# Radeon HD 7990 CrossFireX Smiles for the Camera



## btarunr (Apr 9, 2013)

An anonymous tipster left an interesting picture on our doorsteps. It shows a pair of Radeon HD 7990 "Malta" reference-design graphics cards chugging along inside an enthusiast PC. AMD surprised us late last month, when it showed off a reference-design Radeon HD 7990 dual-GPU graphics card, at the Game Developers' Conference (GDC) event. The cards in this new picture appear to be identical to the one AMD showed. The "Radeon" embossing appears pretty clear on both cards, so one can't mistake them for FirePro S10000.

Bearing a new internal codename "Malta," compared to last year's various dual-HD 7970 contraptions that were codenamed "New Zealand," the new Radeon HD 7990 is being designed to be far more energy efficient, and quiet. While the various "New Zealand" cards often featured three 8-pin PCIe power connectors and triple-slot cooling solutions, "Malta" makes do with just two 8-pin power connectors, and a dual-slot cooler. We've been talking to a lot of reliable sources in the industry, and nobody has any clue about a tentative launch date.





*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## badtaylorx (Apr 9, 2013)

i still think they should have opted for a dual "Tahiti LE" variant card....

7890???
7980???

at $500 it could have destroyed its competition


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## INSTG8R (Apr 9, 2013)

badtaylorx said:


> i still think they should have opted for a dual "Tahiti LE" variant card....
> 
> 7890???
> 7980???
> ...



Well who knows now that they have officially done their top tier "Dual" There is a "reference" design to follow that can easily roll down the line to lower GPU's We had the 6850X2 and 6870X2 in the last series. As always flagship first then the "trickle down"


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## EarthDog (Apr 9, 2013)

Nice.. I cant wait to review this...soon !


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## Kaynar (Apr 9, 2013)

I hope this official move to 2x7970 will lead to acceptable Xfire performance so that I may buy a 2nd 7970...


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Apr 9, 2013)

Here's hoping they fix crossfire before they release it... otherwise it's 50% paperweight with some extra heat and power consumption thrown in for shits and giggles.


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## Aquinus (Apr 9, 2013)

LAN_deRf_HA said:


> Here's hoping they fix crossfire before they release it... otherwise it's 50% paperweight with some extra heat and power consumption thrown in for shits and giggles.



My thinking exactly and like the picture, with two of them, that's 75% paperweight until they do something with CFX.


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## Fluffmeister (Apr 9, 2013)

LAN_deRf_HA said:


> Here's hoping they fix crossfire before they release it... otherwise it's 50% paperweight with some extra heat and power consumption thrown in for shits and giggles.



Amen brother!

Still they are cute little runts.


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## happita (Apr 9, 2013)

LAN_deRf_HA said:


> Here's hoping they fix crossfire before they release it... otherwise it's 50% paperweight with some extra heat and power consumption thrown in for shits and giggles.



I think the main thing is that the power requirements dropped from 3x 8pins to 2x 8pins and the fact that they said they were trying to make it more efficient versus other dual-7970 options.



btarunr said:


> Bearing a new internal codename "Malta," *compared to last year's various dual-HD 7970 contraptions that were codenamed "New Zealand," the new Radeon HD 7990 is being designed to be far more energy efficient, and quiet. While the various "New Zealand" cards often featured three 8-pin PCIe power connectors and triple-slot cooling solutions, "Malta" makes do with just two 8-pin power connectors*, and a dual-slot cooler. We've been talking to a lot of reliable sources in the industry, and nobody has any clue about a tentative launch date.


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## Mathragh (Apr 9, 2013)

I suppose they're waiting with releasing this until the driver team has the crossfire drivers close to where they want them. 
That way, reviews of this card will show the performance of the new drivers, instead of the  performance under current batch of(according to many) sub-par crossfire drivers which will cause this card to underperform.


