Efficiency terror : AMD Radeon R9 290X CrossFire performance leaks out

[x3sphere]

Since these cards communicate straight over the PCI-E bus, will there be a huge performance penalty for those of us on PCI-E 2? I'm guessing so. Too bad there's still nothing compelling to upgrade to from my i7 920.

 

[tential]

Yes, they chose all the standard benchmark games in use today for nefarious benchmark cheating purposes.

Ha ok, more like settings and stuff too though. I'm ALWAYS skeptical of material that is "leaked" until I see full reviews doesn't matter which camp it's from.

 

[el etro]

Like in 2010, we will see AMDs dual-Headed VI beat the Dual-Headed Nvidia monster due to Crossfire scaling. And unlike 2010, the AMD's architecture will be more future proof than Nvidia's...

 

[krumme]

Ha ok, more like settings and stuff too though. I'm ALWAYS skeptical of material that is "leaked" until I see full reviews doesn't matter which camp it's from.

Well the scaling will certainly be there in spades. I dont doubt. But we need some subjective impressions foremost. The scaling means nothing if the experience is not there.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

At this rate amd's launch will be spoiled by the numerous leaks already out there. I really don't see why they want to conduct their business this way.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Like in 2010, we will see AMDs dual-Headed VI beat the Dual-Headed Nvidia monster due to Crossfire scaling. And unlike 2010, the AMD's architecture will be more future proof than Nvidia's...

It has been said a million times...you can't future proof any computer hardware.

 

[epidemis]

Can anyone tell us, what is the bottleneck preventing good utilization of more than 2 cards?

 

[BrightCandle]

Can anyone tell us, what is the bottleneck preventing good utilization of more than 2 cards?

Synchronisation and getting the frames produced in time.

Synchronisation is basically frame pacing. The idea is that if a card has an easy frame that the next card waits a little longer to make sure that it doesn't try and render too early resulting in a runt frame.

The game engine also has to produce the frames and provide them to the graphics API, and it has to do it in time so that the cards can start rendering the draw calls. The problem is that while rendering similar scenes are often very close in processing time frame to frame for a game is regularly not a very smooth process because how much is happening in the game changes quite dramatically. So CPUs often struggle to deliver the frames on an even pace.

Both of these primary factors mean that the GPU can't immediately get going and start producing the next frame when its ready. With a single CPU you are almost always limited by the GPU but when 2 cards are used there is often a CPU limitation even if only partially and in some scenes.

 

[3DVagabond]

I just want to see them try and get consistent crossfire scaling out of W1zzard at TPU.

 

[el etro]

It has been said a million times...you can't future proof any computer hardware.

Sometimes this is predictable. We seen this once we knew fermi was going better on newer DX11 Games.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I think one of the reasons why 2 cards can sometimes feel smoother is due to buffering being automatically enabled via the drivers. Correct me if I am wrong

 

[GaiaHunter]

I don't see the issue with that graph, the divisions are the same.
There's no obfuscation here

The red part is wider than the grey part when obviously they should be the same size.

It is a very common trick - when you reduce the scale differences become bigger, tiny differences in vertical bars become a midget bar vs a giant bar, what would like an horizontal line becomes a roller-coaster or a cliff/hill, etc.

 

[Mastercommander]

Crossfire has always had excellent scaling, better than SLI truth be known. But good multi-GPU performance is more than simply good scaling.

Techpowerup's 7950 xfire vs 670 sli does not agree

560s may have had dubious scaling but 450 and 460 had extraordinary scaling

 

[tviceman]

Great scaling if it turns out to be true. Regardless, I'll never go dual cards - especially now that I'm downsizing to a mini-ITX setup.