ATI Radeon X1950XTX CrossFire

INTRODUCTION

On August 23, 2006, Bjorn Endre the founder and "Godfather" of Bjorn3D flew to Berlin, Germany and covered the launch of ATI Technologies then new line of graphics solutions which included the X1950XTX, the X1950XTX CrossFire™ Edition, the X1650 Pro and the X1300XT. You can read his launch coverage here. As with most events of this type there was enough information information to sufficiently wet the appetite of the computer enthusiast and product analyst alike. After reading Bjorn's review, I have been very anxious to review a CrossFire based graphics system.

Recently, I built two new Intel Core 2 Duo systems each based on the Intel I975X motherboards. One of the systems was designated as my personal workstation and the other was specific for product reviews. Since CrossFire™ technology was the biggest and baddest dual GPU graphics product available for this system I was stoked to review it. After exchanging a few emails with Will Willis, ATI's North American Public Relations Manager, my request was granted. I received the X1950XTX CrossFire™ components in less than two days, which was absolutely incredible.

Please join me at Bjorn3D's Southeastern US test facility (my computer room) where we'll take the ATI® X1950XTX CrossFire™ edition to its limits. It is our plan to test this card in comparison with the two fastest single GPU graphics cards currently on the market. Is it a fair test pitting a dual GPU graphics solution against ones with effectively only half the processing power? We'll soon see!

ATI: The Company

ATI Technologies, a Canadian based corporation that is one of the two largest graphics solution developers and manufacturers in the world was purchased on October 25, 2006 by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Since the purchase we can only speculate there has been some reorganization within their ranks and as of yet the new structure of ATI/AMD remains a bit of a mystery. That being said we will refer to some quotes from the October press release where AMD outlines (in a gross perspective) some of their future plans for ATI.

“Today marks a historic day for our employees, our partners and our customers as we officially welcome ATI into the AMD family,” said AMD Chairman and CEO Hector Ruiz. “On day one, we are delivering a winning set of complementary technologies, igniting a new level of innovation and continuing to champion choice for the industry. Thanks to the strength of our talented employees, the new AMD now has a full range of intellectual property (IP) in microprocessors, graphics, chipsets and consumer electronics to deliver open platforms and integrated solutions. In the near term, customers gain a new level of choice, and in the long term, we believe the possibilities for innovation are truly limitless.”

AMD plans to create a new class of x86 processor that integrates the central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) at the silicon level with a broad set of design initiatives collectively codenamed “Fusion.” AMD intends to design Fusion processors to provide step-function increases in performance-per-watt relative to today’s CPU-only architectures, and to provide the best customer experience in a world increasingly reliant upon 3D graphics, digital media and high-performance computing. With Fusion processors, AMD will continue to promote an open platform and encourage companies throughout the ecosystem to create innovative new co-processing solutions aimed at further optimizing specific workloads. AMD-powered Fusion platforms will continue to fully support high-end discrete graphics, physics accelerators, and other PCI Express-based solutions to meet the ever-increasing needs of the most demanding enthusiast end-users.

“With the anticipated launch of Windows Vista, robust 3D graphics, digital media and device convergence are driving the need for greater performance, graphics capabilities, and battery life,” said Phil Hester, AMD senior vice president and chief technology officer. “In this increasingly diverse x86 computing environment, simply adding more CPU cores to a baseline architecture will not be enough. As x86 scales from palmtops to petaFLOPS, modular processor designs leveraging both CPU and GPU compute capabilities will be essential in meeting the requirements of computing in 2008 and beyond.”

Fusion processors are expected in late 2008/early 2009, and the company expects to use them within all of the company’s priority computing categories, including laptops, desktops, workstations and servers, as well as in consumer electronics and solutions tailored for the unique needs of emerging markets.