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AMD Prepares 'CrossFire X' Technology

zekrahminator

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While ATI CrossFire technology was introduced in early 2005, delays and the wide adoption of NVIDIA SLI platforms prevented CrossFire from really catching on. AMD hopes to change that by introducing a little ace-in-the-hole that's currently nicknamed 'CrossFire X'. The CrossFire X initiative aims to increase scalability, performance, reliability, and flexibility of CrossFire platforms with the help of the AMD 790 chipsets, PCI Express 2, and new graphics cards. The most noticeable things CrossFire X will do are listed below.

  • 3/4 way CrossFire
  • Allow for two or more completely different cards to be combined under the same CrossFire Platform
  • CrossFire Overdrive, which allows for the dramatic increase of graphics clocks across a CrossFire platform, regardless of how many cards said platform may consist of.
  • CrossFire Hybrid, which allows for the combination of integrated/onboard graphics and graphics card rendering, disabling the latter when it is not needed to reduce power consumption.

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thats pretty awesome if it gives you decent gains.
 
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Holy gee wizzz!! Sounds to good to be true.
 

Solaris17

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thats damn impressive.
 

Kreij

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Hmmm ... very interesting. I wonder if they could make the drivers such that when the discreet graphic cards are in use, the integrated chips could be doing physics.
 

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Hmmm ... very interesting. I wonder if they could make the drivers such that when the discreet graphic cards are in use, the integrated chips could be doing physics.

thats what i was thinking if the onboard did physics that would be great now though i dont buy boards with onboard graphics because the oc options usually arent that grwat but if they bring us an amazing board ment for enthusiasts with onboard making it do physics would be awsome.
 

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4 cards beats 3. Looks like ATi could have a winner, finally.
 

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2 different cards? sounds bad ass.
 
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2 different cards? sounds bad ass.

Yeah, I never saw that coming. That must be this "ace-in-the-whole" they mention. Meanwhile Tri-sli is limited to the massively expensive 8800gtx/ultra.
 

WarEagleAU

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wow, pretty impressive. With the fact of using onboard graphics coupled with a gpu, its simply amazing. Nice for those who buy an IGP type motherboard...Im truly impressed.
 
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Would be interesting to see what combinations you could get working well together once it gets going. Buy an ATI card then a little down the road by the next gen card and just slam it in next to your current one.
 

zekrahminator

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My view on this is... very impressive, very cool, but...less talk more pictures/benchmarks :p.
 

effmaster

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Lovely This may make it easier for me to build my PC now. Though an even bigger ace in the hole for them to get more customers would be for it to support both an Nvidea and ATI card at the same time though that is very very very unlikely I think.


I wonder how much power utilization you will get out of the second card since you only see about a 60%-70% increase in performance with a second card of the same type.

Also I hate the fact that this wishlist is growing but I hope that this will enable a greater percentage increase in usage of graphics cards than the normal 2 in SLI or Crossfire call me crazy but it would be nice
 

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I see this as more of a move in the workstation market vs the enthusiest market. As is many workstations use multiple low end cards to drive high res displays. If this tech could be used to suddenly crossfire the cards when needed, such as running the animation at 60fps on a high res, this could prove pivotal for animators. Running two high end cards simply for multi displays is not cost effective, and neither is using 4 low end cards for displays and then needing lots of gfx horsepower. If only ATI would get their head out of their ass and produce multi monitor crossfire drivers!
 
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Nice! Awhile back ATI said that they wanted to build and expand on Crossfire options, and it looks like they did it! Things like 3 and 4-way Crossfire with cheaper cards to fill the voids between low, mid, and high-end.

It also looks like they've been reading my posts :D Being able to go beyond two displays with two different cards, yet also get a benefit in games?! It's like being able to mix and match different speed processors on multi-socketed boards.

As long as the Phenom X4 and 790 is a decent package, I think I'm in love :p
 

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nice to have this finnaly "CrossFire Overdrive, which allows for the dramatic increase of graphics clocks across a CrossFire platform..." tho will need to upgrade to a AMD cpu.
 

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They have yet to enable multimonitor crossfire. The only way it is currently supported on ati or nvidia is by the matrox triple or dual monitor adapters.
 

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This is awesome! I own a 2900XT! Hopefully i can get a 2900 pro for cheap and have crossfire!! AMD FTW
 

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wait...so i could use the graphics chip on my motherboard, the x1800xt and a hd 2900 pro in crossfire? that would be hilariously awesome.
 
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They have yet to enable multimonitor crossfire. The only way it is currently supported on ati or nvidia is by the matrox triple or dual monitor adapters.

Oh, I was just excited that two different cards could work in tandem. I'm not one to buy two honkin' cards for SLI or Crossfire when that second card is only for my TV and projector. But if that second card can be used in games as well, then I might get a better one.

IE: Instead of going something like 2900+2400, I'd hit up a 2900+2600 as that second card can be used in games.
 

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Its about time they've started to make Crossfire or any multi-gpu solution practical... when this is released, it's gonna be hard to keep from crackin' open the ol' piggy bank.
 

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very sweet. ATI FTW. also intel is going down the x-fire road too, seems like they might've seen something like this coming. i'd like to see onboard grafix doing physics while the oct-core quad sli 2950pro's flashed to xt's running together.
 

kwchang007

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I have to wonder, if you throw say a x1300, a x1600, a x1950 (don't care what kind), and a hd 2900xt together....how would they get those to work at the same time...that's going to be loads of cpu/whatever they use for it overhead.
 
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