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## Hayder_Master (Apr 9, 2013)

AMD should release it quickly, the title become so old, next generation cards will be release too, so those cards it will be not useful anymore


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## BigMack70 (Apr 9, 2013)

too bad quadfire is the most useless POS ever except for benchmarking


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## lobsterrock (Apr 9, 2013)

*EA/DICE employee*

It was an EA/DICE employee. He showed off the picture on /r/battlefield, a quick look through his history indicated that he was an EA/DICE employee.


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## Animalpak (Apr 9, 2013)

Amazing card will be super quiet and cool.


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## Aquinus (Apr 9, 2013)

BigMack70 said:


> too bad quadfire is the most useless POS ever except for benchmarking



We'll see if that is still the case after AND fixes their drivers. It might not be entirely useless If they get it right. I'll reserve judgment until after we have tangible evidence that their efforts have been successful or not.


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## EarthDog (Apr 9, 2013)

Quadfire/QuadSLI scaling is TERRIBLE, and if they havent fixed that to this point, its not going to get much better. Besides, they arent fixing FPS, that is fine its the FRAMETIME everyone is up in arms about (for little reason).


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## TheHunter (Apr 9, 2013)

PLX bridge like by GTX690 or regular crossfire bridge?


Imo plx could make a big change.


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## chinmi (Apr 9, 2013)

Cant wait for the review....


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## EarthDog (Apr 9, 2013)

Regular Crossfire bridge?


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## PopcornMachine (Apr 9, 2013)

LAN_deRf_HA said:


> Here's hoping they fix crossfire before they release it... otherwise it's 50% paperweight with some extra heat and power consumption thrown in for shits and giggles.





Aquinus said:


> My thinking exactly and like the picture, with two of them, that's 75% paperweight until they do something with CFX.





Mathragh said:


> I suppose they're waiting with releasing this until the driver team has the crossfire drivers close to where they want them.
> That way, reviews of this card will show the performance of the new drivers, instead of the  performance under current batch of(according to many) sub-par crossfire drivers which will cause this card to underperform.



They must have a new driver to handle crossfire ready for this, or they will get crucified with the new frame latency testing.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Apr 9, 2013)

TheHunter said:


> PLX bridge like by GTX690 or regular crossfire bridge?
> 
> 
> Imo plx could make a big change.



What are you talking about? Linking 2 of the cards together or for the GPUs within the card? 

Dual GPU cards like the 7990 and 690 is basically SLI and Crossfire on a stick. There is a chip on them to make the GPUs run in sync like a bridge would do for 2 separate cards.


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## EarthDog (Apr 9, 2013)

MxPhenom 216 said:


> What are you talking about? Linking 2 of the cards together or for the GPUs within the card?
> 
> Dual GPU cards like the 7990 and 690 is basically SLI and Crossfire on a stick. There is a chip on them to make the GPUs run in sync like a bridge would do for 2 separate cards.


Correct. 



PopcornMachine said:


> They must have a new driver to handle crossfire ready for this, or they will get crucified with the new frame latency testing.


Oh yeah? You may be right, but seeing as how these are completely different beasts in some respects, I wouldnt hang my hat on it until you see the data...

... not to mention this issue was blown way out of proportion in the first place IMO.


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## radrok (Apr 9, 2013)

BigMack70 said:


> too bad quadfire is the most useless POS ever except for benchmarking



quote for truth and emphasis.


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## erocker (Apr 9, 2013)

EarthDog said:


> Nice.. I cant wait to review this...soon !



Check those frametimes!!! 

If the card actually works well, I'd get one.


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## EarthDog (Apr 9, 2013)

erocker said:


> Check those frametimes!!!
> 
> If the card actually works well, I'd get one.


Can the $2k in equipment needed come out of TPU's budget?  I WOULD LOVE TO! Otherwise, we are letting this issue blow over, but will reference other testing as there are some that cant let it go, err would like to see it. Being more serious,  I would like to see how CFx on a stick handles it compared to two boards...its just, we cant afford the testing equipment... its going to be fixed soon by AMD (not that everyone sees it anyway) and after that we will all be left with $2k worth of testing equipment that nobody cares about.

Hopefully we are right on that anyway... hah!


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## Xzibit (Apr 9, 2013)

EarthDog said:


> ... not to mention this issue was blown way out of proportion in the first place IMO.



