Well I think some of you are curious, and I was, about Crossfire and it seems AMD has indeed improved it with the HD 6800 series compared to the HD 5800 series. I looked over various benchmarks and compiled the data into a spreadsheet. You'll find the numbers and links to the websites I used in the following Google doc:
HD 6800 Crossfire Scaling data
Updated (updating) the spreadsheet, found another review and will be adding more as I come across them over the next few weeks.
Updated again, this time the formulas are in google doc so you can download and play with the numbers for yourself.
Updated Sheet 2 now includes results when SLI/Crossfire don't scale or appear CPU limited in the benchmarks. In summary including these results brings down all the scaling numbers, but the HD 6800 > GTX 400 > HD 5000 the same anyway. I don't include these numbers in the original because we're interested in how they scale when they scale (for both SLI and Xfire), and obviously CPU-limited numbers will give us worse scaling as performance hits a ceiling.
That document has a lot of information. It has all the scaling numbers for any review I found with HD 6800 Crossfire results on a game by game breakdown. So now I'll give you the summaries (averages) and you can look at the individual data for yourselves:
HD 6800 series sees an average 82.1% gain in performance by adding a second card.
HD 5000 series sees an average 67% gain in performance by adding a second card.
GTX 400 series sees an average 75.1% gain in performance by adding a second card.
So from the data points posted across the Internet so far, Crossfire has caught up and in many cases surpassed SLI. AMD has boosted Crossfire scaling by 15% with the HD 6800 series over the HD 5000 series.
However not all reviews included Crossfire or SLI results for other cards. I really only found two (EDIT: So there are more than two out there but I'm not going to put them in this post. Just look at the speadsheet) that did include that: Anandtech and Guru3D. So in this post I'll go ahead and give the details on just how much AMD improved Crossfire over the HD5800 series, as well as compare it to the GTX 400 series. The percentages I'm posting will show you how much performance you gain by adding a second card per game.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3987/...renewing-competition-in-the-midrange-market/8
HD 5850 vs HD 6850 vs GTX 460 scaling at 1920x1200
Crysis Warhead: 67% vs 82% vs 81%
Battleforge:::::: 83% vs 96% vs 91%
Metro 2033::::: 55% vs 66% vs 67%
HAWX::::::::::: 73% vs 92% vs 82%
Bad Company 2: 80% vs 97% vs 71%
Stalker CoP::::: 74% vs 98% vs 75%
Dirt 2:::::::::::: 66% vs 85% vs 83%
Mass Effect 2::: 87% vs 89% vs 95%
Wolfenstein::::: 35% vs 46% vs 58%
Average: 69% (HD5850) vs 83% (HD6850) vs 78% (GTX460)
(I disregarded Anno results because they appeared CPU-limited with X-fire and SLI didn't scale at all)
http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-6850-6870-crossfirex-review/7
HD 5850 vs HD 6850 vs GTX 470 scaling at 1920x1200
Bad Company 2:::: 72% vs 97% vs 82%
Modern Warefare2: 38% vs 33% vs 69%
Dirt 2::::::::::::::: 59% vs 84% vs 82%
Far Cry 2::::::::::: 76% vs 95% vs 75%
Anno 1404:::::::::: N/A vs 63% vs 86%
Crysis Warhead:::: 63% vs 84% vs 62%
Metro 2033:::::::: 84% vs 100% vs 95%
Average: 65% (HD5850) vs 79% (HD6850) vs 79% (GTX 470)
As more reviews come out over the next month we'll get an even better picture of the situation.
HD 6800 Crossfire Scaling data
Updated (updating) the spreadsheet, found another review and will be adding more as I come across them over the next few weeks.
Updated again, this time the formulas are in google doc so you can download and play with the numbers for yourself.
Updated Sheet 2 now includes results when SLI/Crossfire don't scale or appear CPU limited in the benchmarks. In summary including these results brings down all the scaling numbers, but the HD 6800 > GTX 400 > HD 5000 the same anyway. I don't include these numbers in the original because we're interested in how they scale when they scale (for both SLI and Xfire), and obviously CPU-limited numbers will give us worse scaling as performance hits a ceiling.
That document has a lot of information. It has all the scaling numbers for any review I found with HD 6800 Crossfire results on a game by game breakdown. So now I'll give you the summaries (averages) and you can look at the individual data for yourselves:
HD 6800 series sees an average 82.1% gain in performance by adding a second card.
HD 5000 series sees an average 67% gain in performance by adding a second card.
GTX 400 series sees an average 75.1% gain in performance by adding a second card.
So from the data points posted across the Internet so far, Crossfire has caught up and in many cases surpassed SLI. AMD has boosted Crossfire scaling by 15% with the HD 6800 series over the HD 5000 series.
However not all reviews included Crossfire or SLI results for other cards. I really only found two (EDIT: So there are more than two out there but I'm not going to put them in this post. Just look at the speadsheet) that did include that: Anandtech and Guru3D. So in this post I'll go ahead and give the details on just how much AMD improved Crossfire over the HD5800 series, as well as compare it to the GTX 400 series. The percentages I'm posting will show you how much performance you gain by adding a second card per game.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3987/...renewing-competition-in-the-midrange-market/8
HD 5850 vs HD 6850 vs GTX 460 scaling at 1920x1200
Crysis Warhead: 67% vs 82% vs 81%
Battleforge:::::: 83% vs 96% vs 91%
Metro 2033::::: 55% vs 66% vs 67%
HAWX::::::::::: 73% vs 92% vs 82%
Bad Company 2: 80% vs 97% vs 71%
Stalker CoP::::: 74% vs 98% vs 75%
Dirt 2:::::::::::: 66% vs 85% vs 83%
Mass Effect 2::: 87% vs 89% vs 95%
Wolfenstein::::: 35% vs 46% vs 58%
Average: 69% (HD5850) vs 83% (HD6850) vs 78% (GTX460)
(I disregarded Anno results because they appeared CPU-limited with X-fire and SLI didn't scale at all)
http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-6850-6870-crossfirex-review/7
HD 5850 vs HD 6850 vs GTX 470 scaling at 1920x1200
Bad Company 2:::: 72% vs 97% vs 82%
Modern Warefare2: 38% vs 33% vs 69%
Dirt 2::::::::::::::: 59% vs 84% vs 82%
Far Cry 2::::::::::: 76% vs 95% vs 75%
Anno 1404:::::::::: N/A vs 63% vs 86%
Crysis Warhead:::: 63% vs 84% vs 62%
Metro 2033:::::::: 84% vs 100% vs 95%
Average: 65% (HD5850) vs 79% (HD6850) vs 79% (GTX 470)
As more reviews come out over the next month we'll get an even better picture of the situation.
Last edited: