ATI's Multi-GPU Solution: CrossFire
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on May 30, 2005 9:00 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Problematic South Bridge
While it's hardly talked about outside of Taiwan, ATI's South Bridge is quite buggy. The chip that is responsible for providing the motherboard's SATA and USB ports, as well as PCI slots is no where near final and many manufacturers are skeptical of ATI's ability to finish their own South Bridge in time. Note that ATI's own South Bridge does not support SATA-II or NCQ, regardless of actual bugs with the chip.
Luckily, ATI has partnered with ULi to offer working South Bridges that are compatible with ATI's CrossFire North Bridge. We've tested ULi's South Bridges and they seem to be problem-free, and our sentiments are echoed by many motherboard manufacturers who have decided to use ULi South Bridges with their ATI CrossFire motherboards.
However, ATI is pushing most of their partners to use ATI's own South Bridge despite its problems and is convinced that the problems will be sorted out in time. So a number of manufacturers at Computex are showing off CrossFire solutions with ATI's South Bridge, despite their complaints to us about the South Bridge.
At least this time around, it may be better for motherboard manufacturers to use ULi's South Bridge until ATI has had more time to get all of the kinks out of their solution. ULi's South Bridges have been in use for the past generation of ATI's chipsets, thanks to issues with ATI's South Bridges, and so far, we have not heard of any complaints.
ATI should be focused on the overall platform, not necessarily building up support for their South Bridge. Although, we do think that it is a bit embarrassing to have to turn to another chipset vendor to provide working South Bridges for your motherboard partners. It would be one thing if this were ATI's first chipset, but it most definitely is not.
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Calin - Tuesday, May 31, 2005 - link
"ATI should be focused on the overall platform, not necessarily building up support for their South Bridge. Although we do think it is a bit embarrassing to have to turn to another chipset vendor to provide working South Bridges for your motherboard partners. It would be one thing if this were ATI's first chipset, but it most definitely is not. "AMD first chipset (AMD 760 for Slot A Athlon, or Irongate, I think) had also non working USB support (or very buggy). Most mainboard manufacturers offered USB thru an add in PCI card, in order not to use the one included in the southbridge
Googer - Tuesday, May 31, 2005 - link
In theroy since It connets to the other card through DVI, I could use my old 9700pro in Crossfire mode with the newer card; even better is what if I could use an NVIDA card and ATI card in Crossfire! All I need is that moterhboard (if forgot the make and model) that supports PCI-e and Ture AGP! (not pci based agp)FakeName - Tuesday, May 31, 2005 - link
This is bogus, remember accelerator cards, mid-90's... poor solution then, same poor solution again... don't waste your hard earned money on this cerebral shortfall, the next gen will soon be upon us...Shinei - Tuesday, May 31, 2005 - link
Performance looks promising, sure, but I wonder what will be shown when AT gets hold of a sample for longer than a few benchmark runs--an 85% improvement at 1600x1200 seems a bit strange, particularly for hardware known for wheezing in the benchmarked game...CrystalBay - Tuesday, May 31, 2005 - link
Very sophisticated approach ATI...Hopefully the Composter doesn't turn to sh!t later on...sprockkets - Tuesday, May 31, 2005 - link
Hmmm, isn't the current SB on existing Radeon Express 200 boards buggy too?overclockingoodness - Tuesday, May 31, 2005 - link
#15: Regardless, what difference does it make? The performance would still be closer to what's presented in the article.overclockingoodness - Tuesday, May 31, 2005 - link
#15: You need to read more carefully. Notice how they said that it was the vendor's PC and not their own. So, obviously they had no choice. They had to go by whatever the vendor was offering at the time.flatblastard - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
I was a little bummed after reading that the Crossfire + Xpress 200 would also have 2xPCI-e slots instead of just one like the current msi rs480m2-il. I was even more disappointed to here about the current state of the sb450. I thought the sb450 was supposed to fix the bugginess of sb400 which it is replacing? Oh well, no big suprise I guess considering their history in that department. So here's hoping for another save from uli.bob661 - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
#16They weren't listed so I would imagine that they won't be compatible.