[Master Chief]

ATI has finally done it. They have finally done Multi-GPU like NVidia. It's called CrossFire. Apparently it also uses PCI Express, but is a Little different from SLI. It requires a special motherboard? I know SLI does to but for this it needs to be "Crossfire Ready". The two cards dont have that little thin bridge like the SLI but rather they plug into each other. Check it out-

http://ati.com/products/crossfire/index.html

 

[Valcrist]

Seen this a while ago, but I don't think I'm gonna do the whole multi gpu thing any time soon anyway, so its not really that interesting to me...maybe in the future.

 

[Razor Blade]

It's just too much money. Glad ATi caught up though. Kinda sucks when you don't get double the performance though. More like 75% more than with just one card. Kind of a rip ....

 

[fivefeet8]

Yeah. This is sorta old news. Ati announced it's Crossfire Chipset at Computex already. Looks interesting. Atleast it should give Nvidia's SLi some much needed competition. Hopefully, they can get it released to retail sooner rather than later. They're pretty much playing Catch-up to Nvidia at the moment.

 

[Viper_Viper]

THey say it will be better than Nvidia's SLI...

 

[MaZa]

Does ATI require "driver support" for each game like Nvidia does? Even though there was problems with keyb inputs delaying in older faster 3dfs SLI, it worked with every 3d game, i would rather see that than hoping that NVidia would give support to game i want and such...

 

[fivefeet8]

THey say it will be better than Nvidia's SLI...

That's what THEY always say. The boards and cards haven't even gotten reviews by hardware sites yet. Let alone into user hands to test for themselves.

Ati promises a lot of capability with their SLi chipset, but nothing has even surfaced for any sort of meaningful testing. I remember people gawking about how ATi's Sli would allow any ATi video card to be sli'd. The final product announcement stated otherwise. Ati claims it's SLI will be compatible with any game without game profiles. We'll have to wait and see.

 

[fivefeet8]

Does ATI require "driver support" for each game like Nvidia does? Even though there was problems with keyb inputs delaying in older faster 3dfs SLI, it worked with every 3d game, i would rather see that than hoping that NVidia would give support to game i want and such...

Nvidia's SLi doesn't require driver support per se. More like a game profile. Current drivers already allow users to make their own SLi game profile for whatever game they have.

 

[Viper_Viper]

Nvidia's SLi doesn't require driver support per se. More like a game profile. Current drivers already allow users to make their own SLi game profile for whatever game they have.

Yes, but I beleave that ATI said their crossfire will work with any Direct3D game, no "game profiles" needed.

 

[Aided Onslaught]

I'm just glad they aren't "behind" anymore. If you like one side or the other, you still need the other side to push things, helps both companys. Also it help you save money...

 

[RF]

I'm also tired of people complaining about having to buy an ATi board aswell. What did they expect?

 

[ChankastRules]

I do remmeber posting the exactly same news some weeks back ( perhaps we should have some kind of system to keep track of what have been posted ) to search each time is just way too much work.

 

[Viper_Viper]

I'm also tired of people complaining about having to buy an ATi board aswell. What did they expect?

I dont think you have to buy an ATI motherboard to use crossfire (though ATI recomends it :evil: )

 

[D.D.]

didnt ati also claim that there wud be no need for any physical link btwn the two boards ( and in a way saying theirs is superior in this aspect vs nvidia's sli bridge)??? then now they have that external cable which in looks worse/less asthetically pleasing/less practical in my opinion.

 

[fivefeet8]

Yes, but I beleave that ATI said their crossfire will work with any Direct3D game, no "game profiles" needed.

That's what they claim, but lets see what happens when the chipset and cards go retail. Ati's version of Sli doesn't use Scan Line Interleaving like the way 3dfx did it. So there could also be compatibility problems with it. We won't really know until they are available for hardware sites to review.

 

[ChrisRay]

Yes, but I beleave that ATI said their crossfire will work with any Direct3D game, no "game profiles" needed.

You dont even need profiles for Nvidia hardware either. You can force SLI globally with any 7x.xx driver and beyond. The profile system is there for flexibility.

 

[darian]

You dont even need profiles for Nvidia hardware either. You can force SLI globally with any 7x.xx driver and beyond. The profile system is there for flexibility.

They claim that crossfire improves performance in all games unlike what we have seen from sli. The only reason I would choose crossfire over SLI is because it doesn't need identical cards. It will certainly have driver and compatibility problems in the beginning, because that's just the way ATI works. But I still think it's a better multi-gpu solution than SLI.

 

[fivefeet8]

I dont think you have to buy an ATI motherboard to use crossfire (though ATI recomends it :evil: )

If you read on the ATi website, they do state that you will need an ATi crossfire enabled motherboard to use it.

 

[ChrisRay]

They claim that crossfire improves performance in all games unlike what we have seen from sli. The only reason I would choose crossfire over SLI is because it doesn't need identical cards. It will certainly have driver and compatibility problems in the beginning, because that's just the way ATI works. But I still think it's a better multi-gpu solution than SLI.

Thats already been proven false. If a game is CPU limited. No amount of GPU power is going to improve performance. Why have a second graphic card throwing more heat into your case at full load when you can turn it off in CPU limited scenerios.

You're buying into the hype buddy. 2 Graphic cards will not perform any better in CPU limited scenerios regardless of the multiGPU setup. Its just not possible.

 

[toplerone]

Damn I'm waiting from DFI to get those crossfire boards out to the market. Getting two R520's is what im waiting for

Jeez im wondering is my 3Gig Venice a bottleneck then