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Heavy Gear

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Heavy Gear
March 2006 Vol.6 Issue 3
Page(s) 18-21 in print issue

CrossFire Motherboards & Graphics

Cards
What Can Two Radeon X1900s Do?
Weve been rounding up SLI hardware for almost a year, ever
since the technology really started getting popular. If after any of
those roundups you had asked why Nvidia was getting so much
attention month after month, we would have answered:
availability. Nvidia made it a priority to launch product only when
it was ready to ship, in turn making it easy for us to get our hands
on a bag full of boards and benchmark the day away.
Conversely, ATI released its competing technology, CrossFire,
later in the game. A series of hardware delays and first-gen limitations kept it from
building enthusiasm in a market SLI dominated. In-the-know gamers just didnt want to
buy immature, pricey hardware. Board partners responded by holding off on CrossFire.
Its been a long road for ATI, but it finally has a beefy chipset and compelling graphics
lineup worth talking about. Availability of CrossFire-compatible hardware is much
improved, too. So, its time to give CrossFire a fair billing.
Motherboards
It really did take awhile for motherboard vendors to iron out the wrinkles with their
Radeon Xpress 200 CrossFire Edition designs. But it now looks like theres a decent
spread of mainstream and enthusiast products out there. Two of the most highly
respected landed in time for this roundup, though others are in various stages of

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readiness.
Asus A8R-MVP
$150
Asus
(510) 739-3777
www.asus.com
CPU Rating: 3.5
Dont let that tan PCB fool you. The A8R-MVP is bred to breathe
life into CrossFire. It doesnt rely on fancy specs or flashy colors
to make an impact. Rather, the arguably mainstream board sets
out to enable CrossFire functionality at an affordable price.
Youll find numerous Asus hallmarks, including passive cooling
across the onboard hotspots, exceptionally clean component
layout, and a reasonably advanced BIOS. What you wont find is
a superfluous feature set, enthusiast-level BIOS, or that handy
slot-spacing scheme that Asus SLI boards feature to keep air flowing between graphics
cards. That doesnt mean that Asus scrimped on the A8R-MVP. A quick online search
reveals plenty of praise for the boards unflagging stability.
The A8R-MVP isnt exactly perfect, though. Those used to Asus A8N-SLI may be
disappointed at a shortage of BIOS options, even if basic tweaking functions are
enabled. A 6-channel audio codec similarly lags behind the 8-channel implementations
out there, and reliance on ULis M1575 southbridge limits SATA connectivity to four
ports. A single GbE controller seemingly reinforces the motherboards cross between
mainstream and high-end.
Granted, the benefit of a more modest design is significant cost savings, and the A8RMVP comes in at an affordable $150. Dont expect to give up any performance at that
price-point; Asus faithfully preserves a solid user experience, complete with quick
responsiveness and not one crash during my entire test suite.
DFI LANParty UT RDX200 CF-DR
We reviewed DFIs LANParty UT RDX200 CF-DR last month
(page 29) and liked what we saw, giving it a 4-CPU rating. DFI
has a reputation for building motherboards with the enthusiast in
mind, and its LANParty family reflects this. Thus, you shouldnt
have been surprised to read DFIs LANParty UT RDX200 is fully
decked out. Theres no boring tan PCB here; the RDX200 is all

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black with DFIs signature yellow and orange connectors.

Theres a lot to love about DFIs design, but I didnt find it as consistent as Asus solution.
Performance in my real-world Windows Media Encoder and WinRAR tests proved faster
than the A8R-MVP. But when it came to 3D tests, the board behaved as though
CrossFire was off, even though the feature registered as enabled. No combination of
memory, CrossFire graphics cards, or BIOS settings changed the fishy behavior. The
one BIOS update on DFIs site did make a noticeable improvement to stability. Hopefully,
DFI continues its support campaign, fixing whatever outstanding issues remain with what
could otherwise be a fantastic motherboard.
Graphics Cards
With a respectable number of CrossFire motherboards on the market, ATI is now
focusing on ramping up availability of its compatible graphics cards. The video cards
span mainstream to ultra-enthusiast, meaning anyone can get in on the action.
ATI Radeon X1900 CrossFire
$599
ATI
(905) 882-2600
www.ati.com
CPU Rating: 4.5
Is the Radeon X1900 XT still a foreign name to you? In case you missed the recent
launch, ATI refreshed its top-shelf offering with even more power than before. The
Radeon X1900 XT is an adaptation of the Radeon X1800 XT, modified for much greater
shader performance. In fact, whereas the older R520 GPU leveraged 16 pixel shading
engines, this new R580 core wields no less than 48.
The rest of the chips specifications remain the same. You get the same programmable
memory controller, 16 texture units, eight vertex shading engines, and so on. Such an
asynchronous architecture is somewhat reminiscent of the original Radeon core, which
boasted two pixel pipelines with a total of six texture units. If you remember back, that
design didnt fare so well against Nvidias GeForce2. Thus, we asked ATI why it thought
R580s layout would be better. Apparently, games never really utilized the Radeons
extra texture units. However, ATI representatives are convinced that tomorrows titles will
make gratuitous use of shader math, even more so than todays. Per ATIs estimation,
100% of new 3D games will use pixel shaders by years end. So for every benchmark
the Radeon X1900 XT dominates now, itll purportedly do even better in those to come.
In all other aspects, the Radeon X1900 XT is very much like its predecessor. You cant

