ATI Backs Up CrossFire Quality @ [H]

CamaroRacing said:
I have been using the Asus P5RD1-V which uses the Xpress 200 chipset and I have had no problems with it at all. Its been totally stable. I'm even using a nVidia card on it. :D
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I am happy for you, unfortunately the one I grabbed for my neighbor fails miserably with any video application.
 
TehRoflcopter said:
I think i'll wait for more CrossFire motherboards to arrive before I decide to move to CrossFire.
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This may be the best advice in here. I was bitten by the "early adopter" bug when SLI came out and it won't happen again. With only one crossfire MoBo available, I would steer clear until the solution has matured just a little bit at least ;)
 
This is exactly why I stuck with my DFI NF3 board until May of this year. Sure, I won't be on the absolutely bleeding edge of the absolute newest hardware, but stability of overclocks is more important than getting those last few 3D E-penis marks out of my box.
 
Excellent article Kyle. If I hadn't read it, I wouldn't have realized that I'm not the only one suffering from this boot issue problem on my new DFI crossfire board. I spent a great deal of time trying to locate the problem, but nothing seemed to solve it. That's when I read this article. It sure cleared things up for me.

I have to say though, other than the boot/reboot issue, the board has been running great. It's rock solid stable in every condition I've checked so far. I'm using a Sapphire X1800 XL video card currently with it. I haven't had time to test it's overclocking cappability yet though.

After reading the article, I made a point to contact DFI about the issue. Here is the letter I wrote:

Hello,

I recently purchased a DFI Lanparty UT RDX200 CF-DR. This is my first time
purchasing a DFI motherboard. I purchased the board based on the very high
reputation that DFI has in the enthusiast market. This board commanded a
premium price at purchase, almost twice as high as any other motherboard I
had ever purchased in the past. But for the features and performance I was
expecting out of this board, I was willing to commit to the purchase.

Overall, I'm very happy with the motherboard's performance and stability
under normal operating conditions. However I am experiencing a problem with
the motherboard. The motherboard has a very difficult time rebooting. After
reading different sites online, I feel that I am not alone in this problem.

After recently reading the article at this URL at [H]ardOCP:
http://hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODg4 , I decided that I should contact
you to let you know that I am suffering from the same problem.

I am very curious to hear about a solution to the rebooting/booting problem.
I would like to have this issue fixed for me as well in the future.

This has been my first DFI purchase, and I would not want to make it my
last. When it's up and running, it runs like a dream. But I'm having a hard
time overlooking the boot/reboot issue, especially due to the premium price
tag this board commands.

If you could please contact me to inform me of the solution to the problem,
I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks,

Nathan Risto
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Here is the response that DFI sent back to me about the issue:

Dear Customer,



Thank you for taking time to submit us the information. Since we were supposed to be prior technical partner of ATi CrossFire motherboards, had already sent samples to ATi for “Certified motherboards” program and will have pass the program soon in the future. Regarding the symptom you have might still caused by isolated incident, since the distributors of main territory and more users were purchased our LANPARTY RDX200 CF-DR and system works properly for few period. And the primary major components were selected from high-end requirement. We believe the subject on certain forum as you mentioned might come from some well-known competitor trying to attack our prestige.

Above is for your reference.



Best,

-------------------------------------------------------------

DFI Technical Support Team

100 Huan-Ho St., Hsi-Chih City, Taipei, Taiwan, R. O. C.

http://www.dfi.com
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As of right now it seems to me that they are starting to give me the run-around about the issue. Clearly with the number of people witnessing this problem along with recognition from the media, the problem exists.

The whole reason I purchased this card was my long standing relationship with ATI products and the reputation recieved from others about DFI motherboards. It's hard to fathom that my first very expensive DFI motherboard would have a minor glitch that is clearly there and DFI is probably not going to do anything about it. Not only that, but they are already trying to deny it.

Let it be known that if DFI doesn't ever resolve the issue for me, it will be the last DFI motherboard I own. I will also not recommend the company to anyone else.
 
