News ATI CrossFire benchmarks emerge

Thats not quite true. The Link operates via a silicon image decoder which runs at a max of the above. However the cards themselves will output much higher that this.

Waitng to see proper benchies before dumping ATI and going Nvidia, theres mroe to these cards than pure clockspeed.....

 

I dont see how that really makes my statement any less true; youre still stuck at those refresh rates regardless of GPU power.

 

Well now, looking at these numbers there are a few things that come to mind. First of all wasn't the R520 originally supposed to compete with the 7800? Looking at these benches I would say that it does, I mean the differences here are most of the time minimal if not non-existing. Comparing the single X1800 card with SLI configurations make no sense what so ever, that will have to wait for crossfire. The differences in scores between the 7800 and the X1800 are so small that I fear we will soon see one of the biggest problems of online reviews. Some will show the X1800 kicking the 7800 in the *** some will show the reverse and some will show that they are equal.
Another thing that needs to be addressed is whether these numbers matter. This was brought up in yesterday’s column by Wil Harris. If we stick to the numbers (which are all we have right now) what are they? Probably the average FPS, but who cares that a card has a high average FPS if it sometimes drops to near zero. Don't get me wrong I think that average FPS is a decent way of demonstrating the power of gfx cards as long as we get the minimum value during the bench as well.

I know that this rant will label me ATI fan boy, and to be honest I hope(d) that the X1800 will(would) perform better that this. Only time (and bit-tech.net) will tell.

 

i dont believe that 60hz thing

These guys can make video cards.... VIDEO CARDS !!!! It certainly isnt an easy job and they MUST know what they're doing. They also MUST know that a game is NOT playable in 60hz no matter what framerate you get

They cant be stupid enough to expect hardcore gamers (main target of crossfire) to be playing in 60hz...

Stop believing all these stupid rumors

 

Its not a rumour, it comes down to the silicon they are using for the information transfer. Doing some reading, when you think about it, its really not as bad as it appears. Thats the limit of the chip they are using to do the graphics transfers, but ATI's main rendermode will be supertiling; as a result, only half of a complete frame is being rendered at any time. Instead of rendering 2304000 pixels, its rendering 1152000; well within what the transfer chip is capable of delivering.

 

The R520 seems to be a bit crappy imho...

Yes, there are no benchies of CF solution, but when we realize that single 7800GTX beats single R520, is there any chance that R520 CF will outperform the 7800GTX SLI?

In addition, 7800Ultra is going to come out in a few weeks or so.There is no chance for ATI here...

 

There seems to be folks out there that think this is all BS. Don't know/don't care but we all better wait for a formal release before deciding what to buy and what not to buy.

http://www.guru3d.com/newsitem.php?id=3069
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=31&threadid=1691064&enterthread=y
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/CrossfireTruth/1

 

that third link = ouch

 

Anybody who makes a decision on which $500 card they buy without reading the bit-tech review first is a silly billy

But seriously, there really is no way to know at this point if these numbers are representative or not. I know Sander personally, and if there is any intentional deception with the figures, it would be at his source in Taiwan, not by him directly.

Certainly now that ATI have dismissed them as just plain incorrect, one would expect to see some "different" numbers soon enough.

If there's anyone I trust to tell it how it is - 7800 vs X1800 - it's our Tim.

 

FFS we need to wait until these platforms are in production releases, NOT pre. Theres still bugs being ironed out of the boards, from what I've seen/heard the producion ATI boards won't have issues with USB etc..

Regarding the Nvidia PPT, what else do you expect them to say? No doubt the same released by ATI would show SLI's failings....

The whole issue with the res's is being blown out of proportion IMO. After reading some articles which actually explain the situation, ATI isnt in that badder position after all....
For example, 1600*1200 running AFR. The decoder for the CARD LINK **NOTE THIS IS ***NOT*** THE CARD OUTPUT*** can run at a max of 1600*1200 @ 60hz. Because AFfr is used, the images can be rendered at a max of 120fps. 1600*1200 gaming at 120fps isnt bad. Most CRT's can't manage that, and TFT users need only 60hz anyway.
The cards output decoder runs at a max of 2048x1536 @ 85 Hz, which you'd be hard pressed to get a monitor capable of running that high with that refresh....

Limiting the "internal" comms between the cards to a max of 1600*1200 @ 60hz - 115million pixels/sec wasn't the best of ideas, however its not anywhere near as bad as people first thought... Another factor is that ATI might well have customised the chip in some way, meaning it can handle a higher throughput....

 

Maybe I should have been more specific.... The 9800 pro was a decent card... but MINE was rubbish. Wouldn't overclock worth a damn, gets too hot, and was noisy... so maybe it's just put me off a little.

 

Well, it seems ATI is the winner after all. i just found this reliable source:

Clearly ATI is the much better card.



(borrowed from HERE)

 

That is class

 

Hah! i knew it!

 

60hz maybe a bad thing for those with CRT monitors, but with TFT screens it's not so important as the screen doesn't flicker anyway, making refresh rate somewhat irrelevant.

 

this limit of 1600x1200 @ 60Hz, or whatever it is, is the limit for the inter card communication, i have looked around at a few sites and it seems that the limit does not apply to the actual output onto the display, so it should perform at higher resolutions and refresh rates.

this is what i have come to the conclusion of, i coul be right, i could be wrong

all benckmarks of the X1800XT series will be false as the cards have not left ATI, or any of their partners yet.

Link (Neoseeker)

we just need to wait a whie longer to see the true performance.
Hopefully ATI will not let us down and will keep the competition hot so we all get to benefit.