FPS tech topic: Crossfire unpopular with HL2 owners

[Ed Oscuro]

I just looked through <link url="http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html">Valve's Hardware Survey page</link> after resubmitting stats for the first time in a while. One statistic really struck me as interesting:

Multi-GPU Systems (1555 of 218291 Total Users (0.71% of Total) )
NVIDIA SLI (2 GPUs) 1,533 98.59 %
ATI Crossfire (2 GPUs) 22 1.41 %

Despite Half-Life 2 being seen as a better performer on ATI cards, nVidia apparently has sold far more cards than ATI to Steam users:

Video Card Driver Name
nv4_disp.dll 114,733 52.56 %
ati2dvag.dll 90,615 41.51 %

It's really interesting that the vast majority of multi-GPU users would choose nVidia's solution. Early reviews gave me a bad impression of Crossfire; apparently that has poisoned enthusaists against the setup. I'm somewhat surprised that only 1,555 Steam users are using multi-GPU systems.

Naturally, these statistics aren't indicative of all FPS gamers; many users had to upgrade to play Half-Life 2 and I know of many game enthusiasts who're waiting until the next round of big games (or longer) to get a Half-Life 2 or DOOM III capable solution. It should be fairly representative of hardcore FPS gamers, though.

Added: Original topic found here (http://www.forumplanet.com/gamespy/topic.asp?fid=1422&tid=1861375), somebody offered an interesting partial explanation for the difference: nForce boards, more popular with system builders, only support SLI.

[hezeuschrist]

I just looked through <link url="http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html">Valve's Hardware Survey page</link> after resubmitting stats for the first time in a while. One statistic really struck me as interesting:

Multi-GPU Systems (1555 of 218291 Total Users (0.71% of Total) )
NVIDIA SLI (2 GPUs) 1,533 98.59 %
ATI Crossfire (2 GPUs) 22 1.41 %

Despite Half-Life 2 being seen as a better performer on ATI cards, nVidia apparently has sold far more cards than ATI to Steam users:

Video Card Driver Name
nv4_disp.dll 114,733 52.56 %
ati2dvag.dll 90,615 41.51 %

It's really interesting that the vast majority of multi-GPU users would choose nVidia's solution. Early reviews gave me a bad impression of Crossfire; apparently that has poisoned enthusaists against the setup. I'm somewhat surprised that only 1,555 Steam users are using multi-GPU systems.

Naturally, these statistics aren't indicative of all FPS gamers; many users had to upgrade to play Half-Life 2 and I know of many game enthusiasts who're waiting until the next round of big games (or longer) to get a Half-Life 2 or DOOM III capable solution. It should be fairly representative of hardcore FPS gamers, though.

Added: Original topic found here (http://www.forumplanet.com/gamespy/topic.asp?fid=1422&tid=1861375), somebody offered an interesting partial explanation for the difference: nForce boards, more popular with system builders, only support SLI.

Well, that post is rife with misinformation.

First: Crossfire is expensive. Prohibitively so. I'm a hardcore ATI enthusiast and the system I've been speccing out for the past week is straight up nVidia. Why? I want to eventually go the way of Crossfire/SLI a year or so down the road by picking up a cheap sister card... something that simply isn't possible with Crossfire.

With Crossfire, you need to have Master and a Slave card. On March 9th, nVidia released the 7900 series cards, and the 7900GT is being sold between $300 and $350(depending on the clocks)... for the performance, an amazing price. This card is the equivalent to the ATI X1800XT 256meg edition, also available at the same price range.

I thought long and hard about which way I was gonna go, and while ATI offers the better IQ and performance at higher AA/AF levels, by a mile, if I were to get the X1800XT now I would need an X1800 Crossfire Edition later down the road. First, finding one for sale is a chore, even newegg doesn't carry them. Second, when you do, they're anywhere from not actually instock to actually instock for $500-$700. For nearly as much or more than twice the cost of the slave card, you can get the exact same card that simply allows you to link them together. With nVidia, all you have to do is have both of the exact same card, a small bridge piece connecting the (included with the cards), and boot your system. So for a hair better performance at single card for $300, ATI is the winner. For a hair better performance at $800-$1000 vs. nvidia's $600 solution... well, do you want to spend $400 more?

