crossfie noobie question

[kieronw3]

i have a HIS HD3850 256mb and will be changing my motherboard shortly to one which supports crossfire

my question is ho similiar do the graphics cards have to be for them to work

i.e same mem or manufacturer


thans

kieron

 

[LoadsaMoney]

With the Catalyst 8.3's drivers being released any minute now, you will be able to mix and match any card, i.e a 3870 with a 3850 etc..., doesn't have to be same manufacturer (that never has been), and you can have different memory sizes.

 

[kieronw3]

excellent.

so if i purchased a 512mb 3850 would there be any prefence as to which slot i put it in to gain the best performance.


thanks for you help

kieron

 

[Skeeter]

you will lose half the memory of the 512 regardless off which slot you put it in. Crossfire can only use the max of the smallest card.

So youd be better off with another 256mb one.

 

[LoadsaMoney]

you will lose half the memory of the 512 regardless off which slot you put it in. Crossfire can only use the max of the smallest card.

So youd be better off with another 256mb one.

Does CrossfireX not change that as well.

 

[Jokester]

Does CrossfireX not change that as well.

I would be surprised if it did as it would mean the cards would need to be able to access each others RAM and transfer it over the the bus or link, which presumably would have quite a large overhead, not just on the bandwidth but also on the GPU loading of the other card.

 

[Skeeter]

Im under the impression that in crossfire and sli the ram on both chips contains duplicates of the data, meaning you only get 1 cards worth or actual ram anyway...

 

[-iceblade^]

that or something equating to that, ough to be correct, yes

 

[kieronw3]

Thanks for your help guys i will wait and see what crossfirex brings but looking like i just aswell save money and get another 256mb version



thanks

kieron

 

[LoadsaMoney]

Id sell the card you have and get a 512mb, 256mb is no good these days, games are using a lot more vram now, even at lower resolutions, so going Crossfire with 2x 256mb cards is going to be a total waste of money, as you'll get no benefit at all, as your still going to be memory limited by having 256mb unfortunately.

 

[Final8y]

Id sell the card you have and get a 512mb, 256mb is no good these days, games are using a lot more vram now, even at lower resolutions, so going Crossfire with 2x 256mb cards is going to be a total waste of money, as you'll get no benefit at all, as your still going to be memory limited by having 256mb unfortunately.

Agreed the fact that your looking at 3D performance makes a 256MB card a no go.

 

[errata]

... 256mb is no good these days, games are using a lot more vram now, even at lower resolutions, so going Crossfire with 2x 256mb cards is going to be a total waste of money, as you'll get no benefit at all..

care to support that or are you kidding !!!!