xie67

Hey there,

I am looking at an upgrade in Jan 06, finally climbing off the venerable ATHLON XP to one based on an AMD 64 4000+ SD or maybe one of the current trends in the OPTERON and ATI CROSSFIRE motherboard but sadly only 1 x graphics card with some G.SKILL TCCD RAM(if budget permits).

I would like to know if anyone had any accounts on the DFI LANPARTY UT RDX200 CF-DR..here.
The other motherboard I was considering is the SAPPHIRE PC-A9RD480adv..here.

All this depending on them being available in Shanghai.

Many thanx if you could help me out here.

Chim3ra

Unfortunately I don't think many of our board members are running crossfire setups. Sadly the crossfire technology didn't really stand up to the power of an SLI configured system.

However, you can research the boards through the opinions on neweggs product information pages.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Custra...82E16813136165
I was unable to find the Sapphire motherboard for you due to the fact that it may not be released yet.

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Melcar

Crossfire boards are not that impressive compared to what nvidia is offering now. Things could change down the road as Crossfire is rather new.

Inquisitor

Since no one here has really tried it, all I can give are reputable reviews.
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2572
http://www.amdzone.com/modules.php?o...tid=193&page=1
http://www.vr-zone.com.sg/?i=2893&s=15
http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q4...0/index.x?pg=1
and you can read a whole section on the board, mostly negatives though
http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=30

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Urufu_Shinjiro

I haven't heard great things about the dfi rdx200, and Chim3ra, I have no idea what you mean about crossfire not standing up to sli. In all the reviews I read crossfire with x850's damn near caught up with two 7800gt's in sli. The only problem with crossfire at the moment is there are no good mobo's out for it yet, it's an availability issue, not a quality issue. I'm not trying to start a fanboy flamewar, I'm not going crossfire myself for a long time, it's just that it seems to be a very competative technology to sli if it can every be put into production properly.

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decimate

Wait for the R580 chipset if you're going CrossFire. Dual X1800XT's have blown away SLI 7800GTX benchmarks (according to AnandTech, although they said the numbers couldn't be published because ATI told them to keep it hush-hush for now ). That was two 256MB 7800GTX's, though. SLI 7800GTX 512's are still faster, but ATI still hasn't released their X1800XT Platinum Edition yet. I think it would be better to wait until the X1800XTPE is released before you decide to buy something.

xie67

Well I have heard rumours about the ATI 580 chipset just being a RD480 with 2x16 PCI-e lanes as opposed to the 2x8 PCI-e lanes.

As I am currently seeking to install a X850XT crossfire master and a X800GTO2. You would hardly say I am in need of the 2x16 PCI-e lanes for these.

As the new chipsets are to be released in early 06 but more than likely later, I will not have the option to source these in Jan 06.

As for the comments on the crossfire in general as opposed to the SLI. I just wish to break from the Nvidia SLi mould (LOL havn't used one since GeForce 3) and stick with the ATI product and try to see what the system can do in overclocking performance.
Knowing full well the ATI lacks in some areas against the Nvidia but not by a great deal in my performance range.

Whatever the performance it will most certainetly PWN my current RIG1.

In regards to the DFI motherboard I was curious to see if anyone had had a personal account of them. DFI street is always littered with motherboard problems not just restricted to the crossfire, anyone remeber alll the nforce4 SLi problems that were posted ? (quite a few hey). Which then tend to not give a correct account of the product in general because there are those out there whom have them working fine.

cheers and thanx for the comments anymore would be kool too.

Freaky

Hmm... The ASUS A8R-MVP is the best Crossfire board out there and it has managed to blow OC'ing competition outta the way.

This is the review :

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2617

and this is the MOBO for $139 :

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131584

xie67

Thanks for the link.

The Asus seems to be okay it has SATA II-fair BIOS options for voltage control and settings and the ULi southbridge which is good because I have been hearing that the ATI southbridge will not support NCQ.
Some further investigation is required here.

cheers

edit: After some further investigation this will now be the crossfire motherboard I seek (please be available)