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even tell the two boards apart, actually. Dual-slot cooler, auxiliary power input, gentle
howl at boot-upits all there. The high-end card still sports 512MB of memory clocked
at 725MHz. The core still runs at 625MHz, too, though that is a much bigger
accomplishment considering it plays host to no less than 380 million transistors.
Display output support persists through the Avivo pipeline. Only now, several months
after Avivo was launched, the driver support is much better, and ATI can actually claim
dominance in video decoding compared to Nvidias PureVideo solution. At long last,
H.264 acceleration is part of the package. Plus, you get the Multimedia Center suite
when you buy a built-by-ATI X1900 XT.
If anything takes Radeon X1900 XT off your shopping list, itll be the price. A standalone
card sells for $549, and the CrossFire edition goes for $599. Thats more than a grand in
graphics. It gets even worse if your first card is the flagship Radeon X1900 XTX, a $649
board. Good thing the motherboards dont cost much, right?
To ATIs credit, performance with a pair of Radeon X1900s is nothing short of
spectacular. It was noticeably faster than the Radeon X1800 CrossFire setup in all my
tests, and thats exclusively due to the tripling of pixel shading horsepower. The most
telling result is clearly F.E.A.R at 1,600 x 1,200 with 4X anti-aliasing and 8X anisotropic
filtering, which scores 25% faster than the X1800 CrossFire configuration. At 1,024 x 768
the performance delta is even larger at 60%. ATI obviously found a bottleneck in todays
shader-heavy games and squelched it.
As with the Radeon X1800 CrossFire launch, ATI reps are again claiming immediate
availability. Ill refrain from commenting this time around, just in case some unforeseen
supply issue keeps the card from appearing on store shelves right away. With that said,
a ready supply would give ATI a leg-up on Nvidias hard-to-find 512MB GeForce 7800
GTX.
Then again, Nvidia is said to have some real heat rearing for exposure. Initial
guesstimates suggest it will appear a couple of months after ATIs advance. But in case
you hadnt noticed, ATI still lacks a Platinum Edition at its high end. Maybe theres room
for a retaliatory punch. Only time will tell. Until then, ATIs Radeon X1900 CrossFire is
the card to buy. It is, for all intents and purposes, what I had hoped R520 would be.
ATI Radeon X1800 CrossFire
$569
ATI
(905) 882-2600
www.ati.com
CPU Rating: 3.5

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After weeks of somewhat limited availability, the Radeon X1800

CrossFire is finally out and about on numerous e-tailer sites. Its
selling for somewhat less than the new Radeon X1900, reflecting
marginally lower performance. You can even get secondary
Radeon X1800 XT boards for about $450. That said, ATI
maintains that the two high-end models will co-exist for some
time, providing a slightly less expensive avenue to enthusiasts
craving CrossFire performance.
Radeon X1800 CrossFire boards look physically identical to their Radeon X1900
counterparts, as mentioned previously. You get the dual-slot coolers, dual-DVI outputs
(on the secondary cards, at least), and a raucous fan that slows to more pleasant speeds
once Windows boots. Dont keep your fingers crossed for much vendor differentiation.
ATI appears to manufacture all the CrossFire boards and in the odd case where add-in
partners, such as Connect3D, distribute cards, all specifications carry over transparently.
If youve seen one of these cards, youve seen them all.
Not that were disappointed. Why mess with a good thing? Each Radeon X1800 XT
CrossFire Edition card bears an R520 GPU clocked at 625MHz and 512MB of memory
running at 720MHz. The secondary Radeon X1800 XT boards get just a little more
bandwidth, with a 625MHz core and 750MHz of GDDR3. The R520 core is still plenty
fast, too. It features 16 pixel shading engines, eight vertex shading engines, 16 texture
units, and the same Ultra-Threading Dispatch Processor keeping shader operations as
granular as possible. The only architectural element youd really miss out on with an
X1800 XT is the X1900s massive pixel shading power.
As with the Radeon X1900-series, you must link up an X1800 CrossFire setup through a
dongle, which is included with the CrossFire card. That dongle enables high-speed
communication between both boards. Ugly as it might be, the solution works, and even
better since ATI has upgraded the compositing engine used to combine images from
each card. Previously held to 1,600 x 1,200 at 60Hz, the Radeon X1800 setup (and
X1900, for that matter) handles resolutions up to 2,560 x 1,600 at 70Hz. Much better.
We have already previewed the performance of the Radeon X1800 CrossFire and
determined that it bested Nvidias GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB in SLI (February 2006
CPU, page 29). The 512MB cards still arent any more available now than they were
then, precluding a more evenly weighted comparison between the two heavyweights.
Nevertheless, its interesting to compare the X1800 to ATIs newest baby, the X1900.
The two actually hang pretty closely in most cases. F.E.A.R. is the big exception. And
given the X1900s emphasis on shader math, its only natural to postulate on whats
holding the X1800 back there.
So, is it worth snagging a Radeon X1800 CrossFire at this point? Probably not. ATI does

