CrossFire Xpress 3200: RD580 for AM2
by Wesley Fink on June 1, 2006 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
CrossFire Gaming Performance
Both major players in the Video Market now have flagship Dual X16 solutions. SLI and CrossFire are about gaming, so CrossFire tests were confined to gaming benchmarks, and the test suite is heavily slanted to recent and popular titles where SLI and CrossFire make the biggest difference. All CrossFire testing was at 1600x1200, 4X AA, and 8X AF. Tests were also run with a single X1900 XT at this same resolution. The single video high-res results on the ATI AM2 are in Orange and the CrossFire results are in Red.
You might think you are looking at results from different video cards in CrossFire/SLI performance. Here leads are larger and positions are often switched from results at standard resolution without the eye candy. ATI CrossFire is the clear winner in Serous Sam 2, COD2, and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, while NVIDIA SLI owns Half Life 2 and F.E.A.R. We suspect part of these multi-GPU results revolve around which card has the best optimized drivers available.
We complained about ATI's CrossFire interface in our last two CrossFire reviews, and it still remains clumsy and anything but intuitive. To use CrossFire you MUST install Catalyst Control Center. If CCC is not installed CrossFire will not work. Since many users don't install CCC this is anything but an intuitive solution for CrossFire. Once installed, you must go into CCC, select the CrossFire tab and enable the feature. This is a MANUAL procedure - there is no warning at all that you have a CrossFire capable board or that you have to go into CCC to enable CrossFire. NVIDIA warns you that an SLI-capable system is installed and prompts you to enable SLI. There is no warning at all with ATI. The only clue you will have that CrossFire is NOT turned in is the poor performance results. THEN you start looking for what's wrong. ATI really needs to fix this issue. CrossFire performance is very good, but it would be much nicer if ATI made it easier to turn on CrossFire.
Both major players in the Video Market now have flagship Dual X16 solutions. SLI and CrossFire are about gaming, so CrossFire tests were confined to gaming benchmarks, and the test suite is heavily slanted to recent and popular titles where SLI and CrossFire make the biggest difference. All CrossFire testing was at 1600x1200, 4X AA, and 8X AF. Tests were also run with a single X1900 XT at this same resolution. The single video high-res results on the ATI AM2 are in Orange and the CrossFire results are in Red.
You might think you are looking at results from different video cards in CrossFire/SLI performance. Here leads are larger and positions are often switched from results at standard resolution without the eye candy. ATI CrossFire is the clear winner in Serous Sam 2, COD2, and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, while NVIDIA SLI owns Half Life 2 and F.E.A.R. We suspect part of these multi-GPU results revolve around which card has the best optimized drivers available.
We complained about ATI's CrossFire interface in our last two CrossFire reviews, and it still remains clumsy and anything but intuitive. To use CrossFire you MUST install Catalyst Control Center. If CCC is not installed CrossFire will not work. Since many users don't install CCC this is anything but an intuitive solution for CrossFire. Once installed, you must go into CCC, select the CrossFire tab and enable the feature. This is a MANUAL procedure - there is no warning at all that you have a CrossFire capable board or that you have to go into CCC to enable CrossFire. NVIDIA warns you that an SLI-capable system is installed and prompts you to enable SLI. There is no warning at all with ATI. The only clue you will have that CrossFire is NOT turned in is the poor performance results. THEN you start looking for what's wrong. ATI really needs to fix this issue. CrossFire performance is very good, but it would be much nicer if ATI made it easier to turn on CrossFire.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
71 Comments
View All Comments
JarredWalton - Thursday, June 1, 2006 - link
And you thought LinkBoost was fast! ;)Typo fixed, thanks.
Stele - Thursday, June 1, 2006 - link
A main attraction of HD audio over AC'97 other than 100.1 setups is probably better sound quality. As such, perhaps Anandtech needs to develop a test method and/or utility with which to assess precisely this aspect of motherboards' sound subsystems. Low CPU utilisation is well and good but ultimately it's reaching the point where these figures are fairly meaningless, as this review underscored.Instead, besides just testing CPU utilisation, Anandtech could test/measure characteristics such as SNR ratio, THD at a reference frequency etc. at the output ports. The test can then be rounded off with subjective hearing tests through reference speakers or headphones, e.g. for irritating crossover noise from the mouse (A7N8X anyone?) or some other EMI source, and so on.
That way, we can judge if a motherboard manufacturer's implementation and motherboard design are sound (pun intended) because ultimately, it's about what you hear, not see; an 8.1 with terrific speakers, built in DTS/AC3/etc and other paper-spec niceties isn't going to cut it if the codec was, say, jammed right next to the CPU PWM controller with barely any grounding.
Gary Key - Thursday, June 1, 2006 - link
We are still debating our "subjective" results and comments for the audio section. However, at some point this summer we will expand our testing to include additional testing outside the CPU utilization and game results.
Stele - Friday, June 2, 2006 - link
Subjective is, understandably, subjective. Thus such results are bound to differ depending on the person assessing the product as well as the circumstances under which the test was done. IMHO, it should therefore only play a small part in the extended test, complementing the objective, measured figures which should play the dominant role in an extended audio test.Indeed, accurately measuring such performance characteristics (SNR, THD, no-signal background noise level) would probably be more useful because even if the subjective part of the test is completely left out, the figures would generally be a sufficient gauge of the quality of the components and implementation (circuit design, manufacture etc).
Having said that, the subjective opinions do give the review a human perspective and a broader picture which numbers alone may not fully convey - another good example being noise level measurements. Again, nice to have but won't be fatal without it.
Just my 2 cents' :)
Beenthere - Thursday, June 1, 2006 - link
...and you can be certain that production mobos will NOT perform as well as the reference mobo. Expect Asus to use a hack design, DFI to have a pretty good design less proper ports, Sapphire to not have a clue at copying the ATI reference mobo, Abit to talk shitza but not deliver, etc. and the prices will be sky high. Ya gotta wonder how much longer people are going to buy crap mobos just because they have a good chipset?Stele - Thursday, June 1, 2006 - link
Perhaps it's because there're aren't many seriously viable choices - if any - other than the 'crap mobo' brands you listed? The manufacturers know this too, and rest in the relative comfort of the knowledge that since no brand's perfect, buyers aren't likely to suddenly all jump ship in a hurry. They're probably expecting people to grumble and complain, as always, but buy from one of them anyway... as always.xsilver - Thursday, June 1, 2006 - link
Does ATI have license to product intel chipsets either now or in the future?or was their some exclusivity when nvidia made their cross licensing agreement?
Gary Key - Thursday, June 1, 2006 - link
ATI has been producing Intel compatible chipsets for a few years now and we should see a "RD580" type chipset for Conroe later this summer.
fzkl - Thursday, June 1, 2006 - link
Why are the setups using different hard drives? The ATI system has a 16MB buffer whereas the Nvidia system has an 8 MB buffer. Does that contribute to any performance difference?peternelson - Thursday, June 1, 2006 - link
I spotted that too. I imagine the HD might change the PCMark result.