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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Hasse - Wednesday, July 27, 2005 - link
Sigh.. Read comment to first post..DerekWilson - Thursday, July 28, 2005 - link
We're all still getting used to the new design :-)To actually reply -- the crossfire card can work alone. you don't need another card. I know this because it was running by itself while I was trying various methods to coax it into submission :-) ... Also, even if gigabyte's hardware is close to complete, ATI is in charge of the driver for the mobo and the graphics card, as well as getting a solid video bios out to their customers. These things are among the last in the pipe to be fully optimized.
I don't think I could give up the F520 even for desk space. I'd rather type on an LCD panel any day, but if I am gonna play or test games, there's just no substitute for a huge CRT.
DanaGoyette - Monday, July 25, 2005 - link
Want to know why 1280x1024 always looks wrong on CRTs? It's because IT IS wrong! 800x600, 1024x768, 1600x1200 -- all are 4:3 aspect ratio,but
1280x1024? That's 5:4! To get 4:3, you need to use 1280x960! That should be benchmarked too, if possible.
Whoever invented that resolution should be forced to watch a CRT flickering at 30 Hz interlaced for the rest of his life! Or at least create more standard resolutions with the SAME aspect ratio!
I could rant on this endlessly....
DerekWilson - Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - link
There are a great many lcd panels that use 1280x1024 -- both for desktop systems and on notebooks.the resolution people play games on should match the aspect ratio of the display device. At the same time, there is no point in testing 1280x960 and 1280x1024 because their performance would be very similar. We test 1280x1024 because it is the larger of the two resolutions (and by our calculations, the more popular).
Derek Wilson
Hasse - Wednesday, July 27, 2005 - link
True!I'ld have to agree with Derek. Most people that play on 1280 use 1280x1024. But it is also true that 960 is the true 4:3... While I don't know why it's so that there's 2 versions of 1280 (probably something related to video or TV), I also know that the performance difference is allmost zero, try for yourself. Running Counterstrike showed no difference on my computer.
-Hasse
giz02 - Saturday, July 23, 2005 - link
Nothing wrong with 16x12 adn sli'd 7800's. If your monitor can't go beyond that, then surely it would welcome the 8 and 16xaa modes that come for free, besidesvision33r - Saturday, July 23, 2005 - link
For the price of $1000+ to do Crossfire, you could've just bought the 7800GTX and you're done.coldpower27 - Saturday, July 23, 2005 - link
Well Multi GPU technology to me makes sense simply when you can't get the same performance you need out of a single card. I would rather have the 7800 GTX then the Dual 6800 Ultra setup, for reduced power consumption.You gotta hand it to Nidia able to market their SLI setup to the 6600 GT, and soon to be 6600 LE line.
karlreading - Saturday, July 23, 2005 - link
I have to say im running a SLI setup.i went from a AGP based ( nf3, 754 a64 3200+ hammer ) 6800GT system, to the current SLI setup ( nf4 SLI/s939 3200+ winchester ) dual 6600GT setup.
to be honest, SLI aint all that. i miss the fact that to use my dual desktop ( i have 2*20inch CRT's ) I have to turn SLI off in the drivers, which involves a reboot, so thats hassel. Yes, the dual GT's beat even a 6800 ULTRA in non AA settings in doom 3 but they get creamed with AA on, even the 6600GT'S i have are feeling cpu strangulation, so you need a decent cpu to feed it. and not all games are SLI ready. To be honest, apart from the nice view in the case of to cards in there ( looks trick ) i would rather have a decent single card set up then a SLI setup.
crossfire is looking strong though! AIT needed it and now they have it, the playing field is much more level! karlos!
AnnoyedGrunt - Saturday, July 23, 2005 - link
Also, as far as XFire competing with SLI, it seems to offer nothing really different from SLI, and in that sense only competes by being essentially the same thing but for ATI cards. However, NV is clearly concerned about it (as evidenced by their AA improvements, the reduction on the SLI chipset prices, and the improvements in default game support). So, ATI's entry into the dual card arena has really improved the features for all users, which is why this heated competition between the companies is so good for consumers. Hopefully ATI will get their XFire issues resolved quickly, although I agree with the sentiment that the R520 is far more important than XFire (at least in the graphics arena - in the chipset arena ATI probably can't compete without XFire).-D'oh!