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say it will be around for a while, but the X1900 is only slightly more expensive, and it is
much more of a graphics card.
Sapphire Radeon X1600 XT
$165
Sapphire
(909) 594-0597
www.sapphiretech.com
CPU Rating: 3.5
There isnt a lot of sex appeal wrapped up in the mainstream
game. Its usually a lot of high-end technology dummied down a
bit with a nice, juicy price tag. The Radeon X1600 XT is more
interesting, though, because its more svelte than either the
X1800 or X1900.
Physically, the X1600 is easier to handle. Its shorter, lighter, cut
down to a single slot, and power-friendly. Not that an absence of
an auxiliary power connector makes a difference in your CrossFire rig, but it does
simplify the installation of one card in a SFF box.
Youll also have an easier time buying Radeon X1600 XT cards. Theres no primary or
secondary board with proprietary connectors and compositing engines. One Radeon
X1600 is the same as the next; you just need two for CrossFire. The latest drivers allow
Radeon X1600 cards to communicate over PCI-E, circumventing the dongle entirely.
Sapphires Radeon X1600 XT cards are reference fare, meaning the core spins at
590MHz, while 256MB of GDDR3 plugs along at 690MHz. Each board sports 12 pixel
shading engines, five vertex shaders, a scant four texture units, and four render backends. Thats quite a cut from any of ATIs higher-end offerings, and the resulting
performance is why you see Radeon X1600 XT cards selling now for just over $150.
I was especially hard on the Radeon X1600 XT when it debuted. However, given the
ease with which the card slides into CrossFire mode and in light of its drastically reduced
street price, Im willing to accept the card as a solid mainstream contender. It also makes
for an inexpensive gateway into the addicting world of multicard rendering.
by Chris Angelini

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CrossFire Graphics Performance

ATI had the opportunity to watch Nvidia stumble through growing pains with its
SLI technology. Although CrossFire came much later, it also managed to sling a
handful of benefits gleaned from the bones of first-gen SLI hardware. As a result,
I didnt encounter any of the compatibility issues related to graphics, power
problems, or software crashes in my CrossFire testing.
My test bed featured an Athlon 64 FX-57 processor, 2GB of OCZ DDR400
memory running CAS2 timings, the requisite graphics cards, a 36GB Western
Digital Raptor hard drive, and Windows XP with SP2. The Radeon X1800 and
X1600 CrossFire platforms employed ATIs Catalyst 5.13 driver pack and a press
release driver versioned 8.203.3 powered the Radeon X1900.
View Chart

Go Green Or Go Red?
Now that weve devoted significant energies to testing ATIs motherboards and
graphics cards, along with a large sampling of SLI hardware in previous issues,
its time to distill the results down into a single comparison.
Up until now, Nvidia has maintained a very exclusive stranglehold on the
performance market. No matter what ATI threw out, Nvidia could take two of its
best cards and dance circles around it performance-wise. The GeForce 6800
Ultra ruled its era, and the 7800 GTX similarly defined speed for the better part of
a year. Even Nvidias little brother cards, the Ge-Force 6800 GT and 7800 GT,
combined to crush ATI flagships.
The first round of CrossFire hardware built on Radeon X850-class processors

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wasnt enough to catch up. That annoying 1,600 x 1,200, 60Hz limitation sure
didnt help, either. But the second strike centering on Radeon X1800 certainly
made enthusiasts sit up and listen. Now that Radeon X1900 is out (and
supposedly available by the time you read this), ATI has done the undoable,
eclipsing SLI. If youre a performance fanatic, Radeon X1900 CrossFire is going
to be your choice as of right now.
Keep a couple things in mind, though. First, theres a massive constituency of SLI
owners who are already equipped to support the next salvo in Nvidias doublebarreled lineup. Dont switch to CrossFire just because ATI is in the lead today.
Nvidia supposedly has something big in the works, which will hopefully drop right
into your existing platform. Secondly, ATI is reportedly putting the finishing
touches on RD580, its next-generation chipset offering two true x16 slots,
expected to best the current dual x8 solution. Depending on the chipsets other
improvements, it might be worth a wait. Finally (and this one is much more
forward-looking), you have to consider the coming of Vista and DirectX 10. Word
on the street is that DX 10 wont be backward compatible with previous APIs. In
other words, dont expect a $1,500 system upgrade today to be worth much of
anything once Vista ships, supposedly later this year.

Copyright 2006 Sandhills Publishing Company U.S.A. All rights reserved.

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