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What is tri-fire?

Associate
Joined
11 Apr 2011
Posts
78
Location
St Helens, Merseyside
Hi guys, as you can see in the title could someone explain tri-fire . I understand crossfire , its were two of the same gpu's can use each other to boost performance. But I have seen tri-fire with like (for example) a 6970 and two 5850 how does that work? does the 6970 boost the performance of the 5850's ?
,Thanks.
( and if you could link to a website/video about it that would also be great) because I cant find any :(
 
Associate
Joined
18 Jun 2009
Posts
292
You can't have tri-fire with those 2 cards, AFAIK they have to be in the same series e.g 69XX or 68XX.

Tri-fire could be 3x6950 or 1x6990 and 1x 6950.

(the 6990 has 2 GPUs)
 
Associate
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
886
Location
UK
from what I understand, some of the higher spec cards are infact 2 lower cards working in crossfire from the same board. So when you go for tri-fire, you use one of these dual cards and add an extra single card to run alongside it. im not sure a 6970 would work with a 5850 though, they have to be from the same generation to work together.
 
Associate
Joined
16 Apr 2011
Posts
32
Hi guys, as you can see in the title could someone explain tri-fire . I understand crossfire , its were two of the same gpu's can use each other to boost performance. But I have seen tri-fire with like (for example) a 6970 and two 5850 how does that work? does the 6970 boost the performance of the 5850's ?
,Thanks.
( and if you could link to a website/video about it that would also be great) because I cant find any :(

From what i can see, its used to using 2 cards in the same serise but that are different models, for example;

ATi 4870X2 and 4870 1GB

Problems with this technology is the faster card will always only be able to work as fast and the slowest card meaning it will bottle on the small card.. pretty pointless i think :confused:
 
Soldato
Joined
23 Apr 2009
Posts
11,973
Location
Cheshire
Tri fire is just crossfire with three AMD GPUs of the same family.

This not only includes three discrete single-GPU graphic cards of the same family running together but also one single GPU and one dual GPU card (again, all using the same GPU family). For example, a 5870 and 5970 will run toether in tri fire.

However, tri-fire does not mean you can run three cards of different families. Your example of a 6970 (single Cayman GPU per card) and two 5850 (single cypress GPU per card) would not work in tri-fire since they are of different GPU families. However, a 6970 and 6990 would run fine in tri-fire.

This chart shows which AMD cards run together in CrossfireX (tri-fire included).

Please bear in mind that when you run two cards in CrossfireX that are of the same family, but one is slower than the other - the arrangement will run as if it were two of the slower card running together.
 
Soldato
Joined
24 Jan 2007
Posts
14,065
Location
.
From what i can see, its used to using 2 cards in the same serise but that are different models, for example;

ATi 4870X2 and 4870 1GB

Problems with this technology is the faster card will always only be able to work as fast and the slowest card meaning it will bottle on the small card.. pretty pointless i think :confused:
each card runs at it's own clock speed.. but can be easyly clocked to the same

the only way you'll see it bottleneck is if the cards as different number of shaders/ROP'S
 
Soldato
Joined
7 May 2006
Posts
12,192
Location
London, Ealing
from what I understand, some of the higher spec cards are infact 2 lower cards working in crossfire from the same board. So when you go for tri-fire, you use one of these dual cards and add an extra single card to run alongside it. im not sure a 6970 would work with a 5850 though, they have to be from the same generation to work together.

The ATI dual cards use the same high spec GPUs but at usually lower clocks.
 
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