AnandTech Exclusive: CrossFire Benchmarks Revealed
by Derek Wilson on July 22, 2005 6:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
So, what have we learned? CrossFire is a solid competitor to SLI at the high end. The hardware and drivers are far enough along to provide very good performance on quite a few titles. SuperTiling works using 32x32 blocks and doesn't seem to have any problems other than the odd glitch while changing modes. CrossFire AA modes don't work quite yet, but games will run and something near what should be there shows up.Gigabyte has stated that they not only have NVIDIA SLI working on their GA-K8AMVP Pro, but that dual 3D1 cards will work as well (with a modified BIOS and driver at the moment). We haven't had a chance yet to test this ourselves, but we will definitely have something up on the combination as soon as we can.
There are some downsides, however. While CrossFire often provides more performance than the 7800 GTX, we don't get the benefit of SM3.0, which is being used in more and more games. The added cost will either eat into your budget for a next generation card when they come along, or will usurp money that might be better spent on a monitor to handle very high resolutions. There are plenty of examples of CPU limited games at 1600x1200 using CrossFire (basically the same list as the 7800 GTX). As time goes on, it will be important to invest in a monitor or money spent on ultra high end graphics solutions will go to waste.
The bottom line is that CrossFire is a success in implementation. We are impressed with the performance of the solution, especially considering the very early hardware and software that we have our hands on here. When a final solution is released, we will be doing a much more in-depth performance and image quality analysis of the hardware, but at this point, we just want to get a solid idea about what to expect. And right now, we expect exciting things for ATI. To recap performance, we've put together a table showing improvement due to the addition of a second GPU under CrossFire and SLI.
| Multi GPU % Performance Improvement (16x12 noAA) | |||||
| Doom 3 | Everquest 2 | Half-Life 2 | Splinter Cell 3 | UT 2004 | |
| CrossFire | 42.9 | 2.3 | 11.1 | 82.3 | 5.7 |
| SLI | 34 | 1.4 | 22.2 | 88.8 | 4.4 |
| Multi GPU % Performance Improvement (16x12 4xAA) | |||
| Doom 3 | Half-Life 2 | Splinter Cell 3 | |
| CrossFire | 70.6 | 29.9 | 83.8 |
| SLI | 81.3 | 68.2 | 33.6 |
Clearly, even in it's early stages, CrossFire can bring some good competition to SLI.
If ATI can get their chipset out there alongside CrossFire master cards, we could see some good adoption. Their new chipsets are no slouches (well, maybe the southbridge is a little lacking). What is very clear is that ATI needs to get a solution out as soon as possible. Time isn't standing still for ATI while the 7800 GTX is out with zero competition in a single slot.
Once again, we would very much like to thank Gigabyte for providing us with the hardware necessary to run these tests. We were very happy with the performance of their hardware, and will have a more in-depth look at the motherboard as soon as possible.
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AnnoyedGrunt - Saturday, July 23, 2005 - link
There seems to be something wrong with the Splinter Cell scores.The 6800U gets the same 40.2 FPS for both 1600x1200 and 1600x1200 4XAA.
Yet the 6800U SLI gets 75.9 w/out AA and 53.7 w/AA.
I'm guessing that the 40.2 is incorrect for the single card with AA, and that the actual score is lower, probably around 30-35 (based on the X850 single card score).
Using the 30-35 FPS score as a baseline would mean that SLI has a 53%-79% improvement.
I'm not sure if these estimates are real or not, but I definitely think something is wrong with your numbers and that the ~34% improvemnt in your conclusion is incorrect as well.
Thanks,
D'oh!
michal1980 - Saturday, July 23, 2005 - link
all these crt users need to wake up and join everyone else. 99% of all gamers useing crts? phhf, only gamers that also have record players because they swear they can hear the differance between a record and a cd. that difference is noise. where as almost everything in you pc is digital, you guys choose to live with the noise/cross talk, other anamolies that plague your crts because of the d/a conversion, and the non-error correcting communiation.while i will enjoy my perfect geometery, no need to have all magnets placed miles apart, whinning at res to high. monitor flickering when res changes. and the fact is that 99% of gamers do not spend the big $$$. i mean hell like 70% of the video cards out there are on board. and i'm geussing only like 5% are high end that can go aboce 12x10 res. at 12x10 most people can play perfectly on there lcds.
grow up crt fanboys, and wake up to what is really happening, your crts are dieing, our lcds are getting better. who really wants a 100+ box with a 4 ft footprint on there desk. only gamer snoobs like you.
DerekWilson - Saturday, July 23, 2005 - link
CrystalBay (and anyone else who cares) ... you want the bf2 demo we use? Email me and I'll send it to you.It is difficult to setup bf2 to get repeatable results, and I'd recommend that you spend some time inside EA's demo.cmd for benchmarking the game and reading various forums on the subject.
Just to let everyone know, we have to actually take the csv file bf2 generates with the frametimes for each frame and we average the last 1700 frames. DICE actually records frametimes for the loadscreen, and it's more acurate for us to use their recorded times than to use something like fraps.
That's all the "support" I'll give for the demo file, but if you still want it, feel free to ask.
Derek Wilson
Staples - Saturday, July 23, 2005 - link
I am impressed with the performance gain. Seems to be more than NVIDIA SLI.CrystalBay - Saturday, July 23, 2005 - link
This is bogus why doesn't AT release the AT BF2 time demoElJefe - Saturday, July 23, 2005 - link
My crt cost over a 1000 dollars. 23 inch mitsubishi.there's nothing on the market that beats a crt for gaming. you have to be smoking some seriously badly cut ghetto crack to consider that an lcd is anything besides prettier,thinner and easier on the eyes than a high quality crt. And really, it is only easier on the eyes for doing 2d work, well, except for when the pixels get in the way of the font being perfectly round and clean, then it sux there too.
even a skank level crt beats out 600 dollar lcd's.
Reapsy00 - Friday, July 22, 2005 - link
#17 Your mouth opens and closes and crap pours outReapsy00 - Friday, July 22, 2005 - link
Whats the point of these benchmarks without minimum fps?Zebo - Friday, July 22, 2005 - link
::::YAWN:::::Too little too late.
flatblastard - Friday, July 22, 2005 - link
I have been a skeptic of SLI/Xfire and the like. I guess I just don't see the need for two cards, although I'm sure there is one or two reasons. I bought the 850pe earlier this year and I have to say I still don't regret it, even if it was overpriced. I'm thinking I will just keep using this card until R520 reaches the surface. Then I will be able to decide whether to buy the x850 master, or just do what I've always done and get the next single card in either the mid or high end.