ATI's Radeon X1800 CrossFire Edition - tech
(hx) 05:32 PM CET - Dec,12 2005
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If you're longing to see
a $1200 Radeon graphics subsystem under the Christmas three this year, you
will need
a Radeon X1800 CrossFire Edition graphics card. This magical device will
allow you to sync up with a regular Radeon X1800 XT or XL graphics card for
nearly double the rendering power of a single card:
It looks pretty much the same like the Radeon X1800 - it packs a 625MHz
R520 GPU and 512MB of GDDR3 memory, just like the X1800 XT. Oddly, though, our
Radeon X1800 CrossFire review unit came with memory running at 720MHz, or
1440MHz effectively through the clock-doubling powers of DDR memory. The regular
Radeon X1800 XT runs its RAM at 750MHz, or effectively 1.5GHz.
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 widely
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.
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Updated:09:21 AM CEST Sep,21
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