ATI CrossFire - Hands on

Initial Conclusions

So what can we learn from all this?

The CrossFire technology
On a technical level, the theory behind CrossFire is great. When Super-tiling works, it is something that NVIDIA can't match, both in terms of performance and ease of use. It's just unfortunate that, right now, driver issues appear to be preventing it from working in every situation we'd expect it to. CrossFire AA is great for image quality, although NVIDIA's SLI AA is pretty similar. The fact you can use an existing ATI card is sort of cool, although we've already reached the conclusion that going down that route is probably wasting money.

The CrossFire mainboard
If you're looking for a mainboard upgrade, retail products based around the RD480 chipset could well be awesome purchases. Our initial impressions of the reference board are that performance is fast, and we have high hopes that CrossFire boards from the likes of DFI will provide stonking performance. We have heard of issues regarding ethernet and USB performance, as well as the lack of SATA 2. We intend to address those fully as soon as we get proper retail boards coming through.

CrossFire on the current generation
Buying CrossFire for X800 or X850 is a bit pointless. No one would surely buy an X850 when, for £30 more, they can have a 7800 GT. Likewise, no one would buy an X850 when, for the sake of waiting just a few days, they can get a X1800 for similar money. Likewise, money spent on an additional, or dual X800s would be better off put in a pot and saved towards a 7800 or X1800. Upgrading to a CrossFire mainboard is great - you'll set yourself up for dual X1800 action and get a great new board to boot - just wait a little for the new cards.

CrossFire on the next generation
This clearly has a lot of potential. When ATI finally gets it's new cards out of the door, it will give SLI a real run for its money, for the first time. The technology is here now, the platform is here now - we're just waiting for the cards.