiles added (Decent)

all the while CrossFire was announced "ATI is copying and wont have it out for over a year or probably more"
ATI announces CrossFire at Cebit working. Now its "ATI is late, SLI is too far ahead" (point of this comment i have no idea).

Well lets see, by my mathmatical count of months, i think there are still 12 in a year right? SLI has been decent and useful for about 4 months. So apparently ATI should be insulted for releasing CrossFire anytime this year (doesnt matter its late!), which would be a feat in its own since nVidia claimed their SLI was in the works for years. Zero credit, only problems and insults highlighted, though alot of credit is infact do, they'll get none from certain people. This is what im talking about.

 

[^eMpTy^]

those two, and prime1 as well, do its religously. The dongle sucks, CrossFire blows, ATI cant make motherboards, R520 will be a peice of shit compared to the Ultra and too late, if you're graphics card doesnt have support for HDR and SM3.0 your gaming experiance will be severely hindered, i could go on but why. The main message they attempt to spread every thread is that ATI failed and should give up etc etc...this is what they do. You can say what you want about me but i dont not put down nVidias products and i never have. All i try to do is show an option to bias and for that im hung by their type.

LOL...you get exactly what you deserve...everyone else tells it like it is...and you try desperately to convince everyone asking that HDR, SLi, PS3.0, better motherboards, better multi-monitor support, better linux drivers, better opengl drivers, etc don't matter...

Luckily ATi's stock price speaks for itself...

But let me get off of the anti-ati bandwagon, I like CrossFire, when R520 comes out, it's going to give nVidia a very serious run for its money and in all likelihood will end up the faster solution. The only questions that remain are when, how much, and will it be fast enough to justify going with a lesser motherboard.

 

[^eMpTy^]

And your whole judgement on crossfire being buggy is because 1 site previewed hardware and software that was still not final. Id hate to see you be a friggin games reviewer, you'd review a beta of a game then cry like a child about it being buggy and not bother trying the retail version.

I've said absolutely nothing about the final version, I'm quite sure it'll be just fine. I'm simply comparing SLi to CrossFire at equal stages of production. AnandTech also did a preview of SLi before it was finalized, and in comparing that preview (written 8 months ago), they had far less problems with SLi than they did with CrossFire...

So the argument that ATi is taking their time to "get it right" doesn't exactly make sense...because despite the 8 month lag time, they still aren't more stable than SLi was pre-release.

 

[Blethrow]

I have a 7800 GTX driving a 30" Apple Cinema Display (2560 x 1600) and it will drive HL2 at around 60fps at that resolution. The 3DMark05 score at full resolution is about 4100. If you normalize this value to the number of pixels being driven (4.096 megapixels), that's like getting a score of 21354 at 1024 * 768 (0.768 megapixels).

Thus, these low resolution (1600 and under) tests don't even come close to unleashing the real power of a single 7800 GTX, let alone two in SLI, and are pretty meaningless.

 

[Chris_B]

I've said absolutely nothing about the final version, I'm quite sure it'll be just fine. I'm simply comparing SLi to CrossFire at equal stages of production. AnandTech also did a preview of SLi before it was finalized, and in comparing that preview (written 8 months ago), they had far less problems with SLi than they did with CrossFire...

So the argument that ATi is taking their time to "get it right" doesn't exactly make sense...because despite the 8 month lag time, they still aren't more stable than SLi was pre-release.

Doesn't matter you're complaining about bugs from hardware and software thats not final, for all you know the hardware and drivers were several months old as anandtech had no clue either. And this whole "buggier than sli ever was" statement is utter crap. Unles you just happened to have access to an sli setup months before its release (and im sure you'll claim you did just to backup your argument) you've no way of knowing how buggy sli was before its previews and release.

 

[^eMpTy^]

For the record SLI's phyical life cycle has gone as such:


January- Garbage, few cards in retail, none at MSRP. Beta performance on latest official drivers
Febuary- Garbage, no profiles outside of the 8 or so games it shipped working with still. You can pay 1000+ dollars for this though!
March to Now- User profiles and more pre-set profiles added (Decent)

all the while CrossFire was announced "ATI is copying and wont have it out for over a year or probably more"
ATI announces CrossFire at Cebit working. Now its "ATI is late, SLI is too far ahead" (point of this comment i have no idea).

Well lets see, by my mathmatical count of months, i think there are still 12 in a year right? SLI has been decent and useful for about 4 months. So apparently ATI should be insulted for releasing CrossFire anytime this year (doesnt matter its late!), which would be a feat in its own since nVidia claimed their SLI was in the works for years. Zero credit, only problems and insults highlighted, though alot of credit is infact do, they'll get none from certain people. This is what im talking about.