Yup.

Same people harping on those results were to blind to see that SLI when working properly isnt worth the price your paying.  Once you go from SLI at 1080p to 1440p the value of the second card drops like a brick and your variance spikes.  Which is the whole issues your trying to avoid.

They just got too excited to diminish the competition they didnt care if they were getting screwed aswell.


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## BigMack70 (Apr 9, 2013)

Aquinus said:


> We'll see if that is still the case after AND fixes their drivers. It might not be entirely useless If they get it right. I'll reserve judgment until after we have tangible evidence that their efforts have been successful or not.



I understand this point, but I have zero expectations for this and I think anyone with more expectation than that are just asking for disappointment. They don't even have average framerate right (and neither does Nvidia) in 4-way GPU setups, and 2-way CF still doesn't work occasionally. 

If they get quadfire to work here, it will be an absolute miracle.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Apr 9, 2013)

Xzibit said:


> Yup.
> 
> Same people harping on those results were to blind to see that SLI when working properly isnt worth the price your paying.  Once you go from SLI at 1080p to 1440p the value of the second card drops like a brick and your variance spikes.  Which is the whole issues your trying to avoid.
> 
> They just got too excited to diminish the competition they didnt care if they were getting screwed aswell.



Atleast with SLI you get close to proper scaling. At this point with CFX the 2nd card is a paper weight.


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## Xzibit (Apr 9, 2013)

MxPhenom 216 said:


> Atleast with SLI you get *close to proper scaling*. At this point with CFX the 2nd card is a paper weight.



I wouldnt even call it close.


@1080p FT 75% decrease / V 25% increase
*Only resolution where SLI scaling comes close as you put it.

@1440p FT 50% decrease / V 50% increase
*In some games FT is spiking to single card levels.

@5760x1080 FT 25% decrease / V 75% increase
*In some of the games FT spikes higher then a single card.  Kind of defeats the purpose of buying a second card all together now 

Seamse to me its an arguement of who has the better paper weight.


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## EarthDog (Apr 9, 2013)

MxPhenom 216 said:


> Atleast with SLI you get close to proper scaling. At this point with CFX the 2nd card is a paper weight.


I keep hearing that but the testing doesnt show that??? In a lot of titles, you see anywhere from 50-90% scaling with two cards. Clearly close to 2x is best, but Nvidia doesnt consistently get there either. I think you are being dramatic in calling AMD's solution a 'paperweight'. 

I know when I reviewed the HIS 7970 X Turbo, I saw some solid scaling (35-99%).

CFx Scaling /= Frametime or Latency!

EDIT: Look at the 7790 scaling. With crap titles is scaled 66%, take those non scaling titles out and its 88%. 

7790 results: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7790_CrossFire/21.html

Here is the 650 Ti Boost- Looks worse to me: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_650_Ti_Boost_SLI/21.html


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## btarunr (Apr 9, 2013)

TheHunter said:


> PLX bridge like by GTX690 or regular crossfire bridge?
> 
> 
> Imo plx could make a big change.



There's no "regular crossfire bridge." No AMD-reference dual-GPU card since HD 3870 X2 used bridge chip of any other make than PLX.


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## drdeathx (Apr 9, 2013)

TheHunter said:


> PLX bridge like by GTX690 or regular crossfire bridge?
> 
> 
> Imo plx could make a big change.



PLX chip if thats what your refering too does not make any difference on radeon cards. I thought it would bit on my Z77 UP7 I ran different configs and using the PLX on 2 cards was a tad lower on benchies.


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## TheHunter (Apr 9, 2013)

MxPhenom 216 said:


> What are you talking about? Linking 2 of the cards together or for the GPUs within the card?
> 
> Dual GPU cards like the 7990 and 690 is basically SLI and Crossfire on a stick. There is a chip on them to make the GPUs run in sync like a bridge would do for 2 separate cards.



YES. Check 690GTX its using PLX instead of regular nforce chip, doh.


And PLX is better then regular crossfire or regular SLI bridge, less latency better sync. 690GTX proved it compared to 590GTX.


