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ATI X1800 CrossFire Cards Reviewed
AnInkle writes "ATI finally joins the Christmas party. If money is (virtually) no object and high-end 3D animation is part of your game, you'll want to check out The Tech Report's review of the ATI X1800 CrossFire card before spending your green on the green team. From the review: 'This new CrossFire card also sweeps away some of the limitations of the first-generation CrossFire hardware introduced just a couple of months ago, allowing mega-high-res gaming.' Further, if the latest rumors about the 7800GTX 512MB are true, it would mean that this CrossFire graphics subsystem would arguably stand alone at the top of the graphics benchmarking mountain."
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=3668
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Conclusions
A Radeon X1800 XT CrossFire rig is mighty fast. Also, it's six degrees Fahrenheit outside right now at my place, and I've enjoyed the room-warming benefits of CrossFire and SLI systems throughout the preparation of this review. My mind boggles, though, when I try to consider the value proposition of plunking down $1200 for a pair of graphics cards and roughly $200 more for the motherboard. Could a pair of Radeon X1800 XT cards in CrossFire be a better deal than two GeForce 7800 GTX 512s in SLI?
Yeah, I suppose so, especially with GTX 512 prices currently in low-altitude orbit. I do have my reservations about CrossFire, including the hassle of dealing with external dongles and the iffy I/O performance of CrossFire motherboards that use ATI's SB450 south bridge. Still, CrossFire performance generally scales well enough from one card to two, and I said in my initial CrossFire review that the long-term success of this solution would hinge on the quality of ATI's new GPUs. Turns out that the Radeon X1800 XT is a very desirable graphics card that matches the GeForce 7800 GTX feature for feature and adds a few new wrinkles of its own, including finer threading granularity for Shader Model 3.0 and the ability to do antialiasing with high-dynamic-range rendering. The Radeon X1800 XT trails the GeForce 7800 GTX 512 in overall performance, but Radeon X1800 CrossFire may hit the streets at prices as much as $150 lower per card than the 7800 GTX 512. (Radeon X1800 XTs are already widely available at $599 or less.) In the rarefied air of big-money graphics subsystems, that potential $300 price difference--if indeed it develops--could make a Radeon X1800 XT CrossFire system a, uh, er, uhm, solid value.
Yeah, I said it.
It's bitchin' fast, at any rate.
Don't go buying a Radeon X1800 XL card, however, expecting to add a Radeon X1800 CrossFire card later if you care at all about value. Dropping a $599 CrossFire card into your system and lopping off half of its RAM and much of its performance potential isn't the brightest of moves. That solution sacrificies too much, in my view. You can get a dual-graphics solution involving a Radeon X1800 XL, but it's far from optimal. Perhaps in the future, if prices drop dramatically on the Radeon X1800 CrossFire Edition cards, teaming one up with an XL could make some sense. That seems like a shaky prospect to me, though.
How would an improved Nvidia 7800 leave ATI at the top??? Unless I'm mistaken (and I'm not) more RAM is better for a GPU, making the 7800 with 512MB insane. The only way this works out is if the GTX is the lower end 7800, but even then it's impressive to have 512.
I am Spartacus
Notice how the author acknowledges that "the GeForce 7800 GTX 512 is practically otherworldly." Doesn't really sound like there's any argument to be had.
My work here is dung.
At a cost of $1200, you're better off getting an XBox 360, a PS3, and the new Nintendo. You'll probably have a couple bucks left over for lunch. Just way too uch money for the average Joe. But I bet some uber Slashdot users already have them :)
gasmonso http://religiousfreaks.com/you can already get high end GPUs, since ATI and Nvidia supply GPUs for Macs. Now that the high end Macs have PCI-e, they can use the same 7800s or Quadros a PC can. Their the graphics platform, so not releasing a high end card for OS X is unwise.
I am Spartacus
The GTX 256's perform at or near the X1800XT's (looking at the linked benchmarks). These cards will cost you at least $400 less for a pair, use a single slot design, run cooler and quieter.
**(And yes they now support Linux in SLI).
http://www.kubuntu.org/
No, it doesn't work great.
;(
ATI's drivers are painfully unstable, there are lots of ways to hardlock a linux system with ATI's buggy shit drivers. An easy one is to use xinerama and kdm, at least from my experience. A whole lot of features of standard X11 drivers are missing (Composite, for example) and the performance is still a good 30% slower then it is on windows. The regular unaccelerated drivers from Xorg are way faster for regular 2d rendering and support all the usual features.
