X1800 crossfire results

[maverik-sg1]

Thanks to techreport:

Doom 3

We generally used in-game controls when possible in order to invoke antialiasing and anisotropic filtering. In the case of Doom 3, we used the game's "High Quality" mode in combination with 4X AA.

 

[maverik-sg1]

Half-Life 2: Lost Coast

This new expansion level for Half-Life 2 takes advantage of high-dynamic-range lighting, and it looks spectacular. HDR lighting requires the use of higher-color texture formats, so it really stresses a card's throughput.

The Radeon X1800 CrossFire systems manage to outdo their closest NVIDIA counterparts at low resolutions here, but things change as the resolution steps up. Nevertheless, CrossFire scales nicely from one card to two.

 

[maverik-sg1]

F.E.A.R.

We tested the next few games using FRAPS and playing through a portion of the game manually. For these games, we played through five 60-second gaming sessions per config and captured average and low frame rates for each. The average frames per second number is the mean of the average frame rates from all five sessions. We also chose to report the median of the low frame rates from all five sessions, in order to rule out outliers. We found that these methods gave us reasonably consistent results.

Light detail, shadow detail, texture resolution, shaders, effects detail, model decals, and reflections were all set to maximum for our testing. Computer performance, water resolution, and volumetric light density were set to medium.

The Radeon X1800 XT CrossFire system takes the top spot in our F.E.A.R. test when antialiasing is disabled, but it drops back a couple of spots in the field once 4X AA and 16X anisotropic filtering are enabled. The Radeon X1800 XL CrossFire rig can't quite match the GeForce 7800 GT SLI system.

 

[maverik-sg1]

Battlefield 2

The fastest SLI and CrossFire systems bunch up at the top of the field here, likely due to a frame rate cap of 90Hz built into BF2. Any of these setups can run BF2 about as optimally as it can be run at 1600x1200 with 4X antialiasing. The Radeon X1800 XL CrossFire system is in league with the GeForce 6800 GS SLI setup—based on a much cheaper class of card.

Guild Wars

We found the same thing with the Radeon X1800 CrossFire systems that we did with Radeon X850 XT CrossFire. The game apparently has no profile in ATI's drivers and defaults to SuperTiling mode, which actually produces lower frame rates than one would get from a single card. You'll want to disable CrossFire altogether when playing games that trigger this sort of behavior.

 

[maverik-sg1]

3DMark05

The CrossFire systems perform relatively stronger in the second and third game tests than they do in the first. The Radeon X1800 systems handle the Firefly Forest scene, which is full of complex geometry and shadows, especially well.​

 

[maverik-sg1]

SuperAA performance scaling

We haven't had enough time with the Radeon X1800 CrossFire Edition to run a full spectrum of benchmarks with CrossFire's Super AA modes, but here is a quick look at its performance in Doom 3. Also present is a test system based on the Asus A8N32-SLI motherboard with the nForce4 SLI X16 chipset. This chipset's true dual 16-lane PCI Express slots have the potential to help NVIDIA's SLI AA work a bit quicker.

ATI wasn't kidding when they said hardware blending on the new CrossFire master cards would help with Super AA performance. The NVIDIA setups suffer a severe performance penalty for enabling SLI AA, while the Radeon X1800 CrossFire's drop-off is proportionally much lower.

Overclocking

Well, I tried to overclock the CrossFire systems using the automatic clock config utility in the Overdrive section of ATI's Catalyst Control Center. The app indicated a higher clock speed for at least one of the two cards (speeds aren't displayed independently for both), but, well, here's what I got for performance. Note that I've only labeled the overclocked Radeon X1800 XL CrossFire system as "OC." I know that the CrossFire Edition card was running its memory at a higher clock speed, but I have no idea about the Radeon X1800 XL.

We'll have to try this again with a future driver or a third-party tool that's more capable. Surely we could squeeze more performance out of an overclocked CrossFire rig.

 

[maverik-sg1]

Power consumption

We measured total system power consumption at the wall socket using a watt meter. The monitor was plugged into a separate outlet, so its power draw was not part of our measurement. The idle measurements were taken at the Windows desktop, and cards were tested under load running Half-Life 2: Lost Coast at 1600x1200 resolution with 16X anisotropic filtering and HDR lighting enabled.

All of the graphics cards named below except for the two Radeon X1800 CrossFire setups were tested on the Asus A8N-SLI mobo. We were forced to use the ATI CrossFire reference mobo, of course, for the CrossFire cards. Thus, the numbers below are an indication of overall platform power consumption, but they encompass more variables than just the graphics cards' power use alone.

High-end multi-GPU systems aren't known for sipping power, and a pair of Radeon X1800 cards is no exception. The SLI systems require less power at idle, and the GeForce 7800 GT in SLI doesn't pull as much juice as the Radeon X1800 XL CrossFire under load. Nothing, though, eats up wattage like the dual GeForce 7800 GTX 512s in SLI, not even the Radeon X1800 XT CrossFire system.