So you're assuming that once launched CrossFire will be both completely bug-free and readily available.

Cuz ATi has been all about hard launches recently.

Think about this for a second. SLi just works with any PCI-E card nvidia makes. For CrossFire ATi has to make separate master cards for each series...that's 3 new cards they have to hard launch to catch up to nvidia...they haven't hard launched a card in years...what makes you think they're going to do it now?

 

[FanATIc]

I have a 7800 GTX driving a 30" Apple Cinema Display (2560 x 1600) and it will drive HL2 at around 60fps at that resolution. The 3DMark05 score at full resolution is about 4100. If you normalize this value to the number of pixels being driven (4.096 megapixels), that's like getting a score of 21354 at 1024 * 768 (0.768 megapixels).

Thus, these low resolution (1600 and under) tests don't even come close to unleashing the real power of a single 7800 GTX, let alone two in SLI, and are pretty meaningless.

maybe to you, another comment thats kinda getting extremely stupid. How many people have monitors or the need to go over 1600x1200, let alone the most popular LCD resolution which is 1280x1024. Not many people have friggan screens bigger then the average TV's. They're not gonna make a benchmark to please the .1% of the people out there that actually will be effected by the results. Everyone else just wants to say "haha see so and so does shittier at this resolution (even though no one uses it!)". Im happy that nothing higher is listed, one less thing for some stupid meaningless argument to start over.

So, im terribly sorry, those scores at those resolutions are absolutly posatively not meaningless to the large largeeeee majority.

 

[^eMpTy^]

Doesn't matter you're complaining about bugs from hardware and software thats not final, for all you know the hardware and drivers were several months old as anandtech had no clue either. And this whole "buggier than sli ever was" statement is utter crap. Unles you just happened to have access to an sli setup months before its release (and im sure you'll claim you did just to backup your argument) you've no way of knowing how buggy sli was before its previews and release.

Do you really think any company would just be like "yeah, we haven't ever shown this to anyone else, and you're a huge review site and everyone's going to read your review and judge whether or not to buy our hardware, but here's some old cards with crappy bioses and here's some drivers from 6 months ago, do us proud"...I doubt it.

I DIRECTLY stated that I was comparing the preview of SLI from anandtech to the preview of CrossFire from anandtech...I've said that like 3 times now...I even linked to the preview...

All I have said is that the preview of SLi last october was more stable than CrossFire is right now according to anandtech...here's a summary of those two articles:

SLi:
-------------------------
Graphical glitches (anandtech)
Trouble getting FarCry to run in SFR (hardocp)
Had to send 6800Us back for new ones (hardocp)

CrossFire
-------------------------
Control Panel AA doesn't work
CrossFire AA doesn't work
Some monitors don't work with the dongle
Have to put the cards in a certain slot order
Have to put the dongle on certain port
Random driver issues
Graphical glitches

My eyes aren't perfect, but it looks to me like the second list is a little longer.

 

[^eMpTy^]

maybe to you, another comment thats kinda getting extremely stupid. How many people have monitors or the need to go over 1600x1200, let alone the most popular LCD resolution which is 1280x1024. Not many people have friggan screens bigger then the average TV's. They're not gonna make a benchmark to please the .1% of the people out there that actually will be effected by the results. Everyone else just wants to say "haha see so and so does shittier at this resolution (even though no one uses it!)".

So, im terribly sorry, those scores at those resolutions are absolutly posatively not meaningless to the large largeeeee majority.

Yeah but that 1% of people with huge LCDs is the same 1% that will buy a dual card setup. That's why people buy these setups...so they can run at higher resolutions.

duh

 

[BullseyeBob]

My eyes aren't perfect, but it looks to me like the second list is a little longer.

^lol nice self created list. not biased at all. lmao. you are ignored to clean up the forum on my end at least.

 

[tornadotsunamilife]

How come this is all from Gigabyte anyway? Surely ATi would of released the cards and motherboard for preview themselves to a website such as anandtech if they were ready to show its performance.

 

[^eMpTy^]

^lol nice self created list. not biased at all. lmao. you are ignored to clean up the forum on my end at least.

for crying out loud...

here's the preview, just read it yourself, then come back and tell me I'm biased:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2258

hell I even included the problems hardocp had in their preview...and it still didn't add up to half the problems of CrossFire...

 

[^eMpTy^]

How come this is all from Gigabyte anyway? Surely ATi would of released the cards and motherboard for preview themselves to a website such as anandtech if they were ready to show its performance.

That's a good question. I can't imagine Gigabyte would do it without ATi's permission. But it is a bit odd.