I own a DFI RDX200 and couldn't agree more with this review, I just wish I read about it more before purchasing it. Normally I would not purchase a DFI motherboard, but this is the only Crossfire enabled motherboard that you can purchase right now. The motherboard will refuse to boot 3 out of 4 times. One time it stopped booting completely until I used the CMOS jumper. Other people seem to be reporting voltage problems. The people who are going to buy these boards are in the high-end cutting edge market, these problems are UNACCEPTABLE, and the motherboard should have been recalled completely so that other consumers would not have to go through this.
 
To all of you who have issues with the motherboard: Print a copy of this review, go back to the shop where you got it, and return it. Tell the store managers.

Kyle: Thanks for the review. It was a very polite way of saying "the whole ATI motherboard situation sucks right now, stay clear".

I know I definitely will.

Who buys ATI based motherboards anyway?
 
justice said:
To all of you who have issues with the motherboard: Print a copy of this review, go back to the shop where you got it, and return it. Tell the store managers.

Kyle: Thanks for the review. It was a very polite way of saying "the whole ATI motherboard situation sucks right now, stay clear".

I know I definitely will.

Who buys ATI based motherboards anyway?
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:rolleyes:

Other than the reboot issues, this board is SOLID. Everyone knew the short comings in regards to USB performance and RAID options, but it is what was advertised.

The biggest problem with this board is the users, just as most DFI high end products. This isn't discounting what Kyle has found, just this board is very different than a NF4 based board and must be tweaked differently.

In one weekend I was able to tweak my way to on par benchmark scores with my RDX200 as I did with my DFI NF4 board.
 
justice said:
To all of you who have issues with the motherboard: Print a copy of this review, go back to the shop where you got it, and return it. Tell the store managers.

Kyle: Thanks for the review. It was a very polite way of saying "the whole ATI motherboard situation sucks right now, stay clear".

I know I definitely will.

Who buys ATI based motherboards anyway?
Click to expand...

As much as I would like to return this motherboard, I have nothing else to turn to. I definitely want to build a Crossfire system. Recently problems with my old hardware forced me into upgrading much earlier than I anticipated. So that is the only reason that I now own this Crossfire motherboard and new X1800 XL.

If there were any other Crossfire motherboards available, I would at least consider changing. But I also want the great overclocking ability that this board is going to give me. So that leaves me with little to change over to.

I know that I don't want to go back to nVidia and have no interest in an SLI setup. So unless DFI can find a fix for this problem, I maybe stuck with it. Fortunately I hardly ever reboot anyway.
:p
 
tomv said:
"No anti anything" ... that does not make sense. A large amount of what passes for reviews on hardware sites (not talking about one site in particular) are really anti-xxxxx rants based on poor information, poor testing, inexperience and immaturity. Those reviews are irresponsible and tend to skew public opinion in the wrong direction.

I thought the article was much better than previous ones in terms of being anti-ATI. For a long time [H] was obviously very pro-ATI and anti-NVidia. Now they have switched around. It is easy to tell when there is a bias because you see a lot of personal opinions (rather than reviews), attacks on the company, posting of internal emails etc.

So I say thumbs up to [H] for a more balanced article free of personal attacks or retoric.

What most people fail to give consideration of is that motherboards, chipsets, CPUs and GPUs are very difficult to design. You are taking the work of a large number of people and companies with varying skill levels and trying to get it to all work as a unit. If even one person fails then everything falls apart.

A good example is the delay on the R520 (X1800) GPU. Apparently there was an extra logic gate possibly inserted as part of a 3rd party library that caused months of delay. While the delay was going on many hardware sites were filled with rants about what a lousy company ATI was and how NVidia was now king again. All BS possibly designed to get people to visit their site or maybe just a example of immaturity. Either way not worth reading except for the entertainment factor.

It could be that ATI's chipset requires a very well designed motherboard and is not forgiving to poor designs or poor sub-components. Maybe the chipset could be improved to be more forgiving and to work with lower quality components. However, that does not mean that the ATI design is flawed.

Intel seems to do a very good job of making quality chipsets that work in a wide variety of motherboards from the inexpensive brands on up. But if you buy a cheap Intel based board and put the wrong brand of memory in it then you will have major problems. On the other hand if you buy a better motherboard you can get away with cheap memory. I have had first hand experience with that exact problem.

