We may finally have a winner for Crossfire

[Fozzik]

739Anandtech has a review up today of a brand-new Crossfire motherboard from Asus. You can check it out here (http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2617)

This board not only looks to provide the benefits of passive cooling, a reasonable price, and all the features and performance you would expect out of a modern motherboard, it also seems to be an amazing overclocker.

Not everyone overclocks... I certainly don't. But, when I see a board like the new Asus A8R-MVP which seems to hit some of the highest overclocks ever achieved on the Athlon 64 platform, I take it to mean we have a very well designed and stable motherboard on our hands. This is exactly what is needed to get the Crossfire platform off the ground...a board with no caveats, just great all-around and stable.

The A8R-MVP uses the Radeon XPress200 Crossfire northbridge, but stays away from the issues that have plagued ATI south bridges by including the ULi M1575 southbridge instead. With these two chips, you'll find every feature you'd expect to see on a new motherboard these days, including decent onboard sound, 10 USB 2.0 ports, SATA2 controller that supports RAID, etc. The performance of all these peripherals would appear to be on-par with the best Nforce4 motherboards...so no problem there.

The board is not available yet, at least not that I can find on the web...and I really hope it's not some phantom product that doesn't show up for another two months. There needs to be a decent crossfire motherboard which isn't plagued with instability or performance issues as soon as possible...because those looking to purchase a single high-end ATI card right now are just out of luck on the motherboard side. Buying an SLI motherboard and an ATI video card makes no sense.

I'll be watching for this board to show up not only in online stores, but also on other review websites. The minute it's available (and as long as other reviewers don't get dramatically different results than Anandtech did), I'll most likely be changing to this motherboard in my $2000 recommended system. This thing is long overdue.

[Breogan]

Wasn't too keen on ATI boards due to the southbridge issues that had been popping here and there, but this board may prove me wrong. It seems like a great performer and OC'er, the SATA2 perfomance is great (the ULI controller outperformed almost every other one), and if the price tag in the article is right, it's also pretty cheap to boot.

[Croissant]

http://anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2572&p=1

DFI also released a crossfire motherboard. They seem to have built quite an awesome reputation with their older boards, I wonder if Anandtech has a review up for this board too

edit : I found a review of it and it seems ASUS does beat DFI with their new board. (Modified original link)

[Fozzik]

I'd stay away from the DFI board for the time being... I've heard about a lot of problems. It may be things that can be fixed with BIOS updates, but then again there has been talk of recalls. The board is a mess that often doesn't get past POST. Check out this (http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODg4LDE=) article.

ATI is starting a certification program to help some of the tier 2 and 3 manufacturers make boards that are solid and meet some kind of standards. Not all companies are going to be part of that testing and validation though... so as more ATI chipset mobos come out, especially Crossfire boards, it might be good to check for those that are certified by ATI. Manufacturers like Asus and MSI are probably big enough where they do their own careful testing, and won't need this...but from what I've read DFI would definitely benefit from it.

[Croissant]

Hm yeah, I was definitely surprised by that article considering how awesome their nf4u boards were. I guess you can't trust a board just by its brand. I'll definitely keep an eye out for the certification when it's time to upgrade again.

[Belisarius]

Another review that's been up for a while here (http://amdzone.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=198&page=1) on the Asus board. Another on a new Sapphire XFire board (http://amdzone.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=209&page=1) oops.. not crossfire.. my mistake. The review just went up and I knew Sappire was coming out with a XFire board. Mental Flatulence.

[Belisarius]

Two more boards in the works. No release date yet.

Abit (http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/products.php?categories=1&model=309)
MSI (http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pro_mbd_detail.php?UID=697)

[Alodar]

a new machine Foz, or the one you just built? Why bother to switch, especially since you already have an NVidia card. The chipset fits it already.

[Fozzik]

I was talking about my $2000 recommended system. Check it out here (http://www.silkyvenom.com/?page=articles&articleid=31). I'm recommending an ATI Radeon X1800XT, so the switch to a solid Crossfire board would really be nice.

[Alodar]

Curious, why would you recommend the x1800 over the 512 7800? Granted, it's expensive, and would put you slightly over 2k, but for the performance/price ratio, I'd think it's worth it.

edit: esp with the new Nforce chipsets for AMD being able to handle ddr2 if I remember correctly

[Fozzik]

No, DDR2 memory controllers are coming on the socket M2 processors, probably second quarter of next year. I really think the 7800GTX 512MB is too expensive at the moment. At $750, the price/performance ratio is not worth the improvement you get over the X1800XT, especially at the resolutions most people will play games at (1280x1024, or 1600x1200). Just my opinion, and my recommended systems are really just templates...people should feel free to adjust as they see fit. ;)

I'll always adjust things as prices change.

[Belisarius]

DOn't know when this happened Fozz, but the DFI XFire board is now certified by ATI (http://www.ati.com/products/certified/dfi-mb.html).

At least certain builds/BIOS'.

[Belisarius]

And this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813135211) motherboard is also listed (on the manufacturers site (http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWeb/Products/ProductsDetail.aspx?DetailID=559&MenuID=90&LanID=0)) as supporting XFire.

[Fozzik]

DOn't know when this happened Fozz, but the DFI XFire board is now certified by ATI (http://www.ati.com/products/certified/dfi-mb.html).

At least certain builds/BIOS'.

Hopefully that will clear up the issues people were having. I still be concerned, at least for a few weeks, about getting one of the older boards...but hopefully DFI was able to correct the issues with just BIOS changes, so nobody is stuck with a bad board.

I think I'd still recommend the Asus...I'm normally pretty conservative and paranoid when it comes to these things.

[Belisarius]

Anandtech just updated their review with benchmarks for this Mobo utilizing the X1800XT. In 3DMark05, it seems the XT spanks the 7800GTX 8872 - 7698. That's pretty good right Fozz?

QUOTE:

Results with the ATI X1800XT on the Asus A8R-MVP were very intersting. THe X1800XT was either tops or matched results in all games not based on Open GL engines. In games base on Open GL, like Quake 4 and Doom 3, the new 5.11 driver has made up most, by not quite all, of the performance advantage perviously held by the nVidia 7800GTX. Keep in mind that these results are our standard tests, with AA and AF turned off if possible. We have found that as soon as AA and AF are turned on the X1800XT is tops even in Open GL compared to the 7800GTX.


EDIT: In case you were wondering, yes, I am drooling after this board.

[Fozzik]

As far as I know, that's pretty much the same results that people were getting with Nforce4 motherboards and the X1800XT. Honestly, I think the motherboard has very little to do with high resolution gaming benchmarks. It's mostly the video cards, and it's pretty well known that the X1800XT is a bit faster than the 7800GTX. It's also more expensive by $50-$100...and it's the reason why Nvidia struck back with the 7800GTX 512MB. The 7800GTX was out almost 6 months before the X1800XT, so it really shouldn't be a surprise that the ATI card is faster.

[Belisarius]

Ack I was thinking that was against the 7800GTX512.
My bad.

[Breogan]

I have been following this board for the last few weeks, and for the time being it seems to be a solid board at default settings and moderate OC, but if you want to push it a bit further, it's not as good as the review portrayed it to be.

The board reviewed seems to have been handpicked and fitted with a custom BIOS that hasn't been officially released yet (although the reviewer offered it on AT forums). The current BIOS is lacking in some OC-related features, like the voltage, and some people are finding troubles keeping up 1:1 memory ratios with high FSB settings :(.

I hope ASUS releases some BIOS updates soon to fix the issues of an otherwise excelent and cheap board :)