Definitely interesting; very interesting. I look forward to seeing what kind of performance ATI has in store for us; its approaching time for me to replace my first computer; The summer of 2005 shall be interesting indeed :)
If it works anywhere near as well as its supposed to, it will be amazing. It is definitely better than SLI in terms of compatability. The only bad part is that now, Ill have to spend another $700 to have top graphics preformance that I don't really need. At least it will (hopefully) make old games look much better.
Originally Posted by uwannabigmak If it works anywhere near as well as its supposed to, it will be amazing. It is definitely better than SLI in terms of compatability. The only bad part is that now, Ill have to spend another $700 to have top graphics preformance that I don't really need. At least it will (hopefully) make old games look much better.
If your x850 is PCI-e, then this is what you will really love. Get the X850 Crossfire and you can link it to your current card. :) That will save you a few bucks.
And bigz, not to be picky or anything, but i heard from the Inq that only ATI can make the crossfire, and not brands like saphire and powercolor. dunno if its true but your article suggests that you can get a saphire crossfire card. :)
I can't wait for benchmarks. Have you run any yet bigz? i know you did and just trying to tease me by holding back ;)
Well i know now what im upgrading to this fall:
Dual core Pentium somthing comboed with 2x R520 :D
Froggy, it seems ATI are initially making all of the crossfire master cards, but this production will be moved to their board partners after a short period.
From the initial benchmarks, the crossfire implementation seems to match SLI nicely, beating it quite often.
The Sapphire board has the added bonus of the mosfet area being coolable via a standard Northbridge sink (there are mounting holes available as well) which seems a great feature.
Not sure if this is true of all the boards, however the sapphire also boasts 4v Vdimm (with up to 30amps deliverable), 2.0v vCore (limited from a max possible of 2.7) 4 phase power regulation. Seems pretty well feature packed for overclockers tbh :) The extra space between the 2 16* connectors is great for extra airflow too, tho it seems ATI are opting more for a dual slot design now.. Bios also seems pretty feature packed, almost everything thats available in the DFI appears to be present, including a manual option for vtt :|
The board partners will sell the CrossFire cards. ;)
You don't need that extra space, because of the way that the cooling solution works - pulls air in through the power end of the card and out through the back. Sapphire's CrossFire board did not have cooling on the mosfets. There may be a 'Pure' version soon, but right now it is a blue board that we have seen from Sapphire.
maybe my "sped redin skils" failed me, but will this work with nforce4 mobos with two pcie slots? or will an upgrade require a new mobo AND second video card?
For the moment you will require an ATI CrossFire motherboard. However, I get the impression that ATI have plans to get this working on the likes of NForce 4 SLI and VIA's K8T890 Pro chipset.
Originally Posted by bigz For the moment you will require an ATI CrossFire motherboard. However, I get the impression that ATI have plans to get this working on the likes of NForce 4 SLI and VIA's K8T890 Pro chipset.
hmmm......with the X800's coming down in price significantly since when i bought mine i think on my next pc (which may be next year sometime) a pair of X800 XT's would be affordable. this way of doing things is much better and (even more so if they do get it working on the NForce4 SLI chipset) easier since as long as you get the master card for the right series of cards then it will 'adapt' and the fact all the connections are external and theres no fiddling in your bios or flipping cards and moving jumpers about is just awsome.....can't wait to see performance figures
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And bigz, not to be picky or anything, but i heard from the Inq that only ATI can make the crossfire, and not brands like saphire and powercolor. dunno if its true but your article suggests that you can get a saphire crossfire card. :)
I can't wait for benchmarks. Have you run any yet bigz? i know you did and just trying to tease me by holding back ;)
Well i know now what im upgrading to this fall:
Dual core Pentium somthing comboed with 2x R520 :D
From the initial benchmarks, the crossfire implementation seems to match SLI nicely, beating it quite often.
The Sapphire board has the added bonus of the mosfet area being coolable via a standard Northbridge sink (there are mounting holes available as well) which seems a great feature.
Not sure if this is true of all the boards, however the sapphire also boasts 4v Vdimm (with up to 30amps deliverable), 2.0v vCore (limited from a max possible of 2.7) 4 phase power regulation. Seems pretty well feature packed for overclockers tbh :) The extra space between the 2 16* connectors is great for extra airflow too, tho it seems ATI are opting more for a dual slot design now.. Bios also seems pretty feature packed, almost everything thats available in the DFI appears to be present, including a manual option for vtt :|
You don't need that extra space, because of the way that the cooling solution works - pulls air in through the power end of the card and out through the back. Sapphire's CrossFire board did not have cooling on the mosfets. There may be a 'Pure' version soon, but right now it is a blue board that we have seen from Sapphire.
If they do then ;)