The downside of Crossfire

[5150Joker]

Was looking through the HardOCP forums when I came across a Crossfire thread. Apparently both guys in the thread that have Crossfire setups have problems:

WarlordBB
Limp Gawd

Join Date: Jun 2004

Way to test for Crossfire working??
I've got my X1800XT Crossfire system _apparently_ working but I still get ~9800 in 3dMark05. Something's definately wrong.

Both my Master and Slave card both seem 100% functional and ATI Tool shows both devices.

In CCC I have a Crossfire selection to my tree and when I select it, I see a checkbox labeled Crossfire Enabled and I can check it (and it stays checked).

However, it doesn't appear to be making any performance difference in my system.

To be sure I just:

1. Installed XP SP2 fresh
2. Installed the IGP Chipset driver from ATI which included Cat 5.13 (should I have used the seemingly outdated one from DFI's site?)
3. Installed the Marvell LAN Driver
4. Let Windows install all updates and then selected optional .NET 1.1
5. Opened CCC and checked Crossfire Enabled (this time it seemed to work from the get go because, I assume, I've got my CF Cable connected properly)
6. Ran 3dMark05 and scored 9756 !!!

Anyone know of a way to be 100% sure that Crossfire is working as expected other than by judging results from benching?

and

MaxOut313
n00bie

Join Date: Oct 2004

im having issues too. i score 13,800 in 3dmark 2005 but my games have no difference in performance. I even have flickering lines when i do certain things. its annoying.

im wondering if its driver problems, cause its not making any differnece in games at all. its like once card. Im not sure whats wrong, because 3dmark 2005 went from 9.6k to 13.8K.
anyone know?

Finally a response from Brent Justice of HardOCP:

Brent_Justice
HardOCP Video Card Editor

Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: Irving, TX

Originally Posted by MaxOut313
I even have flickering lines when i do certain things. its annoying.

welcome to crossfire

i think it has something to do with the external dongle connection or the compositing chip, the whole nature of it

i've experienced what looks like really bad refresh in some games like EQ2, you can actually see the frames flashing

Source: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=996820

So 3/3 people that have had a negative experience with Crossfire. Doesn't look too good does it? I've always hated the idea of dongles, master card and compositing chip and I feel sorry for those that got suckered into buying a Crossfire setup. It's obvious ATi hastily slapped it together without much thought and its shortcomings are readily and painfully (for those that bought it) apparent. I hope ATi gets a lot of negative press for this so they learn from their mistakes and don't give us the same garbage with R600.

This thread certainly didn't go anywhere.

AnandTech Moderator

 

[nRollo]

Ouch. Crapfire strikes again.

When I think back on the people posting how it will be "much better" and "more elegant", I have to laugh.

It turned out to be a hideous joke on ATIs most loyal customers, the ones willing to spend big bucks (comparatively) on a multi GPU platform.

ATI bent'em over the coffee table and left the KY home. :Q

Crossfire cartoon

 

[nRollo]

BTW- I bet this is why HardOCPs review of Crapfire is so late, they're probably telling ATI, "We'll tell the truth, you better give us fixes, or we're torching you".

 

[Soccerman06]

How come Anand had no prolbems with Xfire then?

 

[5150Joker]

Originally posted by: Soccerman06
How come Anand had no prolbems with Xfire then?

Unfortunately Anandtech video based reviews have gone downhill.

 

[Jaihahih]

Originally posted by: 5150Joker

Originally posted by: Soccerman06
How come Anand had no prolbems with Xfire then?

Unfortunately Anandtech video based reviews have gone downhill.

I find that most of Anandtech's reviews have been subpar lately, with missing info/ bad grammer/etc.

 

[Corporate Thug]

Originally posted by: 5150Joker

Originally posted by: Soccerman06
How come Anand had no prolbems with Xfire then?

Unfortunately Anandtech video based reviews have gone downhill.

that doesnt change the fact that they didnt have problems

 

[BFG10K]

When I think back on the people posting how it will be "much better" and "more elegant", I have to laugh.

When I think back to you posting "I have no isses with SLI" I have to laugh. nVidia driver engineers don't share your optimistic appraisal of the situation.

 

[5150Joker]

Originally posted by: Corporate Thug

Originally posted by: 5150Joker

Originally posted by: Soccerman06
How come Anand had no prolbems with Xfire then?

Unfortunately Anandtech video based reviews have gone downhill.

that doesnt change the fact that they didnt have problems

Maybe they just didn't review it thoroughly enough to catch the problems that others have experienced?

 

[solofly]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

When I think back on the people posting how it will be "much better" and "more elegant", I have to laugh.

When I think back to you posting "I have no isses with SLI" I have to laugh. nVidia driver engineers don't share your optimistic appraisal of the situation.

There were a few minor issues like Vsync not working I recall but nothing major. Most popular games worked fine? I adopted SLI right when Nvidia released it with two 6800GTs. How about you? Speaking from experience...?

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: 5150Joker

Originally posted by: Corporate Thug

Originally posted by: 5150Joker

Originally posted by: Soccerman06
How come Anand had no prolbems with Xfire then?

Unfortunately Anandtech video based reviews have gone downhill.

that doesnt change the fact that they didnt have problems

Maybe they just didn't review it thoroughly enough to catch the problems that others have experienced?

Probably, I still like ATs reviews. While I can appreciate some memebers desire to to AAA, MSAA, TSAA, etc I can appreciate that the extra modes take time, and being unique to a couple pieces of hardware, don't give much room for comparison.

 

[BFG10K]

There were a few minor issues like Vsync not working I recall but nothing major.

A few minor issues? Have you read the nVidia driver readme files lately?