 

[DejaWiz]

I find this argument kind of humorous.

First off, most of us knew that the 7800GTX was coming months before it actually launched. Any at that time, nVidia didn't specify a launch date Thankfully, nVidia didn't bite off more than they could chew by switching to a completely new fab process resulting in yield problems (could happen to any manufacturer of any kind of device). And because of this, thankfully they were able to make the 7800GTX available to everyone the day of launch.

In fact, I remember reading preview articles for SLI before it launched. We knew about that in advance too, but again there was no specified launch date.

Lots of manufacturers provide non-released stuff so the world can get a glimpse of what's to come. CPU makers do it. Video card makers do it. Hell, even the car makers do it.

So why is ATI getting their asses kicked by a majority of people for providing beta hardware for web sites to preview? They never specified a specific launch date. It's been said that they've switched to a new fab process that resulted in yield problems for R520. They speculate a launch date sometime in August-October. Doesn't make sense to me why people are so pissed that R520 and Crossfire weren't on the market last month-ish.

I have an SLI motherboard and an nVidia card now. I absolutely love them. Doesn't make me hate ATI to the point of senseless arguing because nVidia has it and ATI doesn't yet. ATI's R4x0 cards are great performers. Sure they may lack some of the features of nVidia cards now, but it's been stated that will change with R520.

When ATI specifies a release date for both Crossfire and R520 and if they don't deliver, then let the complaining begin. But for right now, what really is the point?

 

[Chris_B]

Do you really think any company would just be like "yeah, we haven't ever shown this to anyone else, and you're a huge review site and everyone's going to read your review and judge whether or not to buy our hardware, but here's some old cards with crappy bioses and here's some drivers from 6 months ago, do us proud"...I doubt it.

And do you really think ati would be advertising features like new fsaa modes then giving a preview to a site like anandtech with none of these modes working? I doubt it. If anything ati would want to have all the new stuff working before dishing out previews to the big online sites.

 

[trinibwoy]

They get a far better performance increase with 2 cards than nvidia does with their version of SLI.

You should actually do the calculations yourself before you make such statements. I have and you are quite wrong. You're right about it being promising though.

 

[Blethrow]

Settle down, Beavis.

Very high resolutions are where these cards are pushed to the limits. If you don't test them at high resolutions, all your test tells you is that the rest of your hardware doesn't justify getting a really high end video card. It's like dropping Ferrari and Porsche engines into a Corolla and then saying well shit, they still top out at 110 'cause that's where they start blowing tires, thus there must not be any real difference in these engines.

Anyway, I meant the test is not meaningful in a scientific manner. Obviously it's meaningful to people with low res monitors. But then they already knew that a 6800Ultra would be plenty for now, didn't they?

The fact that the monitor market hasn't caught up with the rendering hardware is irrelevant. Besides, the monitor market is catching up really quickly. How many people here have 2405s?

maybe to you, another comment thats kinda getting extremely stupid. How many people have monitors or the need to go over 1600x1200, let alone the most popular LCD resolution which is 1280x1024. Not many people have friggan screens bigger then the average TV's. They're not gonna make a benchmark to please the .1% of the people out there that actually will be effected by the results. Everyone else just wants to say "haha see so and so does shittier at this resolution (even though no one uses it!)". Im happy that nothing higher is listed, one less thing for some stupid meaningless argument to start over.

So, im terribly sorry, those scores at those resolutions are absolutly posatively not meaningless to the large largeeeee majority.

 

[^eMpTy^]

And do you really think ati would be advertising features like new fsaa modes then giving a preview to a site like anandtech with none of these modes working?

And yet it happened?

Maybe they figured it would help boost their plummeting stock?

 

[Chris_B]

And yet it happened?

This week, we were very lucky to get our hands on a CrossFire motherboard and a CrossFire master card from Gigabyte.

Not really. And untill you can find text in that article saying this was an official ati preview of crossfire the point still stands and you can't escape the fact.

 

[coldfusion71]

Not really. And untill you can find text in that article saying this was an official ati preview of crossfire the point still stands and you can't escape the fact.

so you think gigabyte unilaterally gave anandtech the hardware without any consultation with ati? come on.. ati is probably trying to create buzz aroudn a product that iis looking more and more like a day late and a dollar short .

 

[trinibwoy]

so you think gigabyte unilaterally gave anandtech the hardware without any consultation with ati? come on.. ati is probably trying to create buzz aroudn a product that iis looking more and more like a day late and a dollar short .

I agree. It's highly unlikely that this went off without ATi's blessing since it showcases their technology a lot more than Gigabytes. It's a "Crossfire" preview, not a "Gigabyte motherboard preview".