Edit: if AMD apparently uses PLX since 3870 x2 then they need a lot more work to do.


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## EarthDog (Apr 9, 2013)

The 590 didnt use a bridge either... 

Bridge = that ribbon that goes between TWO cards.

...the 590 is also on ONE PCB so no 'bridge' was used there.


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## TheHunter (Apr 9, 2013)

yes that onboard bridge chip integrated between two gpu dies, on one PCB.. geez talk about word nitpicking lol


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## HumanSmoke (Apr 9, 2013)

EarthDog said:


> I keep hearing that but the testing doesnt show that??? In a lot of titles, you see anywhere from 50-90% scaling with two cards. Clearly close to 2x is best, but Nvidia doesnt consistently get there either. I think you are being dramatic in calling AMD's solution a 'paperweight'.


Not a paperweight, but AMD's Crossfire numbers tend to look better than they actually are because of the range of scaling. It's either excellent or appalling. Take TPU's last comparison for example - I count five games with negative scaling for Crossfire (2 cards) versus one for the SLI -add one apiece if you include a largely CPU bound Star Craft II
While neither solution (CFX/SLI) is anywhere close to ideal, SLI has better consistency at the present time, and while it isn't much of a hardship to disable a card if there isn't a reasonable multi-GPU profile available, that really is less of an option with a duallie card like the 7990....and not something that shows up readily in an aggregated chart:


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## EarthDog (Apr 9, 2013)

Thanks for that info... clearly not a paperweight... at least two anyway. 

That said, you can still disable CFx on dual GPU cards... at least you can on the 690 and I have to assume so with 7990 as well.


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## radrok (Apr 9, 2013)

EarthDog said:


> That said, you can still disable CFx on dual GPU cards... at least you can on the 690 and I have to assume so with 7990 as well.



I could easily disable CFX on my 6990s, you can disable it with profiles.

That being said, SLI works better as control panel implementation.


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## EarthDog (Apr 9, 2013)

TheHunter said:


> yes that onboard bridge chip integrated between two gpu dies, on one PCB.. geez talk about word nitpicking lol


LOL no... just making sure you are using the right words. Did you not notice the tone/context of the replies to your post(s)?

I dont call an apple an orange (why? Because its an apple is not an orange!)...just like a CF/SLI bridge is not a PLX chip.  

Anyhooo...


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## Frick (Apr 9, 2013)

HumanSmoke said:


> Not a paperweight, but AMD's Crossfire numbers tend to look better than they actually are because of the range of scaling. It's either excellent or appalling. Take TPU's last comparison for example - I count five games with negative scaling for Crossfire (2 cards) versus one for the SLI -add one apiece if you include a largely CPU bound Star Craft II
> While neither solution (CFX/SLI) is anywhere close to ideal, SLI has better consistency at the present time, and while it isn't much of a hardship to disable a card if there isn't a reasonable multi-GPU profile available, that really is less of an option with a duallie card like the 7990....and not something that shows up readily in an aggregated chart:
> http://tpucdn.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_Titan_SLI/images/perfrel_2560.gif



That is why i consider it unworking right now (for me). Aa you say, from appaling to excellent. Which brings up the following, and i'm sorta serious:

Whose resposibility is it to make these setups work? Game devs, Microsoft or the amd/nvidia? And why does it work sometimes and other times it juat does not?


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## crazyeyesreaper (Apr 9, 2013)

whats more interesting is same game engines used over and over and over again by developers, but multi gpu support works in 1 game but is broken in another on the same game engines, or one game has issues with vendor A but none on vendor B yet again switch to a different game on the same game engine and the problems are reversed. lol its all hilarious.