 

[scorchio]

Not much in it over all looks like its all done to personal preference.Nice find Mav

 

[maverik-sg1]

Conclusions

A Radeon X1800 XT CrossFire rig is mighty fast. Also, it's six degrees Fahrenheit outside right now at my place, and I've enjoyed the room-warming benefits of CrossFire and SLI systems throughout the preparation of this review. My mind boggles, though, when I try to consider the value proposition of plunking down $1200 for a pair of graphics cards and roughly $200 more for the motherboard. Could a pair of Radeon X1800 XT cards in CrossFire be a better deal than two GeForce 7800 GTX 512s in SLI?

Yeah, I suppose so, especially with GTX 512 prices currently in low-altitude orbit. I do have my reservations about CrossFire, including the hassle of dealing with external dongles and the iffy I/O performance of CrossFire motherboards that use ATI's SB450 south bridge. Still, CrossFire performance generally scales well enough from one card to two, and I said in my initial CrossFire review that the long-term success of this solution would hinge on the quality of ATI's new GPUs. Turns out that the Radeon X1800 XT is a very desirable graphics card that matches the GeForce 7800 GTX feature for feature and adds a few new wrinkles of its own, including finer threading granularity for Shader Model 3.0 and the ability to do antialiasing with high-dynamic-range rendering. The Radeon X1800 XT trails the GeForce 7800 GTX 512 in overall performance, but Radeon X1800 CrossFire may hit the streets at prices as much as $150 lower per card than the 7800 GTX 512. (Radeon X1800 XTs are already available at $599 or less.) In the rarefied air of big-money graphics subsystems, that potential $300 price difference—if indeed it develops—could make a Radeon X1800 XT CrossFire system a, uh, er, uhm, solid value.

Yeah, I said it.

It's bitchin' fast, at any rate.

Don't go buying a Radeon X1800 XL card, however, expecting to add a Radeon X1800 CrossFire card later if you care at all about value. Dropping a $599 CrossFire card into your system and lopping off half of its RAM and much of its performance potential isn't the brightest of moves. That solution sacrificies too much, in my view. You can get a dual-graphics solution involving a Radeon X1800 XL, but it's far from optimal. Perhaps in the future, if prices drop dramatically on the Radeon X1800 CrossFire Edition cards, teaming one up with an XL could make some sense. That seems like a shaky prospect to me, though.

 

[nick25]

Nice lot of info there. Anyone else suprised with the small drop in 3dmark 05 from 1024x768 to 1600x1200? I thought it would be a bigger drop.

 

[boardy]

I'm loving the fact that the 256 GTX is still getting above the latest ATI cards. Just proves the point that nVidia still has that edge over ATI and will do for a bit I recon. The technology is just better.

 

[scorchio]

Me to seems how i own 2 of them they seem to be best value for money at the moment.Watercooled and volt modded with a tweaked bios they are not far behind the 512's but half the price.

 

[boardy]

I can't wait to get mine. Even tho they are prolly gonna get peed on by the G71 core they will still be able to run the latest games and things for a while with VERY nice frame rates.

The 512's are just stupidly priced and completely pointless imho.

 

[SAS91]

lol nice ATI is pretty much level pegging again. Glad to see as the more competition the companys give each other the faster the technolagy moves on Intriguing.

 

[boardy]

It's kinda like the Intel Vs AMD war going on. AMD are now trying to force Intel to make a working Dual Core chip, whereas Intel just deny the rumours. It's amusing and probly the same thing happens with ATI Vs nVidia. I'm really looking forward to seeing the G71 cores, I hope mavs on the ball for when they come out!!

 

[GoLLuM4444]

Are these 512 xts or 256 ones? I'm pleased that OcUK got their asses in gear and are shipping me a 512 master this week and with less cpu limitation I'll see what I can do for those 3dmark scores.

 

[maverik-sg1]

I dont remember now which but there are a few reviews out now that put the XT crossfire somewhere in the region of in between the 256 and 512 GTX's in most test and behind the 256's in others.

I know you been waiting a long time Gollum mate and hope to see ur results in the near future - normal water, chilled water or cascaded?

Mav

 

[GoLLuM4444]

I dont remember now which but there are a feew review out now that put the XT crossfire somewhere in the region of in between the 256 and 512 GTX's in most test and behind the 256's in others.

I know you been waiting a long time Gollum mate and hope to see ur results in teh near future - normal water, chilled water or cascaded?

Mav

Still R507 Mach and chilled water ftm. Hopefully cascades should be here soonish. Maybe in time for X1900s and FX60 8).

 

[Mindless-Moron]

It's kinda like the Intel Vs AMD war going on. AMD are now trying to force Intel to make a working Dual Core chip, whereas Intel just deny the rumours. It's amusing and probly the same thing happens with ATI Vs nVidia. I'm really looking forward to seeing the G71 cores, I hope mavs on the ball for when they come out!!

what do you mean by that? are you refering to the fact that the intel dual core is literally jsut two cores on some silicon unlike amd's superior one?

the 7800gtx 512mb is compltly pointless imho its simply been released so nvidia can say oh we won this round aswell.

 

[Geomon]

I think that it shouldn't have been released, the 512mb gtx that is. Its why I prefer nvidia in the first place as they dont keep relesing cards to outperform ati. Take the 68gt/ultras, they released this familly and stuck with it even tough ati then went on the put out the 850xtpe onlt to say they had the most powerful card atm, there was a lot more left in the 68ultra core but they left it as that.