R520 Crossfire question

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tranCendenZ

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Just out of curiousity, has anyone read any official statements or press releases from ATI that detail Crossfire for R520. Stuff like, will it be available at or near launch, will it have the same limitations as X850XT Crossfire, etc?

I'm just wondering as ATI obviously knew that X850XT Crossfire was going to perform poorly against the 7800GT/GTX single card solutions especially with its resolution/refresh rate restrictions. So, since that is the case, if they would be announcing and would have available a superior Crossfire solution with R520 in a week, why would they tarnish the Crossfire name with the poor performance of X850XT Crossfire? Is it possible R520 Crossfire won't be available at or near launch, or that it simply may have the same restrictions as X850XT Crossfire?

If an improved R520 is available in a week, this move to release X850XT now wasn't the best one IMO.
 
I don't think they've made any comments, but I think that R520 Crossfire will beout on day one.
 
tranCendenZ said:
will it have the same limitations as X850XT Crossfire, etc?
Click to expand...

I hope not.
I still like Cross Fire a tad more than SLI.
If the resolution and frequency problem is fixed on the R520 cards that would make my day.
 
The limitations of the X800 crossfire are all based around having to support the older X800 cards that don't have those extra compositing/dual link DVI chips. Because the the R520 doesn;t have to work with old cards that weren't intended to work dual setups they should be fine.

(and driver problems should get worked out over time)
 
Sable said:
The limitations of the X800 crossfire are all based around having to support the older X800 cards that don't have those extra compositing/dual link DVI chips. Because the the R520 doesn;t have to work with old cards that weren't intended to work dual setups they should be fine.

(and driver problems should get worked out over time)
Click to expand...

You should not compare X850 CF to 7800. It was supposed to be out when the 6800 U SLI was top dog. Against 6800 SLI it does very very well. (Beats it most of the time.) BTW In some benches X850 CF beats a single 7800 GTX and even beats 7800 GT SLI in a few benches. Considering it is last generation it looked very good except for the 60Hz limitation. If it was not for that I would feel it would be a good upgrade path for those with X8xx cards. (When next gen card launch a X850 CF card should be pretty cheap.) Its day has past as a full new purchase. (Buying both cards at the same time.)

r520 CF I was told from a good source will not have the limitation. Damn NDA....lift already.
 
^
No no, you shouldnt act suprised at the results unless your dumb.
The comparisson on Hard OCP was fine and went just as I thought one for X850CF Should go. 6800U SLI vs X850 CF vs 7800GTX.
If it were just X850CF vs 7800GTX then it would just be Biased to Nvida by not showing the real competitor of the X850. If it had just been X850CF vs 6800U SLi wit would be biased agiasnt Nvida by not showing what Nvidias Current King of Performance card can do.
 
Crossfire sucks as it currently is... frames per second mean nothing if the screen is constantly flickering.... sure, its a good solution for LCD users... but I don't use LCD's... also... considering xfire most more then a single 7800 gtx.. that spanks it in every benchmark i've seen thus far.... its just not worth it.
 
dagon11985 said:
Crossfire sucks as it currently is... frames per second mean nothing if the screen is constantly flickering.... sure, its a good solution for LCD users... but I don't use LCD's... also... considering xfire most more then a single 7800 gtx.. that spanks it in every benchmark i've seen thus far.... its just not worth it.
Click to expand...

You might want to read the review on this website:

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODE1

I hope you feel this particular website is unbaised.....maybe you will not. (SARCASM)

They have this section call Apples to Apples..... in HF2 the 7800 GTX beat X850 CF by one frame. In NFS:U the X850 CF beats 7800 GTX by 15 frames. Not bad for old technology. (BTW that is the only two apples to apples comparision done of the 7800 GTX Vs X850 CF) I am not saying it can keep up with 7800 GTX SLI but again it was not designed to.

