CrossFire-on-a-Stick

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lordaardvark2

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Right, we just need the other four


OOOOOH yeah gotcha :lol: my bad.

anyway, i'm not retarded in thinking that people have done quad-sli before, correct? as in two 7950 gtx thingies, which are like the Dual from the review? just curious, and making sure i'm not tricking myself.
 

rammedstein

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actually, on many of amd/atis plan thingys i can't remember the proper name yet, they have a card similar to the 7950gtx2 called the x2900xtxx2, maybe sapphire could be the first people to release such a card since they already have the ground work done?
 

Luscious

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I certainly hope the retail version (if it comes out) does have functioning drivers. It baffles my mind why a graphics card manufacturer would invest the R&D and bucks into a product that requires driver support and drop the ball on that.

It's size may make it impossible to install in a lot of cases, it doesn't support DX10, and other better chips are already on the horizon. The potential for "quadfire" sounds good, but until we see it working it is just a paper product.

Need graphics horsepower? Stick with two watercooled overclocked 8800GTX cards in SLI.
 

nvalhalla

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I have a suggestion. How about testing this against a similar single cards in Xfire? That would show the advantage/disadvantage of having it on a single board. Also, I may have read the article wrong but did it say you have to have a Xfire board to use this? So people with a single 16x pci-e board are out of luck? I thought the appeal of these was, in addition to catering to the Uber-enthusist who wants 4 GPUs, to allow Xfire/SLI performance on the cheaper single 16x boards most people have. The dual cards from NVidia didn't need an SLI board did they?
 

4745454b

Titan
Moderator
I can't believe it took 2 pages before someone noticed. Why wasn't a normal x1950pro CF setup tested as well??? Are there any advantages to buying this card performance wise? Toms tested it against plenty of other setups, but not this one? Gee thanks. Good way for us to see how well this works.
 

sojrner

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I don't have a second card as of yet but when I have two final production models I will attempt a four-way crossfire setup. I was traveling all week but I wanted to get this up before the weekend so people could start thinking about the possibilities of a multi-way CrossFire setup.

I tried hooking up an X1950 Pro to the Sapphire X1950 Pro Dual. When the Sapphire was in the first X16 slot and the second card was in the second, I could enable CrossFire. When I reversed the order I could not. I ran a few tests and got the same (similar) figures for 3DMark05 and Doom3.

I am going to see what can be done with the card I have here to see if overclocking is possible. Perhaps we can get more out of the card. I will also try some older drivers to see if there is one that makes CrossFire "happier" than the Catalyst 7.3 I used in the review.

I also plan to keep bugging AMD and Sapphire for a real driver that can enable quad operation.

If you have any ideas on what we should try to do with it (other than suggesting we turn it into a paper weight) I would be up for those.

I am looking forward to seeing what those results are.

I also agree w/ others here about testing against a "regular" cf setup...

rock on man.
 

4745454b

Titan
Moderator
Agreed, but then the article should have been put off for a bit. Show the card against what it is supposed to be competing. Show it against a set of 7900GS in sli. Put it up against some 7950GTs. Include an 8800GTS/X to remind people what they could get if they selected a better higher card. But why not include the cards this thing could replace? Sure, I could go find my own link, but it doesn't seem that hard to go find a pair of X1950pros to CF together.

It seems like a certain someones rant against this place was well deserved. Instead of waiting until they could do this right, they rushed it out the door comparing it to many cards execpt what seems like the most logical. I want to see this benchie because it will show us if this is a better way of doing CF or not. If there is a ~3% difference between this card and a "real" CF setup, then I know it isn't any better to do it this way. (from a performance standpoint at least, heat/power might be a different story.)
 

AndyAldrich

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Am I still right in thinking that Vista doesn't support multiple GPU setups and therefore that this product is an XP-only piece of kit until Vista or ATi drivers are updated?

Taking the assumption that I am right into account, doesn't this mean that this card will have a somewhat limited lifespan? I suppose its DX9 architecture also backs up my thinking.

I don't expect this card to be cheap, I certainly don't expect it to be as cheap as an 8800GTS 320Mb which is my personal bang-for-buck winner at the mo. 1950 Pros were designed for mid range performance, so this card isn't going to be the winner in its price class, why didn't they shimmy 2 more powerful GPU's onto there...such as XTXs?
 

AndyAldrich

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Can fathom trying to cool two xtxs on one card? Those would get way too hot, and the x1950pro still beats out the 7950gt, nvidia's price:performance card, but considering the card held it's own compared to the gtx, I don't know what you are talking about it, it's scores were only slightly lower for most things than the gtx, so I think it's performance is good enough, whether quad xfire will work or not is a different story, but as a stand alone card, it performed quite well and gamers aren't going to switch to vista for a while, very few have, most will stick with xp until all their games perform as smoothl on vista and sp1 has been released, so I don't see much of a problem with the vista issue either, anyone that would be buying this gpu would at least have some computer knowledge and would at least know somethings on the vista issue

I do apologise, I thought it was on a par with the 8800GTS not the GTX, forgive me. Seeing as the GTX is the top card right now then getting 2 mid-range GPUs to rival it just by putting the chip which links them on the same PCB is rather impressive.

