DJ_PAPA
Power Member
ATI RD580: Dual x16 Crossfire Preview
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2609
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2609
ATI's chipset Engineering team seem determined to take ATI chipsets to new levels to grab the attention of AMD hobbyists. They seem right on target, since the AMD market has been, and continues to be, driven by the computer enthusiast. Our preview of RD580 on the ATI Manta Reference board showed us some exciting developments are on the way from ATI. Dual x16 video capabilities in a single chip 44 PCIe lane package certainly performed extremely well compared to the just released Dual x16 from nVidia.
The possibility of HTT ratio-free overclocking will also interest the real overclockers out there. Running over 300FSB with a 5X HTT multiplier with current Athlon64 chips seemed an impossibility until we saw it working for ourselves in RD580. We are also glad to see ATI continue their commitment to quality audio on the AMD platform with continued support for High Definition audio codecs. Audio is one area where ATI is clearly outperforming their AMD chipset competition.
The comparison of the RD580 Dual x16 motherboard with X1800XT Crossfire to Asus A8N32-SLI with 7800GTX Crossfire seems a logical comparison to this reviewer. Comparing these results, ATI wins every benchmark. That means if RD580 and Crossfire were shipping today the graphics war would be on and plenty hot. The reality, however, is that X1800XT Crossfire and X1800XT PE are coming soon, and ATI RD580 will likely land in early to mid January. We also expect the ATI R580 GPU to land about the same time, and ATI is hard at work on Socket M2 offerings to be launched with that AMD socket.
Based on what we have seen in this RD580 preview, the worries at ATI right now are more about the present than the future. Future solutions look very competitive and exciting to the market. ATI seems to be caught in a release "Twilight Zone", but as they work their way through current release nightmares, the future looks as if it could be very bright again for ATI. Certainly the upcoming RD580 Dual x16 chipset, X1800XT Crossfire, and X1800XT PE look more than competitive. Add to that R580 is just around the corner and it looks as if ATI has the goods coming to erase the last nine months of disappointment