Serious CrossFire limitations

[NikolaX]

There's naturally been a lot of debate about ATI's CrossFire technology, and in particular how it sits against NVIDIA's already well-estabished SLI. Both systems have their pros and cons, but if what Rage3D is reporting is correct then... Let's put it this way, there won't be any point in CrossFire anyway.

As many are aware by now, ATI’s Crossfire technology uses an external link to connect the Master and Slave cards together (it's sort of like a 3-headed dongle with DVI connectors at the ends). What’s not generally known is that the backbone for this setup is a Silicon Image SiL 1161 chip which is installed on the X8-series Master cards. The SiL 1161 is there to receive output passed over the external link from the Slave card in the Crossfire setup and pass it on to the Master card.

Sounds decent on paper and everything, but if you check out the specs for the 1161 on this page you will see that it is limited to single-link TMDS @ 165MHz. This means that the max 3D resolution for any X8-series Crossfire setup is 1600x1200 @ 60Hz. That means no high-res Crossfire gaming beyond 1600x1200, no 1600x1200 at a flicker free refresh rate, and no widescreen 1920x1200.

The word 'Oops' springs to mind, and that's putting it mildly. You can find the story here

 

[sinkoman]

/me waits for fanboys to go "YOU HAVE TO COUNT THE CHIP RESOLUTION DIFFERENTLY N00B!!1!12!" and "I'm sure they got something up their sleeve :thumbs:"

 

[Ket-Chup]

YOU HAVE TO COUNT THE CHIP RESOLUTION DIFFERENTLY N00B!!1!12!
And I'm sure they got something up their sleeve...

j/k



It's not really that big of a deal, because LCD-monitors has a limited resolution, so you couldn't use 1600x1200 on them anyway (unless you have a big-ass monitor), and you can't use crossfire with CRTs either (its DVI only).

And I don't really care, because I'm getting the X1800XT, with Sil 1172:bounce:

 

[NikolaX]

and you can't use crossfire with CRTs either (its DVI only).

LOL, nice one mate

 

[sinkoman]

LOL, nice one mate

Huge turn off for me.

 

[J_Tweedy]

Its still gonna pwn...what an awesome idea, allowing those with previous generation cards to significantly upgrade the power of their graphics.

And no, i dont own an Ati...

 

[duffers20]

Surely they would have thought of this when they were developing the technology, but we will just have to wait and see..

 

[Lahire149]

but we will just have to wait and see..

ya, they probablly have some kind of trick

 

[Cole]

and you can't use crossfire with CRTs either (its DVI only).

N wheres your info?

 

[duffers20]

and you can't use crossfire with CRTs either (its DVI only).

I'm probably completely wrong in saying this, but couldn't you use one of those DVI converters so you could use older monitors?

 

[Ket-Chup]

N wheres your info?

Right here...

As many are aware by now, ATI’s Crossfire technology uses an external link to connect the Master and Slave cards together (it's sort of like a 3-headed dongle with DVI connectors at the ends). What’s not generally known is that the backbone for this setup is a Silicon Image SiL 1161 chip which is installed on the X8-series Master cards. The SiL 1161 is there to receive output passed over the external link from the Slave card in the Crossfire setup and pass it on to the Master card.

It says something about it at TheInquirer.net too...

Monsieur Le Dongle will connect to two DVI outs and should provide you with lossless quality, although your wallet will be lighter by a lossful quantity after you've lashed out the money for the stuff. Below, you can see the board, cards and dongle itself.

 

[Qonfused]

Meh, I don't know if anyone does here, but I think gaming at such a high resolution is rediculous. Gaming at 1024x7-- or 1280x1024 is just fine -- anything more is overkill.

 

[NJspeed]

Meh, I don't know if anyone does here, but I think gaming at such a high resolution is rediculous. Gaming at 1024x7-- or 1280x1024 is just fine -- anything more is overkill.

OVERKILL? Cmon.. You know when it comes to gaming, theres absolutely no such thing.. Otherwise we'd all still be playing games that look like Wolfenstein. Once you go high res, you'd never go back... it's just like anything else...

 

[Cole]

(it's sort of like a 3-headed dongle with DVI connectors at the ends)

Yeah...soo....?
Take a look at a 7800 or a 6800 you may notice most of them have 2 DVI outputs and no VGA output. Are they VGA compatible?
Yes.
Why?
THEY COME WITH DVI TO VGA CONVERTERS.

 

[sinkoman]

Yeah...soo....?
Take a look at a 7800 or a 6800 you may notice most of them have 2 DVI outputs and no VGA output. Are they VGA compatible?
Yes.
Why?
THEY COME WITH DVI TO VGA CONVERTERS.

Yeah, but the way these cards output their DVI signal could be completely different.

 

[Qonfused]

OVERKILL? Cmon.. You know when it comes to gaming, theres absolutely no such thing.. Otherwise we'd all still be playing games that look like Wolfenstein. Once you go high res, you'd never go back... it's just like anything else...

I've cranked my resolution up before... I personally don't like it. And yes, there is overkill: DreadLord1337's rig (2 SLi'd 7800GTX's, 4GB RAM, etc.). So, when you get get 200 FPS in CSS, you know you've gone too far.

 

[socK]

Personally I dont see the need to run 1212937x FSAA and such, when I play in 1280x jaggies are almost un noticeable to me :\

Im sure on my next rig when I go apeshit overboard i'll get spoiled though :]

 

[Cole]

Yeah, but the way these cards output their DVI signal could be completely different.

That still dosn't mean a converter to VGA is impossible now does it?

 

[sinkoman]

That still dosn't mean a converter to VGA is impossible now does it?

No.

But it means that we might have to wait for ATI to release a compatible dongle.

 

[Dekstar]

I've cranked my resolution up before... I personally don't like it. And yes, there is overkill: DreadLord1337's rig (2 SLi'd 7800GTX's, 4GB RAM, etc.). So, when you get get 200 FPS in CSS, you know you've gone too far.

higher FPS means less recoil. So really meh...

 

[ComradeBadger]

Not worth the money though.. really

 

[JellyWorld]

I've cranked my resolution up before... I personally don't like it. And yes, there is overkill: DreadLord1337's rig (2 SLi'd 7800GTX's, 4GB RAM, etc.). So, when you get get 200 FPS in CSS, you know you've gone too far.

Once at another hardware forum I saw this guy with Dual Opterons, SLI'd 7800GTXs, 4*500GB=2TB of hard disk running in RAID 0 and 16GB of RAM.

 

[Kyorisu]

Once at another hardware forum I saw this guy with Dual Opterons, SLI'd 7800GTXs, 4*500GB=2TB of hard disk running in RAID 0 and 16GB of RAM.

Impressive yes! but damn, uh get a girlfriend or something.

 

[Cole]

You missed an important fact Jelly, he was running a 64bit OS with that system.
Why?
32bit == 4gig ram max.