Crossfire??? or SLI???

[Charles_Lee]

I have purchased ATI video card and its crossfire ready.
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1476861&Sku=C261-3025 R

I did some research and I needed a motherboard that supports crossfire, which is $139.
and the second video card, crossfire eddition is $500.

compared to may be 7800 GT 256mb eVGA(x2), I am not sure which one will be better.
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1638088&CatId=0 (x2) = $800 + mobo for $150.

The price is similar, so... which is better?

 

[P11]

The 7800gt SLI and x850xt are close, but the 7800gt has more pipes-which in turn should result in some better performance...not by much though.
Maybe this will make you believe me, http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050926/index.html
or a direct link http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/09/26/nvidia_is_in_the_crossfire/page10.html

 

[bigsaucybob]

well sli has been out longer and seems to be better developed, my opinion. crossfire is generally newer and i havent seen many people wit it.

 

[Fedcer]

Take a look here:

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_radeon_x1800_xt_crossfire/

and here:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2649

 

[Charles_Lee]

i want to try out this "crossfire" technology
it seems really nice.

 

[Binary Coder]

the performance between the 7800gtx in sli and the x850xt crossfire are very close. It depends, they each have games that they run better than the other.

 

[P11]

i want to try out this "crossfire" technology
it seems really nice.

By the time you try it out the x850xt in crossfire it will be obsolete. Thats if you wait about 1 year...and i dont mean obsolete as in cant play games on max...but rather that by that time the new nvidia and ati chips are comming out with directx 10 + 64bit support + sli(or crossfire). You still might be happy with it but you wont see nearly the performance as a dual card set-up in 1 year.

 

[Fuzz]

SLI all the way!

 

[fade2green514]

actually, the 7800gt is better than an x850xtpe. its closer to the x1800XL... 7800gt has 7 vertex shaders and 20 pixel pipelines, x850xtpe has 6 and 16, x1800XL has 8 and 16.
i wouldnt go dual boards though, unless its an upgrade from like a single 6600gt, because then the upgrade would be worth the FPS.
also, vertex shaders vs. pixel pipelines = depends on the game.
i bought a 7800gt myself, and an SLI motherboard for a year or two so i don't need to spend more money on a better card... rather, just add a 7800gt!

 

[P11]

Ya, for my next card im going with Nvidia+SLI Ready Setup...It seems that most games are optimized for Nvidia graphics, and not to mention that SLI is alot more reliable compared to Crossfire.

 

[Tokinbudz]

Yeah ATI has already had a number of driver issues as far back as I can remember. This will most likely continue with Crossfire.