Any bets that Crossfire will be quietly forgotten by ATi.....

[John Lewis]

....shortly after the release of the new family of video cards ???

Especially if the new R5xx GPU silicon does not embed the compositing
unit to allow ALL cards to be Crossfire-Master capable, a la nVidia
plus use an SLI-style bridge card to dispose of the stupid dongle. The
need for a special Master card ("Crossfire Edition") is a major
stumbling block to the acceptance of Crossfire by both customers
and retailers.

As for the need for a Crossfire-edition motherboard ----- I'm sure
that the ATi engineers are perfectly capable of writing drivers that
will run Crossfire on a SLI motherboard. ATi makes hardly any money on
desktop motherboard chip-sets, so why divert scarce resources from
the high-margin video-chip business to the design and support of
Crossfire motherboards, when SLI motherboards (in vast quantity, both
AMD and Intel flavors) and a few Intel 955 (soon 975) motherboards
with dual PCIe X16 sockets are already available ?

John Lewis

 

[NightSky 421]

...shortly after the release of the new family of video cards ???

I would not bother with either Crossfire or SLI. Video cards these days
simply consume too much power and put out too much heat. There's no
guarantee that every game will benefit from the technologies, and the added
cost of buying a second video card (when one is expensive enough) is enough
to turn me off. I think these technologies will only appeal to the very
elite users, and certainly won't be the "bread and butter" of either ATI or
nVidia.

One thing I *am* against is fanboyism...I currently have an ATI card in my
main computer and an nVidia-based card here in my second computer. My
purchasing decisions are based on who I think has the better tech at a given
time, and whose drivers I trust more. And sometimes too, I think it's good
to have two machines with two different makes of GPU (as I do right now).
People talk about ATI right now in tones of doom and gloom just like they
did with nVidia when the NV30 was delayed (and even after it was released).
Things go in cycles. No one is ever on top forever.

 

[John Lewis]

I would not bother with either Crossfire or SLI. Video cards these days
simply consume too much power and put out too much heat. There's no
guarantee that every game will benefit from the technologies, and the added
cost of buying a second video card (when one is expensive enough) is enough
to turn me off. I think these technologies will only appeal to the very
elite users, and certainly won't be the "bread and butter" of either ATI or
nVidia.

Indeed, but nVidia sure have marketed SLI very well. Well over 1
million SLI motherboards sold to date. Also, the extra x16 slot is a
nice future-proof. Remember that Intel is going ahead with a full dual
x16 implementation with the upcoming Intel 875 chip-set. I'm sure
that others will devise a use for the extra x16 ultra-bandwidth slot
for high-performance peripherals like next-gen video editors and maybe
physics and/or AI game-accelerators.

John Lewis

 

[Gordon Scott]

I would not bother with either Crossfire or SLI. Video cards these days
simply consume too much power and put out too much heat. There's no
guarantee that every game will benefit from the technologies, and the added
cost of buying a second video card (when one is expensive enough) is enough
to turn me off. I think these technologies will only appeal to the very
elite users, and certainly won't be the "bread and butter" of either ATI or
nVidia.

One thing I *am* against is fanboyism...I currently have an ATI card in my
main computer and an nVidia-based card here in my second computer. My
purchasing decisions are based on who I think has the better tech at a given
time, and whose drivers I trust more. And sometimes too, I think it's good
to have two machines with two different makes of GPU (as I do right now).
People talk about ATI right now in tones of doom and gloom just like they
did with nVidia when the NV30 was delayed (and even after it was released).
Things go in cycles. No one is ever on top forever.

further....

this never ending chasing the dragon whilst hundreds of thousands starve
and die daily at the hands of madman and talkings heads is modern
humanitys shame.

be happy you have a pot to piss in.

 

[John Lewis]

further....

this never ending chasing the dragon whilst hundreds of thousands starve
and die daily at the hands of madman and talkings heads is modern
humanitys shame.

Middle Ages humanity too. Also remember Nero...., Napoleon etc.....
History has a habit of repeating itself many times. Except almost
nobody reads, UNDERSTANDS and LEARNS from History any
more.

Only two things have really changed.
The world has become far more crowded with both
good and evil human beings.
The toys that go bang have become more varied and
numerous and have got a lot more lethal.

John Lewis

 

[NightSky 421]

further....

this never ending chasing the dragon whilst hundreds of thousands starve
and die daily at the hands of madman and talkings heads is modern
humanitys shame.

be happy you have a pot to piss in.

I don't debate your statements, nor do I challenge the validitiy of such,
but I was responding about video cards. Humanity has always had problems.

 

[First of One]

http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1028332674&postcount=18