If I was NV I would be warming up the 7800 Ultra...it looks like they are going to need it with r520 so near..
 
mentok1982 said:
I still like Cross Fire a tad more than SLI.
If the resolution and frequency problem is fixed on the R520 cards that would make my day.
Click to expand...

Assuming there was no resolution or refresh rate limitation, what about Crossfire is superior to SLI at the moment?
 
AACDIRECT said:
You should not compare X850 CF to 7800. It was supposed to be out when the 6800 U SLI was top dog.
Click to expand...

Yes you should compare X850 xfire to 7800 because both are out and available NOW.

If there was an X850 master card sitting next to a 7800 gtx on the shelf at a store the 7800 gtx would be the better buy.

This is where we are at right now. The X850 xfire is going up against the 7800 because that's what is out here and now.
 
I wouldn't call that an " apples to apples " comparison. In the benchmarks concerning the 7800 gtx, 4x tr msaa is enabled ...and the gtx has SM 3.0 ... and like I said, FPS doesn't mean crap is the screen is constantly flickering. I am pretty sure if we could somehow run 3dmark 05 in black and white, FPS would be a lot higher. FPS doesn't concern me as much as image quality does, and I don't see how Crossfire can look that good if its flickering...
 
AACDIRECT said:
You might want to read the review on this website:

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODE1

I hope you feel this particular website is unbaised.....maybe you will not. (SARCASM)

They have this section call Apples to Apples..... in HF2 the 7800 GTX beat X850 CF by one frame. In NFS:U the X850 CF beats 7800 GTX by 15 frames. Not bad for old technology. (BTW that is the only two apples to apples comparision done of the 7800 GTX Vs X850 CF) I am not saying it can keep up with 7800 GTX SLI but again it was not designed to.

If I was NV I would be warming up the 7800 Ultra...it looks like they are going to need it with r520 so near..
Click to expand...

While you are looking at the raw perf you are not taking into account the feature difference as well. The 7800 GTX has features the X850 series does not.

At this point in time the X850 xfire is not a good value compared to what is currently available from the competition.
 
Brent_Justice said:
At this point in time the X850 xfire is not a good value compared to what is currently available from the competition.
Click to expand...
True it is. I don't think anybody is claiming differently.
AACDIRECT said:
r520 CF I was told from a good source will not have the limitation.
Click to expand...
LOL. Was that "good source" me?
me said:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=958162
Posted 40 minutes before this thread.
Click to expand...
For the impaired: R520 will not have the 1600x1200 @ 60hz limit.
 
dagon11985 said:
I wouldn't call that an " apples to apples " comparison. In the benchmarks concerning the 7800 gtx, 4x tr msaa is enabled ...and the gtx has SM 3.0 ... and like I said, FPS doesn't mean crap is the screen is constantly flickering. I am pretty sure if we could somehow run 3dmark 05 in black and white, FPS would be a lot higher. FPS doesn't concern me as much as image quality does, and I don't see how Crossfire can look that good if its flickering...
Click to expand...

It was an apple to apples.....there is a section in the review called that. That is were I got the numbers from.
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODE1LDE0

Brent_Justice said:
While you are looking at the raw perf you are not taking into account the feature difference as well. The 7800 GTX has features the X850 series does not.

At this point in time the X850 xfire is not a good value compared to what is currently available from the competition.
Click to expand...

As for value. You are totally correct. As I posted earlier. The viability of X850 CF as a new purchase solution was gone when NV launched its new card. The only people I could see it having any value to is people who already have a X850 card and want a dual card solution. With the 60Hz limitation I feel the people that will buy will even be even more limited.

Few more days = r520. There are some things that can be sure about it. It will be faster than X850. It will have many if not all the features of 7800. With X850 CF performance Vs 7800 it makes the launch of r520 more interesting.
 
jebo_4jc said:
LOL. Was that "good source" me?
Click to expand...

Nope it was not. It was more "direct". ;)

I will give a hint.