So for all the ranting and anti-xxxxx people out there who are complaining about motherboards they have or have not purchased ... I say stop reacting to the hype and stop spreading the hype.
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I am not sure what you're talking about in response to my post, I was referring how we aren't anti-anything, more pro-consumer...that is what drives us and what mindset we're in when we do evaluations.
 
Ristogod said:
Excellent article Kyle. If I hadn't read it, I wouldn't have realized that I'm not the only one suffering from this boot issue problem on my new DFI crossfire board. I spent a great deal of time trying to locate the problem, but nothing seemed to solve it. That's when I read this article. It sure cleared things up for me.

I have to say though, other than the boot/reboot issue, the board has been running great. It's rock solid stable in every condition I've checked so far. I'm using a Sapphire X1800 XL video card currently with it. I haven't had time to test it's overclocking cappability yet though.

After reading the article, I made a point to contact DFI about the issue. Here is the letter I wrote:



Here is the response that DFI sent back to me about the issue:



As of right now it seems to me that they are starting to give me the run-around about the issue. Clearly with the number of people witnessing this problem along with recognition from the media, the problem exists.

The whole reason I purchased this card was my long standing relationship with ATI products and the reputation recieved from others about DFI motherboards. It's hard to fathom that my first very expensive DFI motherboard would have a minor glitch that is clearly there and DFI is probably not going to do anything about it. Not only that, but they are already trying to deny it.

Let it be known that if DFI doesn't ever resolve the issue for me, it will be the last DFI motherboard I own. I will also not recommend the company to anyone else.
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I can't believe they replied with such an ****head response, I think I will be waiting for another manufacturer to come out with a crossfire capable motherboard. FU DFI!
 
BTW, This might have been mentioned already, but it seems that in alot of their motherboard boxes that a header piece crushes the SATA connectors on the board in the box and totally bends the port or breaks the port off the board. A store had to totally deny all it's shipments of RDX200 boards because of this. If you guys don't believe me check the forums over at dfi-street, if the moderators haven't deleted the thread. Luckily this didn't happen to me, but I am still having boot issues.
 
Anyone notice the nice comment in the response? Could we have a puppet?

And the primary components were selected from high-end requirement; they should not affect CrossFire capability. We believe the subject on certain forum as you mentioned might come from some well-known competitor trying to attack our prestige.
 
R1ckCa1n said:
Anyone notice the nice comment in the response? Could we have a puppet?

And the primary components were selected from high-end requirement; they should not affect CrossFire capability. We believe the subject on certain forum as you mentioned might come from some well-known competitor trying to attack our prestige.
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That makes for some great marketing spin!
 
Ristogod said:
As much as I would like to return this motherboard, I have nothing else to turn to. I definitely want to build a Crossfire system. Recently problems with my old hardware forced me into upgrading much earlier than I anticipated. So that is the only reason that I now own this Crossfire motherboard and new X1800 XL.

If there were any other Crossfire motherboards available, I would at least consider changing. But I also want the great overclocking ability that this board is going to give me. So that leaves me with little to change over to.

I know that I don't want to go back to nVidia and have no interest in an SLI setup. So unless DFI can find a fix for this problem, I maybe stuck with it. Fortunately I hardly ever reboot anyway.
:p
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Hope is helps....flash to the new beta bios. (I you have done this...sorry for the post)

http://us.dfi.com.tw/Support/Download/bios_download_us.jsp?PRODUCT_ID=3669&STATUS_FLAG=B&SITE=US

I have not had cold or hot boot issues after updating to this bios. Also it allowed me to setup Raid on the RAID controller. (With the release bios this was broken.)
 
Ingonuts13 said:
Very well written with lots of good points.

My question to you Kyle is this:

"At what point could we, the enthusiast crowd, consider Crossfire a viable platform for us to pursue?"