Admittedly putting 2 XTXs on the same card would be stupid but I was just trying to think of a feasible route they could use to get even more power and seeing as they can't use 2 8800 chips as they belong to nVidia the XTX was my only other choice. I assume that r600-based cards are going to demand a beefy PSU and so jamming 2 of those together would require a stupendous PSU.

I guess progress on this card is dependant upon manufacturer driver support. I just hope that if they release this they'll treat it better than nVidia did the 7950GX2.

It's good to see companies pushing out high-performance but good value single-slot graphics cards for all of us who bought non sli/crossfire mobo's because it's not something we see ourselves indulging in. All things considered I think 2007 has been and will continue to be an exciting year for GPU releases.
 

rammedstein

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I do apologise, I thought it was on a par with the 8800GTS not the GTX, forgive me. Seeing as the GTX is the top card right now then getting 2 mid-range GPUs to rival it just by putting the chip which links them on the same PCB is rather impressive.

Admittedly putting 2 XTXs on the same card would be stupid but I was just trying to think of a feasible route they could use to get even more power and seeing as they can't use 2 8800 chips as they belong to nVidia the XTX was my only other choice. I assume that r600-based cards are going to demand a beefy PSU and so jamming 2 of those together would require a stupendous PSU.

I guess progress on this card is dependant upon manufacturer driver support. I just hope that if they release this they'll treat it better than nVidia did the 7950GX2.

It's good to see companies pushing out high-performance but good value single-slot graphics cards for all of us who bought non sli/crossfire mobo's because it's not something we see ourselves indulging in. All things considered I think 2007 has been and will continue to be an exciting year for GPU releases.

the R600s will be on par with the 8800 series for power consumption. If it drew much more power there wouldn't be a feasible way to cool it effectively, cheaply and on a large scale.
 

celewign

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Ok, they built it, but their drivers don't work very well. It may perform better than a plain 1950 Pro, but it still gets beaten by the 8800s. And it won't do DX10. So what's the point of it? Spend a lot of money to get an ATI card that doesn't beat a 8800? I already have that in my old 1900 XTX Toxic that I bought last summer. So, no thanks to this card.

well, it is a pre-release sample. It is not final and yet it DOES beat an 8800gts in some tests... (well, it runs right with it anyway) that makes a possibly viable alternative if all the drivers issues are worked out by retail time. Seems like a cool product, more for the speculation in the article of 32 devices and the inherent benefits of xfire vs. sli... but we will have to see.

I realize that it was a pre-release model, which at least in my mind makes the benches of questionable value. As for its being a replacement for the standard 1900-1950 series, I'm not sure that it meets its goals. Then again, it is a pre-release and not a retail card. For myself, if I was to step up in a video card, I'd either go for a 8800 GTX or wait for the R600 instead of getting another DX9 only card. But that's my choice and other people will make their choices.

Sailer, I don't think that the 7950gt beats the 8800 and that is dual GPU too. The 8800 is hard to beat.
-cm
 

bum_jcrules

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Just to put one thing into perspective, there is a hint that a dual R6xx based card could be in the future. Of course we cannot get confirmation about "future products" but we are confident this could be true. So perhaps this is more of a proof of concept as dual X850 was the proof for CrossFire.
 

4745454b

Titan
Moderator
But the x1950xt is looking more and more appealing after seeing the 8600 ultra flop :)

The x1950pro/XT look to be very good deals. Consider that you can get a pro for ~$150, and an XT for ~$200, both appear to be cheap then the 8600GTS, and both provide better frame rates. If I highly overclocked 8600GTS can't beat an x1950pro, then the only fault with the x1950 series is the lack of DX10. And that really isn't a bad thing until DX10 only games start to show up...
 

4745454b

Titan
Moderator
Just a thought here folks, maybe we're all wrong about this. Nvidia seems to use a 128bit memory bus for all their midrange cards. Both the 6600GT and 7600GT used it. Neither of these cards could beat the top dogs of their day, but they were very popular at the time. The 7600GT is still a popular card for those that don't need "insane" amounts of power. Perhaps this card is a good deal, it after all does equal one of AMDs current "power" offerings as long as AA/AF is turned off.

Oh wait, I forgot. Its MSRP is higher then even the highest end card that ATI makes, never mind. It will flop...
 

4745454b

Titan
Moderator
Thats the previous high end. When the 6600GT came out, the x800 series was out from ATI. Same with the 7600GT. They might not have come out at the same time, but they were close.

I'm not saying the 8600GTS is a bad card, just overpriced. Knock the price down to $150ish, and you've got a deal. Its silly to buy a card right now just because it supports DX10. By the time DX10 games come out, there will be much better cards out.