ATI has been particularly quiet regarding CrossFire since their launch at Computex back in June. I assumed that we wouldn't see CrossFire boards and cards until August or September at the earliest, and it's really starting to look like that's going to be the case. But I'm not here to talk about CrossFire availability, I'm here to talk about performance.
There have been a number of CrossFire previews published all over the net, including our benchmarks from Computex. But what truly caught my attention was the tests over at HKEPC that showed two X700 cards working in CrossFire mode with nothing more than a simple BIOS update, no master card needed.
Something about that just didn't make much sense; ATI went through all the trouble to stick a compositing chip on these CrossFire master cards, and all you really need is the BIOS from a master card? So we did some digging and Wesley actually discovered the truth behind current CrossFire performance.
ATI distributed a special driver to their partners prior to the Computex launch that was designed to simulate CrossFire performance, by only rendering odd frames (effectively doubling the frame rate and simulating AFR performance). Although we can't confirm that we also ran with this driver back at Computex, chances are we probably did. But more importantly, the reviews you've seen where a pair of slave cards are used aren't actually testing CrossFire, they are simply simulating the performance of CrossFire by rendering half the frames.
We have learned however that the performance of this special driver is actually virtually identical to AFR performance with CrossFire actually working, but it is important to understand that when CrossFire is eventually released - you won't be able to just flash the BIOS on a slave card and have it work as a master card. And obviously, you won't be able to use just any cards in CrossFire mode, you'll have to stick with a X850 or X800 master card.
Although I have yet to see final benchmarks, my guess right now is that ATI needs to actually release CrossFire when they've shipped R520 boards. Had NVIDIA not launched G70 it wouldn't have been as big of an issue, but with a single G70 basically equal in performance to a pair of 6800 Ultras, ATI isn't winning any brownie points by competing with yesterday's GPUs. I think a launch/shipping announcement of R520 and CrossFire either sequentially or simultaneously would put ATI's best foot forward, as CrossFire has lost a bit of its steam by this point.
There have been a number of CrossFire previews published all over the net, including our benchmarks from Computex. But what truly caught my attention was the tests over at HKEPC that showed two X700 cards working in CrossFire mode with nothing more than a simple BIOS update, no master card needed.
Something about that just didn't make much sense; ATI went through all the trouble to stick a compositing chip on these CrossFire master cards, and all you really need is the BIOS from a master card? So we did some digging and Wesley actually discovered the truth behind current CrossFire performance.
ATI distributed a special driver to their partners prior to the Computex launch that was designed to simulate CrossFire performance, by only rendering odd frames (effectively doubling the frame rate and simulating AFR performance). Although we can't confirm that we also ran with this driver back at Computex, chances are we probably did. But more importantly, the reviews you've seen where a pair of slave cards are used aren't actually testing CrossFire, they are simply simulating the performance of CrossFire by rendering half the frames.
We have learned however that the performance of this special driver is actually virtually identical to AFR performance with CrossFire actually working, but it is important to understand that when CrossFire is eventually released - you won't be able to just flash the BIOS on a slave card and have it work as a master card. And obviously, you won't be able to use just any cards in CrossFire mode, you'll have to stick with a X850 or X800 master card.
Although I have yet to see final benchmarks, my guess right now is that ATI needs to actually release CrossFire when they've shipped R520 boards. Had NVIDIA not launched G70 it wouldn't have been as big of an issue, but with a single G70 basically equal in performance to a pair of 6800 Ultras, ATI isn't winning any brownie points by competing with yesterday's GPUs. I think a launch/shipping announcement of R520 and CrossFire either sequentially or simultaneously would put ATI's best foot forward, as CrossFire has lost a bit of its steam by this point.
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Anonymous - Sunday, July 17, 2005 - link
Why does everyone misunderstand what is happening here? The drivers are sending even-frames to one card and odd-frames to the other card. The cards are rendering every single frame. However, because there is no composite chip, only every-other frame can be sent to the monitor. That's all.Creathir - Saturday, July 16, 2005 - link
#13They def. do have their work cut out for them, however I disagree with you on the AGP market. You would literally be INSANE to buy a $350+ AGP card which is outdated technology. That would be like going to the dealer and DEMANDING to pay $20,000 for a Gremlin. It would be stupid to waste that mutch money and not upgrade your motherboard to a technology that has been out for a year+. (A year in the PC world is HUGE)
No... I do not agree that the "AGP" market would keep someone afloat. ATI def. needs something more than the hope that no one upgrades their PC in order to put them on the same level they were on a year ago.