By this I mean, when will we see the motherboards hit shelves as well as the Master cards that were promised to make this work. As it stands now, I still say that anyone looking to go Dual GPU will have no choice but to move towards SLI for its wide availability and proven performance.
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First I would wait for at least one motherboard to hit the shelves that actually works right. And there is no way I would by X850 Crossfire, wait for this new gen. So probably next year....
 
tomv said:
"No anti anything" ... that does not make sense. A large amount of what passes for reviews on hardware sites (not talking about one site in particular) are really anti-xxxxx rants based on poor information, poor testing, inexperience and immaturity. Those reviews are irresponsible and tend to skew public opinion in the wrong direction.
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You need to wake up and smell the coffee. The only thing we are "anti" is shitty products. If you want to contribute that to one brand or company, then that is YOUR decision, not ours. We just call it like we see it regardless of who makes it.
 
siliconnerd said:
It looks like the ECS PA1 MVP Extreme is listed as being certified.

Also, would you mind expanding on the PCB supply problems? Is it a general backlog at the PCB manufactures? Will be be seeing any shortages on production motherboards because of this?
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I was told by ECS that board was not certified so I am unsure why it is on the list. ECS told me it was certified the night before I wrote the article......

I have been informed by several builders that PCB deliveries are running behind.
 
Particleman said:
Yeah I bought a ASUS A8N SLi Deluxe too when it was launched, horrible board, caused massive HDD corruption, RMA'ed multiple times, but what can you do if the board is just designed poorly. Multiple HDDs, multiple brands of RAM, multiple Power Supplies, I can't believe how much time and money I spent trying to get that board to work. I for one will never buy a nVidia chipset board again (I've used every generation of nForce, NF1, 2, 3, & 4, and the only ones that are good are the ones that are nothing more than clockspeed bumps over the previous generation like NF2 was to NF1 (but if you had the NF1, you had to live through it's teething problems).
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Actually I have that first-gen board in my own system, with a 4-drive RAID0 array and 4 other drives without issue. I am not so sure drivers were not your issue.
 
Ristogod said:
Let it be known that if DFI doesn't ever resolve the issue for me, it will be the last DFI motherboard I own. I will also not recommend the company to anyone else.
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That is exactly the stance I would take. I would suggest there are a few more folks having problems than they would let on.
 
justice said:
To all of you who have issues with the motherboard: Print a copy of this review, go back to the shop where you got it, and return it. Tell the store managers.

Kyle: Thanks for the review. It was a very polite way of saying "the whole ATI motherboard situation sucks right now, stay clear".

I know I definitely will.

Who buys ATI based motherboards anyway?
Click to expand...

If DFI will not help you, I would return the board for a refund immediately.
 
Kyle,

Any clue on when to expect other crossfire motherboard brands to hit store shelves?

I'm itching to pickup a crossfire capable board like I've quit crack cold turkey
 
Craz said:
Kyle,

Any clue on when to expect other crossfire motherboard brands to hit store shelves?

I'm itching to pickup a crossfire capable board like I've quit crack cold turkey
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Soon (within a month or two at the most), but I would wait and make sure they are certified.
 
tshen_83 said:
1. the external "dongle" connection for the cards kills half the available DVI connectors.
so on the Nvidia SLI computer you have the option to run 4 DVI driven LCDs and on ATI, max 2, if they support it. This problem will be worse later when we need 4 or 8 GPUs, then ATI's solution would need to be daisy chained....leaving only 2 connectors for monitor connection.

2. 1600x1200 max resolution on crossfire....i hope this is a software fix. If it's in the hardware design for max 1600, then they will GET SCREWED, because nobody pays 800+ bux for a platform(mobo + 2 X1000 series cards) want to play at 1600 max

3. chipsets takes generations to matural as manufactures(ATI in this case) learn from their previous mistakes in design. Look at Nvidia.....Their NForce 1 was average. NF2 was the bomb for AthlonXP . NF3 was average for A64, and NF4 kicked butt. I think ATI's next gen chipset will be mature enough for production use. NOT THIS GEN...they messed up this gen. PERIOD.

4. Reliance on ULI south bridge is another mistake. For performance reasons, the south bridge functions would be integrated into the north bridge for one chip design. (like the NF3 and NF4).. Relying on a third party supply of south bridge is horrible.
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1. The Dongle come's with a splitter so you don't lose a DVI port (total of 3 I believe)

2. That is only for the X8x0 cards which don't have Dual-Link DVI port's so they can't do higher than 1600*1200@60Hz, The new X1x00 cards do so there is no such limitation.

