ATi Crossfire Slave Card????

xknight2000 · 15 Mar 2006 at 13:43

What is a crossfire slave card? Is it another normal ATI card that is just set to slave or is it a special card just for crossfire?

Also will a crossfire card work on its own on an SLi motherboard?

oweneades · 15 Mar 2006 at 13:45

A slave card is basically just the normal card eg:

A X1800XT is a slave card

A X1800XT Crossfire edition is the master card.

xknight2000 · 15 Mar 2006 at 13:47

So if I got a X1900XT-X standard and wanted to go crossfire at a later date all I need is a crossfire card then? And the motherboard of course as I assume that any PCI-E card will work stand alone (not on crossfire) on an SLi board.

semi-pro waster · 15 Mar 2006 at 13:50

Yes you can get the X1900XTX then get a Crossfire Master card later without a problem. Any ATI card will work in an Nvidia(SLi) motherboard but again you are correct you won't be able to Crossfire them without also having a Crossfire compatible motherboard

xknight2000 · 15 Mar 2006 at 13:50

Is there any preformance drop in using an ATi card on a nVidia board?

xknight2000 · 15 Mar 2006 at 13:57

Ok I think with todays prices im going to go X1900 XT-X insted of a 7900GT-X. Anyone interested in a brand new never used ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe, lol.

semi-pro waster · 15 Mar 2006 at 13:58

xknight2000 said:
Is there any preformance drop in using an ATi card on a nVidia board?

Nope, it will perform just the same(based on the overall limitations of your system) on Nvidia as it would on an ATI board, Nvidia (or ATI) wouldn't be stupid enough to cripple the others hardware interfacing with theirs. Both companies may try to 'pull a fast one' with benchmarks or the like by optimising code etc but at a hardware level they won't interfere with the others operation.

xknight2000 · 15 Mar 2006 at 14:07

When doing crossfire would it make any bit of difference if the slave board was a low or high spec or would any X1900 card do?

LoadsaMoney · 15 Mar 2006 at 15:50

If you wait till May when the CAT 6.5's come out to go Crossfire, then couple them with the new Asus A8R32, or any new RD580 chipset board (Xpress 3200) then the master cards are not required anymore for Crossfire, 2x normal ones will work.

xknight2000 · 15 Mar 2006 at 15:56

Would a master card work ok on its on or do they only work in Crossfire?

semi-pro waster · 15 Mar 2006 at 16:09

xknight2000 said:
Would a master card work ok on its on or do they only work in Crossfire?

A master card works fine on its own but it is slower and more expensive than an X1900XTX in most cases. I'd suggest you have a read of the Crossfire FAQs to get a basic idea of what you are looking for since ATI are likely to already have answers to the questions you are asking.

xknight2000 · 15 Mar 2006 at 16:38

Thanks for all your help guys, makes things a lot clearer now.

geeza · 15 Mar 2006 at 16:41

so with my powercolor X1800XT 256mb could i, at a later date get another X1800TX and crossfire them? or doesnt it work like that

semi-pro waster · 15 Mar 2006 at 16:47

geeza said:
so with my powercolor X1800XT 256mb could i, at a later date get another X1800TX and crossfire them? or doesnt it work like that

Yes you could do, it comes down to the motherboard partly(the newer RD580 chipset will allow Crossfire without a Master card apparantly as LoadsaMoney points out) however if you don't have one with the newer chipset then you will need a Master card and that will mean that you don't get the full 512mb of the Master card as far as I am aware, you will be limited to the 256mb of your current card(doubled obviously).

FrankJH · 15 Mar 2006 at 17:13

semi-pro waster said:
Yes you could do, it comes down to the motherboard partly(the newer RD580 chipset will allow Crossfire without a Master card apparantly as LoadsaMoney points out) however if you don't have one with the newer chipset then you will need a Master card and that will mean that you don't get the full 512mb of the Master card as far as I am aware, you will be limited to the 256mb of your current card(doubled obviously).

So its any two crossfire cards along with an RD580???? Or do we still have to wait for the 6.5's in 8 weeks time or so?

semi-pro waster · 15 Mar 2006 at 17:18

FrankJH said:
So its any two crossfire cards along with an RD580???? Or do we still have to wait for the 6.5's in 8 weeks time or so?

From what LoadsaMoney says you will need the 6.5s, I'd think he is correct although I'm not sure how you link the two cards without the Master card since I thought there had to be a physical connection originally but maybe now they had got around this technical issue.

FrankJH · 15 Mar 2006 at 17:26

semi-pro waster said:
From what LoadsaMoney says you will need the 6.5s, I'd think he is correct although I'm not sure how you link the two cards without the Master card since I thought there had to be a physical connection originally but maybe now they had got around this technical issue.

From the ATI Crossfire overview page:

Maximum Flexibility
Start with a backbone of CrossFire Xpress 3200 chipset, and then shape a GPU solution to an ever-moving performance target. CrossFire Xpress 3200 allows the flexibility and freedom to always stay above the competition
Allows for flexible modular multi-GPU solutions: start with one GPU and when performance demands it, add a second
Supports connector and connector-free CrossFire graphics cards
Build a CrossFire platform for every need and style
Ready for the next generation CrossFire graphics cards

This is the only thing I can see at present on ATI's site that refers to the possibility

I really hope Loadsamoney is correct, but I am not risking it just yet!!!

ajgoodfellow · 15 Mar 2006 at 17:27

I'm watching this with interest

I also though that there had to be a physical connection. The Crossfire Edition (Master) card also has a hardware compositing engine on it to join the two video card outputs. I don't see how it'll work without this unless they're going to do it in software like nVidia does

xknight2000 · 15 Mar 2006 at 17:28

I will be getting my X1900XTX asap then waiting a couple of weeks before I get the 2nd. Thought I will be getting the new board first as I need it for the Crossfire. Maybe the 6.5 will be out by then.

xknight2000 · 15 Mar 2006 at 17:29

ajgoodfellow said:
I'm watching this with interest

I also though that there had to be a physical connection. The Crossfire Edition (Master) card also has a hardware compositing engine on it to join the two video card outputs. I don't see how it'll work without this unless they're going to do it in software like nVidia does

Surely doing this in hardware will give better results. :confused: