AMD Crossfire X Support For Quad-GPUs To Arrive In March

[vertex112]

AMD Crossfire X Support For Quad-GPUs To Arrive In March | Tom's Hardware

"Markham (ON) - AMD's graphics units will allow enthusiasts to run three and four graphics cards in their system with the release of the Catalyst 8.3 driver package, which will be released in March."


looks very interesting. Personally I would not want to have 4 GPU's in one system, but this can open the gate to playing newer games on 2560x1600 res. maby games like crysis at 1920x1200.

[vdf22]

Awesome - I'm waiting for the reviews. It seems like the future of ATI hangs on these drivers.

[vertex112]

I wouldn't say that the future of ati depends on these drivers. Maby just the future of ati's high end segment.

[Cheator]

Originally Posted by vertex112

I wouldn't say that the future of ati depends on these drivers. Maby just the future of ati's high end segment.

I don't know about that. Currently their vista drivers a better than nvidias, and ATI's high end cards are really kicking, for their price. I think its an interesting idea: sort of..divide and conquer. Release a decent set of GPUs, so you can plug 4 of them in and whoop ass for a smaller price.

[vdf22]

Originally Posted by vertex112

I wouldn't say that the future of ati depends on these drivers. Maby just the future of ati's high end segment.

Possibly. But it's getting harder to make faster single video cards.

[tom.mullie]

I think that the 8800 series will go down as the Pentium 4 of GPUs, where we really start to hit the wall for single chips. even if not, diminishing returns has set in. That said, Crossfire X better work, because competing with nvidia is no longer enough. With all phenom's issues, AMD needs an outright win to stay alive and the GPU market is where that has to happen.

[vinister]

This is awesome news. I have purchased 2 of the new cards and a board that holds 4 in faith of this very driver.

I bet the power supply companies are LOVING this.

I wonder if my 620HX will be able to power 4x 3870s

[magictorch]

Originally Posted by tom.mullie

I think that the 8800 series will go down as the Pentium 4 of GPUs, where we really start to hit the wall for single chips. even if not, diminishing returns has set in. That said, Crossfire X better work, because competing with nvidia is no longer enough. With all phenom's issues, AMD needs an outright win to stay alive and the GPU market is where that has to happen.

Is it better to fuse the cards together into a unit...i.e. how do 2 3870's compare with the GX2??

Also Im kind of wary of drivers for multiple GPUs they just don't seem to get close to realizing the potential of both cards.

BTW a single core 45nm penryn if it existed would kick the crap out of P4-they are always evolving to smaller, faster and more energy efficient. They just need to keep throwing money into R+D and think things through... Personally I'm looking forward to organic holographic displays and games coded for them.

[vdf22]

Originally Posted by tom.mullie

I think that the 8800 series will go down as the Pentium 4 of GPUs, where we really start to hit the wall for single chips. even if not, diminishing returns has set in. That said, Crossfire X better work, because competing with nvidia is no longer enough. With all phenom's issues, AMD needs an outright win to stay alive and the GPU market is where that has to happen.

Yeah, the GPU's are pretty good right now. Phenom so far has been a flop. Of course, that's what everyone said about the 2xxx GPU's so maybe they can turn it around like they did with the GPU's.

[tom.mullie]

Originally Posted by magictorch

Is it better to fuse the cards together into a unit...i.e. how do 2 3870's compare with the GX2??

Also Im kind of wary of drivers for multiple GPUs they just don't seem to get close to realizing the potential of both cards.

BTW a single core 45nm penryn if it existed would kick the crap out of P4-they are always evolving to smaller, faster and more energy efficient. They just need to keep throwing money into R+D and think things through... Personally I'm looking forward to organic holographic displays and games coded for them.

The X2 is better than 2 3870s in crossfire, but not by much, its true. However, more processors in less slots is better, as we reach the limits of how much physical space there is on an ATX board. And while the drivers aren't yet great, there is no doubt they are rapidly improving.

As for Penryn beating P4, sure. But software developers (and us) demand that we at least pace Moore's law. The limit of single core processing is so close that it is all but impossible to double performance in 18 months. Witness the switch from silicon to Hafnium inside the Penryn core. we have actually reached the lower limit for the size of a silicon chip, and will never make one smaller. so we aren't at the end, but we are too close to ignore whats coming.