4. DFI used ATi's own Southbridge, you don't have to use a third party one.
 
Kyle, isn't is kinda strange that there is no motherboard other than the DFI available for purchase yet. Other mb makers have been playing around with the chipset for months, it seems like months anyways.

Is it possible that everyone is laying low because they don't want to spend any more time on this chipset. Isn't the new ATI chipset supposedly getting released in January. The RS580 I think. Are all the manufacturers just waiting for that chipset instead of messing around with the current one?

Any thoughts?
 
The other manufactures are going to market with the ULi southbridge which appears to be having problems getting out the door. Some might wait for the RD580, just most just want to get them out the door.

After running this board for a month I really like the performance but hate the reboot issue. Nothing a BIOS update won't fix. It took a good two weeks of tweaking until I found the sweet spot regarding RAM timings and max overclock.
 
R1ckCa1n said:
After running this board for a month I really like the performance but hate the reboot issue. Nothing a BIOS update won't fix. It took a good two weeks of tweaking until I found the sweet spot regarding RAM timings and max overclock.
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Yes, I found the sweet spot for my RAM settings also. I just set everything to AUTO.
:D

I'd like to try and improve memory timings beyond what I have, but there are too many settings as to which most I don't have a clue about. So as long as I'm running completely stable, I probably won't touch them.

Is there a place that explains what every one of those memory timing settings does on this board?
 
Chris_Morley said:
I am not sure what you're talking about in response to my post, I was referring how we aren't anti-anything, more pro-consumer...that is what drives us and what mindset we're in when we do evaluations.
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You said there was no such thing as "anti-anything" as though it were impossible to write a biased review. My point is that there are many examples of biased reviews all over the net.

I recently saw a forum post where the poster claimed the NVidia chipset drivers were deleting his favourites icons. The guy went on a rant about how lousy the chipset and NVidia was for not acknowledging his problem. Is this guy being "pro-consumer"? No, he has either had bad luck or he doesn't know much about putting together a system and now he is "anti-NVidia".

[H] recently slammed the ATI chipset as being plagued with problems "even before its public introduction". Everyone knows that most products have bugs in them before they are released and to hold that against the company is being biased (anti-ATI if you prefer). If the chipset is placed in a properly designed and built motherboard accompanied by properly designed and built parts and components then it will work fine otherwise it would never have been released. Too blame the problems on one component (the chipset) because 'we think the ATI chipset sucks' is biased. Turns out the opinion was wrong and shows why bias (being anti) should be left out of reviews.
 
I've been periodically contacting DFI about the rebooting problem on my motherboard. The first response was basically a total disregard of the problem.

I contacted them again in a much more simple question of when they are going to fix the rebooting problem on this motherboard.

The responded with a new BIOS for me to update. Here is the link:

http://www.dfi.com.tw/Upload/BIOS/rdx2b02.zip

1.Fix fill Sil3114 class code fail
2.Change the description of DQS Skew DRV
3.Set Cool'n'Quiet default disable
4.Fix Set NB-SB configuration mode wrong
5.Fix DRAM timing wrong
6.Fix Read Preamble Table Error
7.Add step by step OC

I flashed to this BIOS and I still got the reboot issue once already. I haven't tried to reboot anymore though as I'm assuming it didn't fix the problem.

If anyone else wants to try it and give their results, that would be great.
 
I have done three reboots with this BIOS and has never failed. Prior to the BIOS upgrade I couldn't reboot once without hitting the reset button.

I now have to figure out what my RAM timing were......
 
R1ckCa1n said:
I have done three reboots with this BIOS and has never failed. Prior to the BIOS upgrade I couldn't reboot once without hitting the reset button.

I now have to figure out what my RAM timing were......
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So it worked for you huh?

Strange it didn't solve mine.
 
Here is the latest BIOS update they have since sent me that is suppose to solve all my issues:

RDXDC12.exe , RDXDC12.zip


I'll let some one else try it out as today I receive my A8R-MVP to replace the DFI. Hopefully this solves some issues.
 