" Prizes
The following Contest prizes will be awarded:

1 Limited-Edition CrossFire™ Ready desktop computer system built by AACDirect.com, with an MSRP of approximately $5000. "

http://buy.ati.com/myprofile/crossfire_legal.asp

When ATI gives away this system. (Those that entered it has not been given away yet even though the contest is closed. Just an FYI....I guess it could be called a "paper" giveaway.) My company built it.
 
tranCendenZ said:
Just out of curiousity, has anyone read any official statements or press releases from ATI that detail Crossfire for R520. Stuff like, will it be available at or near launch, will it have the same limitations as X850XT Crossfire, etc?
Click to expand...

From what I know is that xfire R520 most likely will NOT be shown at launch. ATI has hinted they wanted to wait and show it on a "new platform". What the means is not entirely clear. However some of the issues that plauge xfire ATI knew about and started to correct for it way back before the delays for the next gen. Again so we don't know what they are chaging...just know thats its probable to be different and not at the same time as the R520 launch...


If an improved R520 is available in a week, this move to release X850XT now wasn't the best one IMO.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind xfire has been delayed almost as much as the R520 has. From what we know the release of xfire this week was more of a decesion for their mother board that xfire uses...
 
AACDIRECT said:
...
As for value. You are totally correct. As I posted earlier. The viability of X850 CF as a new purchase solution was gone when NV launched its new card. The only people I could see it having any value to is people who already have a X850 card and want a dual card solution. With the 60Hz limitation I feel the people that will buy will even be even more limited.
....
Click to expand...

60Hz limitation aside (I also believe that this limitation will not be present in the X1k series- though there is no proof of this other than some ATI employee's comments and someone who's brother in law says so).
There is no value even to people who already have an X850 card because they will not only have to buy an additional master card (as you point out) but also a new motherboard (not mentioned). I doubt many people will make a complete mobo switch merely to reach 7800GTX performance when they can do the same for less money by simply buying a 7800GTX, or waiting another week and buying an X1k.
In my opinion, and those of some others, the X8xx master card will be the lowest volume card ATI has ever sold.
 
dagon11985 said:
I wouldn't call that an " apples to apples " comparison. In the benchmarks concerning the 7800 gtx, 4x tr msaa is enabled ...and the gtx has SM 3.0 ... and like I said, FPS doesn't mean crap is the screen is constantly flickering. I am pretty sure if we could somehow run 3dmark 05 in black and white, FPS would be a lot higher. FPS doesn't concern me as much as image quality does, and I don't see how Crossfire can look that good if its flickering...
Click to expand...

what 4x tr msaa?

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODE1LDE0

for apples to apples the 7800GTX was run on 4xaa for all tests, not tr msaa
 
I just wanted to post a little something more about Crossfire. When I received my test hardware. (I did not get a press kit as I am not press..) I just got the X850 Master card and a reference board unlike the press kits that received both a master and slave X850 card. I paired my master card with a X850 XT PE card we had laying around. It works fine with no issues. Overdrive is disabled with the Crossfire but I was curious about the clockspeeds of the cards. (In C3 hardware info tab it only shows the master card's specs.) Here is when it got interesting. First the X850 Mastercard runs at X850XT speeds (520,540). :( Obviously my X850 XT PE runs at 540,590. I decided I was going to try a little overclocking. I loaded up riva tuner. I had assumed my X850XT PE had been declocked to match the Mastercard. (It had be discussed that the clock speeds sync'd automaticly with crossfire.) It had not!! My X850 XT PE was still running at PE speeds. With that I decided to start messing around. I tried to OC my master card to PE speeds. The memory said "no way!".....but the core made the easy jump to 540. I rebenched and my scores went up. I am going to do a little more testing but what this could be is that Crossfire already supports running cards at different speeds. This could be really cool as you can find the max OC for each card and not be stuck running the cards at the speeds that the slowest card has to run at. (BTW Looks like Riva tuner allows you to OC the cards independently. I have not played with OC of my PE yet but you can choose the card independently.)
 
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