- Creathir
reactor - Saturday, July 16, 2005 - link
fanboys are funny to watch...ati really needs to step it up here, i completely agree that they need to launch r520 and crossfire at the same time. added to that if they dont paper launch, i see them making a big comeback. but they have there work cut out for them. one advantage they do have is saying they will produce agp cards, which is still a big market. if they play it right they will gain back most of, if not all that they lost to nvidia(sales, market share or w/e).
time will tell..
at80eighty - Saturday, July 16, 2005 - link
#9 nature-See, son, the thing is - when you want people to *believe* you dont give a shit , it helps when you dont yell caffiene fuelled gems such as "SO F U C K Y O U "
/thought i'd throw you a little freebie there..
Creathir - Saturday, July 16, 2005 - link
I'm no NVIDIA fanboy, but when only one company has come back and beat ATI down like they have, I become slightly impressed. I had a 9700 Pro until March of this year, and when it came around to upgrade to Athlon 64, ATI had NOTHING compared to the performance SLI was delivering. NVidia has screwed things up in the past *cough*GeForce FX*cough*, but they had their superb chipset to keep them afloat. Now they have delt this massive next-gen card (7600) that is causing ATI to retool some things. This is quite amazing, considering a year ago ATI was (IMO) in control of the graphics market. I certainly am no fan boy, except I want the best, and right now, ATI is not looking too hot.- Creathir
Daniel - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link
ATI fanboys... theyre so desperate theyre putting 6600gts in SLI!nature - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link
I love how everyone that posted thinks ATI is going to be bought up even though they only lost 20 million last quarter in profit OUT OF 550 million, sorry to burst you bubble fanboys just becuase a company does bad does in one quarter does not mean it will be sold to quote "Creative/Intel/AMD". Get realistic and look at the facts fools.Competition is good so don't rant and rave about a couple months of delay on R520 and crossfire, when it finally does come out NVIDIA will probably drop prices on SLI and 7800/7600 series.
And furthermore ATI is just showing that they want the best friggin product that they can get to the public, with no bugs.
Please fanboys bitch about ATI all you want but the reality is no one listens to you anyway.
And just so you dont call me a fanboy i have 2 6600gt in sli. SO F U C K Y O U
Daniel - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link
#6 - thats not the point. remember the "exclusive benchmark" showing the massive doom3 performance increase when crossfire was "launched"? well i guess when they got that exclusive benchmark they forgot to mention it was fake.http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2432...
"Even at this early stage, performance and stability were both impressive. The system that we were running had just been assembled hours earlier and didn't crash at all during our testing. In fact, the system was so new that the motherboard manufacturer who let us test with their hardware hadn't even seen it running - it was their first time as well as ours.
The performance of the solution was equally impressive; at 1024x768, the dual GPU CrossFire setup improved performance by 49%. At 1280x1024 and 1600x1200, the performance went up by 72% and 86% respectively. We had our doubts that ATI would be able to offer performance scaling on par with what we've seen on NVIDIA's SLI, but these initial numbers, despite being run on early hardware/drivers, are quite promising. "
#7, if they get bought out, then no more real competition till the new company gets its act together and we wont see such dramatic performance increases on cards. and i hope they get flamed plnty on the forums ;)
kleinwl - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link
#2 Ahhh... I guess I misunderstood. I thought the drivers were shipping even frames to one card and odd frames to the other card... thus creating the cross-fire. If all they were doing is dropping every other frame so they could "double" the frame rate... that is total b.S. and they deserve the pummling that they are recieving in the forums.I wish NVidia would get the 7800GT and midrange cards out so ATI would really start to hurt... just to enforce the need to "keep up". Still and all, I think I understand that if they have such low yields that only 10 good chips come off a $3000 wafer, there is no chance that they can sell anything.
gwwfps - Friday, July 15, 2005 - link
In the HKEPC article, they actually pointed out that the card were just simulating the performance of real CrossFire mode. They stated that the article is just to give people an idea what the actual performance might be.