AllInfo

In the test 15 years ago: ATi CrossFire X against Nvidia Quad-SLI in an exchange of blows

admin

In the test 15 years ago, ComputerBase devoted itself to a technology oddity that is now extinct: CrossFire X and Quad-SLI. Both technologies allow up to four GPUs to be operated in a multi-GPU network. In the test, two ATi Radeon HD 3870 X2 competed against two Nvidia GeForce 9800 GX2 (test).

2 x 2 makes 4

Both the ATi Radeon HD 3870 X2 and the GeForce 9800 GX2 were dual-GPU graphics cards – both had two graphics chips. CrossFire X and Quad-SLI were AMD's and Nvidia's technologies, respectively, to connect two such dual-GPU graphics cards with each other, for example, and thus operate four GPUs in one system. The computing work was then divided between the GPUs using “Alternate Frame Rendering” (AFR). In practice, this meant that the GPUs calculated an image in turn, and then the frames were output with shorter intervals.

  1. Nvidia Quad-SLI

Image 1 of 2

ATi Radeon HD 3870 X2 CF

The disadvantage of the AFR method was that each GPU had to hold the entire scene in memory, so the available graphics memory no longer increased with the number of GPUs. In addition, AFR suffered from micro-stuttering caused by the fact that the distances between the images were not even – this could give the impression that a game was not running smoothly despite high frame rates.

Radeon HD 3870 Radeon HD 3870 X2 GeForce 8800 GTS 512 GeForce 9800 GX2 Chip RV670 R680 (2 × RV670) G92 2 × G92 transistors approx. 666 million approx. 2 × 666 million approx Manufacture 55nm 65nm Chip Clock 775MHz 825MHz 650MHz 600MHz Shader Clock 775MHz 825MHz 1625MHz 1500MHz Shader Units
(MADD) 64 (5D) 2 × 64 (5D) 128 (1D) 2 × 128 (1D) FLOPs (MADD/ADD) 496 GFLOPS 2 × 525 GFLOPS 624 GFLOPS 2 × 581 GFLOPS ROPs 16 2 × 16 16 2 × 16 Pixel fill rate 12,400 MPix/s 2 × 13,200 MPix/s 10,400 MPix/s 2 × 9,600 MPix/s TMUs 16 2 × 16 64 2 × 64 TAUs 32 2 × 32 64 2 × 64 Texel fill rate 12,400 MTex/s 2 × 13,200 MTex/s 41,600 MTex/s 2 × 38,400 MTex/s shader model SM 4.1 SM 4 hybrid CF/SLI – ✓ effective Windows
Energy-saving function ✓ – Amount of memory 512 MB GDDR3 2 × 512 MB GDDR3 512 MB GDDR3 2 × 512 MB GDDR3 Memory clock 1,125 MHz 900 MHz 970 MHz 1,000 MHz Memory interface 256 bits 2 × 256 bits 256 bits 2 × 256 bits Memory bandwidth 72,000 × 00.7.62 MB/s MB/s 62,080 MB/s 2 × 64,000 MB/s

While CrossFire X was introduced at CeBIT 15 years ago, Quad-SLI was not a new invention. Nvidia had previously supported SLI groups of four GPUs with the GeForce 7950 GX2 – but that originally only worked under OpenGL. The reason was that DirectX 9 on Windows XP only accepted three commands in advance for rendering a frame. However, both the new Quad-SLI and CrossFire X required Windows Vista, which did not have this limitation and therefore also supported four GPUs under DirectX 9.

Power full

As expected, the multi-GPU teams with four GPUs performed well in the benchmarks compared to single and dual GPU graphics cards. The performance increase was consistently strong – even in higher settings and resolutions – until the GeForce 9800 GX2 ran out of memory. This was noticeable in the fact that a single Radeon HD 3870 – which used its memory more efficiently despite the same memory size – was faster than two GeForce 9800 GX2 when playing in 2,560 × 1,600 pixels with 8x anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering .

Rating

Rating – 1280×1024 4xAA/16xAF

Unit: Percent Rating – 1600×1200 4xAA/16xAF

Unit: Percent Rating – 2560×1600 4xAA/16xAF

Unit: Percent Rating – 1280×1024 8xAA/16xAF

Unit: Percent Rating – 1600×1200 8xAA/16xAF

Unit: Percent Rating – 2560×1600 8xAA/16xAF

Unit: percent

The systems with four GPUs set new negative records in terms of volume, power consumption and temperature. In practice, that meant deafening volume, blisteringly hot systems, and up to 600 watts of power consumption when gaming.

Charts

Volume

Unit: dB(A) Temperature

Unit: °C Power consumption

Unit: Watt (W) Overclockability

Unit: frames per second (FPS)

Conclusion

CrossFire X and Quad-SLI weren't successful even on the second attempt. While the systems were typically fast, they weren't worth the linear premium as performance didn't increase to the same extent. If you care about noise, power consumption or temperature, you could hardly make a worse decision than putting four GPUs in one computer. Micro stutters and driver problems were added.

In the category “In the test 15 years ago”, the editors have been taking a look at the test archive every Saturday since July 2017. The last 20 articles that appeared in this series are listed below:

There is more content of this type and many other reports and anecdotes in the retro corner of the ComputerBase forum.

Exit mobile version