I was told I would be sent a new mobo when DFI has the issues fixed.....I have yet to get a new mobo....
 
I have a mail into DFI now asking them what the deal is with new boards and what the RMA/Recall issue might be with boards already out there. The board did finally pass testing at ATI and has been added to the approved list on the ATI site. So apparently changes were made, but I suspect it was a bit more than a BIOS update.
 
AreEss said:
The second I saw the DFI out there I knew it was going to be a bad board, just because - come on. Nobody else, not even Asus, world champion design rushers, has even really ANNOUNCED. And here's DFI saying "buy this board now!" 'Course all my years and being beyond sick of crap hardware might have something to do with it too. ;)
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Reason Asus and most others did not have a board out yet was the lack of supply of the ULI south bridge. DFI used the ATI south bridge. (Many do not like the ATI southbridge due to USB performance and lack of features so many boardmakers opted to go ULI.)

The two south bridges are NOT pin compatable so once you choose one or the other you are commited unless you are willing to redesign.

The ULI southbridge is now becoming available so boards with it should be showing up. (I hope to have a sample of the Abit board soon.....)
 
Do the new boards say rev B? Also i am interested in how the asus cf board OC's. :)
 
HybridHB said:
Do the new boards say rev B? Also i am interested in how the asus cf board OC's. :)
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The one I received did not. From what I heard the difference was a single IC that was changed .
 
AACDIRECT said:
The main issue that DFI had to fix was when running in Crossfire. (Issue was a possible instability with some slave cards in X850 Crossfire. It could even cause a failure. It was a hardware issue.) This specific issue was why the board was not certified.
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Smells like weak power to me. Again. :rolleyes: Went through this with someone not too long ago; they're expecting an old and known-weak Athlon MP board to run a brand new card. Uhm, no. Tigers never could run heavy video cards because, duh, weak power. You want to run a heavy video card, you got a Thunder. But in a situation like this? Man.. that's worse than the Neo2. And that is saying something.

AACDIRECT said:
(Just an FYI I have one of the Asus CF boards on bench now. Corsair 2GB PC3200 Pro memory has the same problem as the DFI board. Errors errors errors. I think the chipset does not like this ram. Going to try some other brands of ram.) The DFI layout is much nicer. (Better spacing on the vidcards...2nd raid controller...etc.) I will update with my impressions of the board if people are interested.
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I'll save the Corsair issues for another thread. Suffice to say, it is not the chipset, and be very glad you are not dealing with ECC Registered.

AACDIRECT said:
Reason Asus and most others did not have a board out yet was the lack of supply of the ULI south bridge. DFI used the ATI south bridge. (Many do not like the ATI southbridge due to USB performance and lack of features so many boardmakers opted to go ULI.)

The two south bridges are NOT pin compatable so once you choose one or the other you are commited unless you are willing to redesign.

The ULI southbridge is now becoming available so boards with it should be showing up. (I hope to have a sample of the Abit board soon.....)
Click to expand...

The issue is not availability so much as "we're going to have one" announcements and "here's the model name" announcements. Abit and Asus both follow a fairly predictable naming scheme, so one would have expected a pre-announce at least around the time DFI shoved out the door. Especially from Asus.

I'm aware of the ATI vs ULI debate, and personally, I avoid it. I don't do ATI/ATI boards because of stability and support concerns. I also know that Abit's been committed to the ATI/ULI for quite some time. Another thing to bear in mind is that the UL8's been shipping, so Abit definitely has not had a problem getting certain ULI parts, and I think it's fair to say that they're in bed with ULI. e.g. They likely had samples long ago. Abit is not exactly known for underengineering or rushing boards, though. (For example, the KW7. They took forever to get that board out, but it is undoubtedly the most stable KT880 board out there.)
I really cannot see any valid reason for DFI to have screwed up this badly. On top of that, now they're going to have to eat the cost of taking back a large number of the defectively designed boards and replacing them with working parts. Supplies get very strained, and you get into a situation where all production is going out to replace previous production. Meaning even if it is finally a usable board, you can't get it.
 
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