Plus, the new line of nvidia GPU's have been shrunk, which means less heat, less cooling needed, and ultimately less power consumed. Have an ATI Crossfire solution requires at LEAST a 500w PSU, IF it has the proper rails. Most would need a 600w PSU to run the entire system if you've got a handful of hard drives or multiple optical drives.

As for the nForce chipset not supporting Crossfire... thats obvious. It's made by nVidia ;) ATI has their own chipset, XPRESS. In terms of base northbridge performance, nvidia has a really huge headstart on ATI, so many people would prefer the nForce chipset over the ATI chipset, regardless of running a dual card solution or not. Either nForce, or VIA, or any of the other more established boardmakers.

Simply put, it's far, far easier and far, far cheaper to go with nVidia's SLI over ATI's Crossfire. As for single card solutions you'll find a pretty even split among the hardcore, the enthusiasts, and the casual PC gamers... if such a creature exists.

[Joker T]

I'm a big ATI fan also, but it's true Crossfire is not the way to go for a multi gpu solution.

[hezeuschrist]

It's rumored that at cebit ATI will announce they're releasing new bios for the XPRESS 3200 chipset boards that'll allow the elimination of needing a Master card for Crossfire. Hopefully this is true, and since I'm not building my new system until after Vista comes out, I'll have plenty of time to watch the dust settle.

[unwinddesign]

nVidia's cards are simply better than ATI's. There's no two ways about it. More games are tailored to run better under nVidia hardware, SLI is better, and the nForce 4 platform soundly whoops ATI's Express in the ass.

Besides, if you're running either an SLI or a Crossfire setup and playing HL2, you're gonna be smoking the game no matter what. You may eek a few more frames out of an ATI setup, but when you're blasting along at 100 FPS, it makes zero difference.

ATI really had a big lead over nVidia, especially after the whole FX debacle. I'm not sure where they stumbled, but they're really falling behind these days.

[hezeuschrist]

Uhh, what? Sorry, there's no winner in this war... well, the winner is the consumer. It all comes down to price and availability, the differences between equivalent ATI and Nvidia cards is so negligable that it can come down to something as trivial as the color of the pcb. Those of us lucky enough to build a dual-gpu rig are likely to go with Nvidia because yes, ATI jacked up Crossfire... but it might be fixed in the coming weeks. Time will tell.

Aside from power consumption and noise generation, there's virtually no difference in base performance. From the tech report...


The performance race between NVIDIA and ATI is very tight overall, especially at the very high end, when the GeForce 7900 GTX squares off against the Radeon X1900 XTX—close enough that I couldn't declare a clear overall winner. Both cards are incredible performers, and neither of them has shown any great weaknesses in our tests.

http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2006q1/geforce-7600-7900/3dm-overall-1280.gif

If you want to argue that 50-100 points in any 3D06 Benchmark means anything other than a billion different variables, be my guest.

This will be the best round for cards since the 9800 Pro hit $200, because there will be a violent price war and it'll force ATI to get their head out of their ass in relation to dual gpu setups.

[Ed Oscuro]

Well, that post is rife with misinformation.
Hay, do you actually have something in there you can put your finger on as "wrong?"

You're right, reading your post I see now why Crossfire hasn't caught on yet (I had heard that the daughter board requirement was already fixed, though), but I don't see how posting something straight off that review with a bare minimum of editorializing counts as a heinous act of misinformation. Why shoot yourself in the foot by coming off in a needlessly agressive manner? Makes your message repulsive.


As for the nForce chipset not supporting Crossfire... thats obvious. It's made by nVidia ;) ATI has their own chipset, XPRESS.
The point is that there's no buzz about XPRESS. I've never heard anybody talk about wanting to build a system based around it (personally I didn't much care about nForce, being just another buzzword to me - performance and price was what interested me and so I went with the A8N Premium from Abit). Regardless, it seemed a logical explanation. Maybe there's a hidden resevoir of XPRESS devotees out there somewhere in the depths of the Internet, but I hadn't met anybody (in my limited travels) who much cared about it.