You call that great? Its fuckin not. ATI's linux support is -improving slowly-, but it is improving. But there is no way its great, or even good. Or even mediocre. It sucks. Binary drivers *SUCK ASS*, and I hate having to put up with them for 3D acceleration
"Computers will never truly be free until the last windows user is strangled with the entrails of the last mac user."
Yes, perhaps this will disappear when ATI's linux drivers no longer offer half the performance they provide under Windows (Yes, I've tested this myself with recent drivers in the last month). Sorry, but if nVidia can provide nearly identical performance under both OSs, then ATI is going to stay off my linux system. I'll give it to ATI that their drivers are at least mostly stable under Linux these days, but performance has to improve before I consider them a viable alternative.
It's hardly a myth when it's true.
I suppose that's the reason that ATI has been actively involved in contributing developer time and source code the DRI X extension project since it started? And NVidia has done *what* exactly with DRI now? Seriously, if you want your platform to simply be a free version of windows with the same limitations and lack of support given by closed source proprietary drivers, be my guest. I for one will be sticking with ATI, and enjoying the fact that my acceleration architecture isn't just a clumsy libGL hack.
perl -e "eval pack(q{H*},join q{},qw{70 72696e74207061636b28717b482a7d2c717b343 637323635363534323533343430617d293b})"
One of my regrets in life is all the money I wasted on new CPUs, RAM and video cards (remember the Diamond Monster 3d? the GeForce 3? The Radeon 9700 OEM?) back in the 90s just to play the latest games. And all those hours reconfiguring config files to squeeze the last resources available.
I wish I had all those hours back, and all that money. I never got my money's worth. I still have a Radeon 9700 OEM in a PC downstairs. Granted it's got a better picture for watching movies on TV than my GeForce 3, but still, what a waste. What I don't get is why my parents or girlfriend-then-wife never set me straight. I guess they thought I'd be happy.
sigh. if only I'd spent those hours working on my career. if only i'd saved that money or spent it on cool experiences i could look back on
If you skip down to the section on motherboards, they show that SLI isn't even remotely worth it.
Please help metamoderate.
I just love the way that the guys at nvidia refer to this ATI technology. It's not CrossFire, It's MissFire.
The definition of the word "crossfire" as it pertains to a physical object:
A short circuit between two spark plug wires on an engine which causes a cylinder to fire at the wrong time, or causes more than one cylinder to fire at a time. It is a BAD THING (tm).
Now, it is perfectly normal that Chrysler pick the same word for one of their new cars, truth in advertising and all that. But the people at ATI don't want to have a name associated with a malfunctioning ignition system.
Holy crap, batman, any of these SLI/Crossfire modes will need quite a robust power supply. Even at idle in those configurations they'll pull about 150W, but when in max use can draw over 400W of power! I guess playing high-end games these days also comes with a big hit to your electric bill. Cripes! People might need to get a second job just to play games.
today is spelling optional day.
Considering how video cards have recently overtaken CPUs in complexity, I don't think they're charging too terribly much. Not only do you get more transistors in a modern GPU than a Pentium 4, but also 256-512MB of GDDR3 RAM. Granted, this sort of power isn't necessary for a lot of people. That's why both nVidia and ATi offer cheaper versions of their flagship cards with similar capabilities, only slower. For example, the GeForce 6200 and the Radeon x300 are both decent gfx cards that are available for around $50.
I wonder if ATi and nVidia even comes close in terms of profit margins on GPUs as Intel does on CPUs...
It is hard to get excited about bleeding edge graphics cards, because ATI and NVidia refuse to publish their register sets so people can write good free Linux drivers. I have programmed ARM, Blackfin, and PIC processors. In all cases the registers are exhaustively documented and there are thriving communities of experts trying to get the most out of them. Your $600 video card's drivers were probably developed by a team of 4. Is the code any good? You will never know. Thanks for nothing ATI and NVidia.
an ill wind that blows no good
A pair of these ATI X1800s may cost less than a pair of 512MB GeForce GTXs, but nobody buys the 512 MB GTX for SLI, it's way too expensive. You can get 95% of the performance at 50% of the price by just buying a pair of 7800 GTs and using SLI. There is no game out there that a dual 7800 GT SLI system cannot run at any res, with full graphics turned on.
If you read any of the enthusiast sites, they back the 2x7800 GT in SLI as the best top-end rig. It basically comes down to the fact that dual 7800 GTs are so fast, you gain no noticible performance benefit from using 7800 GTXs.