Determaining CrossFire supported cards?

[JustinMcG67]

"The system requires a Crossfire-compliant motherboard with a pair of PCI Express graphics cards, which can be enabled via either hardware or software. Radeon x800s, x850s, x1800s and x1900s come in a 'Crossfire Edition' that has 'master' capability built into the hardware. Radeon x1300s and x1600s have no 'Crossfire Edition' but are enabled via software. Another point to note is that the 'slave' graphics card needs to be from the same family as the 'master', regardless of whether the 'master' is designated by the hardware or by software."

Yeah, so they can't be completely different cards, but they have to be from the same family. So a X850 XT PE CrossFire Edition will work with a X800 Pro, or a X1800 CrossFire will work with a X1800 XL so on so forth...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfire_(GPU)

Yuppers.

The X800 CF Edition works with just that, the X800 series cards. The X850 CF Edition works just liek that as well, with the X850 cards. Same applied to the X1900 and so on. But the X1600 and X1300 don't need any "CF Edition" card, it's just enabled via a Catalyst driver. Which is really cool if you don't want to blow the extra $250 to get a "CrossFire Edition" card.

The X1600 is definetly the way to go if you want multi-GPU technology without the hassle of having to get a master card and then a slave card, when you can buy two cards in the same series and have them work after installing a Catalyst driver. Plus you don't have to worry about losing any special DMS cables. To me, the X1600 is a Godsend. It has everything that I want in a video card, and then adds even more. I mean, 512MB of memory, multi-GPU support without the hassle of having to buy a more expensive and less-performing Master card. I mean, this thign is just incredible! Plus!!! It has integrated CF support, making it much better to have by ten-fold, plus it's relativly cheap considering it's competitors cost significantly more money!

 

[alvino]

Meh. CrossFire and SLI are for bragging rights. In the end, hardly any applications actually use all of that power and all you're paying for is the fact that you have CrossFire or SLI.

 

[JustinMcG67]

Well, for me, I want it, not just for performance gain, but for bragging rights. So, in all aspects of CrossFire and SLI, it's all good for me.

 

[Half Evil]

Dude, post some links, id like to see what your looking at.

 

[kev]

It's so the cost of the product goes down, yet it still maintains a high performance aspect. Which is why the X1600PRO is able to achieve 512MB of video memory, yet be sold at a low price, not to mention, it comes with the ability to put it in CrossFire. No NVIDIA card can do that. What NVIDIA card has 12 pixel pipelines, is SLI compatible, and has 512MB of video memory, and costs under $150? Simple answer: none. Just the way ATI likes it.

What good is 12 lanes of highway if the cars are only traviling at 30mph
I much rather have 8 lanes of highway and travil at 60mph

 

[Half Evil]

True, but where does the 30 come in from the ati card?

 

[JustinMcG67]

12 lanes of pixels travelling at 128-bits is more effective then 8 lanes travelling at 256-bits. you can move more data, process more data, and ultimately do more, then 8 lanes ever would.

In video cards it's not about speed so much as it is the amount of memory you have. Which is why you see so many new cards coming out incorporated with 512MB of it. The more data you have coming in, the more of it that has to be stored in memory, the more memory you have the better. Sure, the 6800GS might move it faster, but it's doing more work and thus making you lose frames a second.

The X1600PRO has 512MB of memory. It might be slower, but it stores more in the memory and can accomplish more then the 6800GS can. Because more data is being sent to the memory, it can be accessed later. The more it can store the better, that way it can processe it later, instead of having to constantly grab data, store it, process it, store it, process it, grab it, and so forth. The X1600PRO can just store data, store data, store data, process some of it, store data, process some of it, and so on. It isn't processing it nearly as much as the 6800GS is. Thus the more frames you can dish out.

 

[Half Evil]

Hmmm... Well its not even GDDR3 memory, only GDDR2. Which is kinda a big drawback id say.

EDIT> Also sucks the memory isnt double pumped.

But you cant beat this card for the price. Although I think id rather have a card with GDDR3 double pumped memory, and 16 pixle pipelines, and, huge ass cooler.. like this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814161164

 

[JustinMcG67]

GDDR2 RAM isn't bad at all. It's still Double Data Rate just faster then your standard DDR. GDDR2 is fast. not as fast as GDDR3, but when you have 512MB of GDDR2 as oppossed to 256MB of GDDR3, it's a better way to go.

And besides, I'm putting the X1600PRO in Crossfire, giving me 1024MB of GDDR2 and 256-bit transfer rate. Which is much better then the 7800GT I was considering getting, which is also more expensive then this setup in CrossFire, $290 VS $315. I find this CrossFire configuration to be much better then the 7800GT configuration.

Though some might say the 6800GS is better, I coudl careless, it's not their money, so ultimately I don't care! However, if you suggest a possibly better setup, I'll definetly listen, but for the time being, these X1600PROs are definetly the way to go.