ATI's Multi-GPU Solution: CrossFire
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on May 30, 2005 9:00 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Introduction
Ever since the introduction of NVIDIA's SLI, the world has anticipated the release of ATI's competing solution. Many questions and rumors have circulated over the past few months. Could ATI release a multi GPU solution that can stand up to SLI? We remember ATI's previous dual GPU solution with the Rage Fury Maxx, and the fact that 3rd party developers built a quad 9800 solution a few years ago. Would ATI launch a single card multi GPU solution, or a two-card solution that paralleled NVIDIA's offering?Well, we have all the answers here.
In many ways, ATI's CrossFire launch parallels NVIDIA's SLI launch. ATI is bringing together the launch of a graphics technology and a motherboard platform to support it. Motherboards will support 2 x16 PCI Express slots for two cards. These cards will be linked together, and one will send its data to the other for final compositing and display. Some of the same multi GPU rendering modes are implemented as well.
These similarities aside, CrossFire is a very different solution by necessity. ATI is in a position where they need to augment their GPUs in order to support this technology. At the same time, the solution that ATI produces needs to have a distinct edge over SLI in order to fight its way into the market. Coming out more than 6 months behind SLI (a virtual eternity in the graphics industry), CrossFire has some ground to make up.
Can they do it?
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Bloodshedder - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
Kind of makes me wonder about compatibility with All-in-Wonder cards.RadeonGuy - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
why didnt you run it on a FX-55 and 1gig of memoryQuintin - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
interesting....ksherman - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
#6, Id love too, but I dont have the money right now and the cards are not availible...Brian23 - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
#9, #10, and #11: That will never happen. The traces between the GPU and the memory need to be UBER short. The socket would increase trace lengths too much. Plus there is so many kinds of graphics memory with different bus widths.Waylay00 - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
What would be better is a motherboard that has a built in GPU socket and you could buy the GPU's just like CPU's. Then there would be no need for video cards, but rather just video RAM and the GPU core.Waylay00 - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
UNCjigga - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
What I really want is a graphics card with extra sockets for a 2nd GPU and more RAM. So I can start with one board with a single GPU and 256MB RAM, then I can upgrade either the existing GPU with a faster one, and/or upgrade the RAM from 256MB to 512MB, and/or slap a second GPU into the extra socket and effectively double performance. That would rock.arfan - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
Good Job ATIbob661 - Monday, May 30, 2005 - link
I wonder what the REAL price will be on the Crossfire cards.