 

[Asymptoke]

That awful dongle is apparently nonfunctional as well as a heinous eyesore.

Cross fire needs to be crucified, if you'll pardon the pun.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Asymptoke
That awful dongle is apparently nonfunctional as well as a heinous eyesore.

Cross fire needs to be crucified, if you'll pardon the pun.

It's a pretty good pun! :laugh:

 

[fierydemise]

I think the problem may be the motherboard, the first poster mentions he is using a the DFI motherboard which isn't certified by ATI (and is known to have problems as Rollo posted a while back) and the second poster doesn't mention what motherboard he is using. It looks to me like growing pains, Crossfire has been available to the public for only a couple months, SLI had similar problems originally but they all got worked out in the end.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: solofly

Originally posted by: BFG10K

When I think back on the people posting how it will be "much better" and "more elegant", I have to laugh.

When I think back to you posting "I have no isses with SLI" I have to laugh. nVidia driver engineers don't share your optimistic appraisal of the situation.

There were a few minor issues like Vsync not working I recall but nothing major. Most popular games worked fine? I adopted SLI right when Nvidia released it with two 6800GTs. How about you? Speaking from experience...?

Same here, except I started with 6600GT SLI>6800NU SLI>6800GT SLI> 7800GTX SLI. Still have them all except 6800NU SLI.

I've had three problems I can recall:
1. First Gigabyte motherboard- defective
2. Northbridge fan died on A8N SLI Deluxe, and beta bios didn't work very well with X2 CPU
3. Riddick didn't work at first

I still run 7800GTX SLI and 6800GT SLI, rock solid, no problems.

 

[Wreckage]

Until they get rid of that whole "Master Dongle" thing, it's just a hack.

Sadly it looks like the R580 will suffer the same fate.

 

[5150Joker]

Originally posted by: Wreckage
Until they get rid of that whole "Master Dongle" thing, it's just a hack.

Sadly it looks like the R580 will suffer the same fate.

Yeah IMO it will be even worse with R580 since the X1900 master card is slower than the fastest XTX card so people that pay extra for an XTX won't see any benefits of paying more when they go Crossfire vs. people that bought 2 XT's.

 

[Nirach]

I think the biggest problem with Crossfire/SLI comparisons is that SLI has been around for a lot longer, in terms of technology progression, than Crossfire has. Nvidia has had time to iron out the problems they have had. They may have had fewer launch problems, but ATi's Crossfire does seem a bit.. Mix and mash. I like the idea of not having to have the exact same cards, as with nVidia. But I prefer nVidias solution for connecting the two cards, in other words, the dongle can such my left nut.

Despite having a crossfire capable mobo, I don't use it. And I doubt I will untill maybe late next year. It doesn't bother me at all that nVidia appears to have the better performance, because I don't game very often, if at all. So... Eh. I find the point of both SLI and Xfire little to none.

 

[Skott]

Yeah, I think given time ATI will get it worked out. Supposedly in February newer mobos will be out to take better advantage of the X1800XT and higher cards. So I heard anyway. Time will tell. Personally i'm not interested in CrossFire but I'm hoping it'll turn out to be a very good technology. I want SLI to have a strong competition. Better for us consumers that way. ;-)

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Skott
Yeah, I think given time ATI will get it worked out. Supposedly in February newer mobos will be out to take better advantage of the X1800XT and higher cards. So I heard anyway. Time will tell. Personally i'm not interested in CrossFire but I'm hoping it'll turn out to be a very good technology. I want SLI to have a strong competition. Better for us consumers that way. ;-)

This is a good point- competition benefits all.

 

[Conky]

Originally posted by: Corporate Thug

Originally posted by: 5150Joker

Originally posted by: Soccerman06
How come Anand had no prolbems with Xfire then?

Unfortunately Anandtech video based reviews have gone downhill.

that doesnt change the fact that they didnt have problems

Anandtech didn't have problems because they aren't stupid.

3 people stupid enough to post at Hardcop hate ATI so that says it all. Yeah, real balanced opinion. I will listen to Anand over those @ssclowns.

:beer:

 

[CP5670]

There were a few minor issues like Vsync not working I recall but nothing major. Most popular games worked fine? I adopted SLI right when Nvidia released it with two 6800GTs. How about you? Speaking from experience...?

That vsync thing is actually a major problem IMO, enough to turn me away from SLI. I really like SLI's massive performance increases in almost any game, new or old, but am finding some games unplayable due to the tearing. I'm going to go back to a single card, as I can use EVGA's step-up program to get a G71 (if it comes out before March 6) and I have a use for the second GT anyway.

That being said, SLI looks far more appealing than this Crossfire stuff at the moment.

 

[Elfear]

SLI is more refined than Crossfire at this point but like others have stated, it's not without it's problems. I also had 2 6800GT's when they first showed up and while the performance was good for most games, I ultimately decided to buy the fastest single card out at the time because I was sick of not being able to use the DVI connector from my LCD (VGA output from an LCD looks like dump in my opinion). That was a big issue back than and extremely annoying.

I'm using 7800GTs now, and even though things work right 90% of the time, I still get annoying little problems I have to work out (like profiles that don't work right) that substitutes the precious little time I have to game with searching forums for a fix. Crossfire is in it's infancy and I think it's ignorant to say it's a horrible design and ATI should just forget about it. The same thing was said by a lot of people about SLI when it first showed up.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: Jaihahih

Originally posted by: 5150Joker

Originally posted by: Soccerman06
How come Anand had no prolbems with Xfire then?

Unfortunately Anandtech video based reviews have gone downhill.

I find that most of Anandtech's reviews have been subpar lately, with missing info/ bad grammer/etc.

true

i dont read them anymore