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## Mathragh (Apr 9, 2013)

For all those people saying crossfire will suck with this card, a couple of data points:

First of all: whether you like it or not, AMD's driverteam has been really busy the past half year, and arguably making bigger strides than any other time in the past couple of years
Second: after scott watson from techreport started using frametimes in his reviews, revealing AMD's weakness on that front, AMD has shown it can, and atleast in the near future will improve their drivers a lot when it comes to stuttery behaviour, arguably one of the worst things for crossfire.
Third: recently AMD told the world that it was busy building and improving its drivers in way that is specifically beneficial for crossfire, with a rumored release date somewhere in june. 
Fourth:  AMD's recent push in the gaming market, by providing all console hardware, supporting game developers, and generally pushing out a strong message about their gaming dedication. This imo says that they regard having a strong card as important.
Fifth: not the strongest argument, but i dont see amd waiting more than a year before they lauch a card like this, only to see it getting burned down by reviewers because of crappy scaling/performance.

Now, none of these reasons give any guarantee that crossfire will get better ever, but i suppose a lot of signs are there that say it will get better, which is of course a win for everybody!

If only tridef supported crossfire, I'd prolly get myself another 7950 this summer!


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## manofthem (Apr 9, 2013)

Having watched the video on AMD crossfire that cadaveca posted a little bit ago, I can't ignore some of the issues with crossfire. Yet, being a 7970 crossfire user on a single 2560.1440 monitor, I think many have over blown the issue, or over exaggerated. 

Example: Crysis 3 on 1 card is low fps, while 2 cards is much much better, extremely playable and enjoyable. There are occasionally dips or a little stutter, it's true. But I can't enjoy the game with single card and I can with crossfire.

So on topic, I'm excited for the 7990, and depending on price, I would be interested in one. Any word on whether it can be crossfired with a 7970?


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## MxPhenom 216 (Apr 9, 2013)

TheHunter said:


> yes that onboard bridge chip integrated between two gpu dies, on one PCB.. geez talk about word nitpicking lol



Well choose your words wisely so we don't have too.


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## cadaveca (Apr 9, 2013)

manofthem said:


> Having watched the video on AMD crossfire that cadaveca posted a little bit ago, I can't ignore some of the issues with crossfire. Yet, being a 7970 crossfire user on a single 2560.1440 monitor, I think many have over blown the issue, or over exaggerated.




It's a big enough issue that AMD is addressing it and spending time and resources on driver development to fix it.


The real reason I posted that video was to get the discussing going, honestly. AMD said they'd release a driver in March to partially deal with this(this isn't a new thing, by any means), and didn't. Now we know why.


As to the info and testing into the issue, no one needs to do anything about it but Ryan Shrout over @ PCPerspective. As long as he stays up to date on how things progress, there's no need for anyone else to, unless to verify that he isn't pro-Nvidia-biased.

That said, since AMD IS releasing this card, I am sure that when they do, most of the issues for Crossfire and DX10/11 will be fixed/mitigated. The picture proves AMD is getting this hardware into the hands of developers so that they can help optimize performance for titles individually.


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## BigMack70 (Apr 9, 2013)

There's a big difference between AMD getting a single 7990 setup working well and AMD getting a 7990 x2 setup working well... nobody has yet demonstrated a quad-GPU setup that's actually pleasant for general gaming use


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## manofthem (Apr 10, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> It's a big enough issue that AMD is addressing it and spending time and resources on driver development to fix it.
> 
> 
> The real reason I posted that video was to get the discussing going, honestly. AMD said they'd release a driver in March to partially deal with this(this isn't a new thing, by any means), and didn't. Now we know why.
> ...



No, I appreciate the thread and videos you posted, and I'm not denying the issue. 

My comment was more directed to comments like a second card in crossfire is a "paperweight" and the like, which I have seen posted before.


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## radrok (Apr 10, 2013)

BigMack70 said:


> There's a big difference between AMD getting a single 7990 setup working well and AMD getting a 7990 x2 setup working well... nobody has yet demonstrated a quad-GPU setup that's actually pleasant for general gaming use



Vega has proven that Quad SLI is playable and actually very enjoyable.

Head over his thread on [H] or OCN, he's running quad Titan and he has a youtube channel too with some surround videos.

CallsignVega's channel - YouTube

I've had a lot of quad setups from ATI and they were never playable.

4870x2 CFX / 5970 CFX and 6990 CFX, at a certain point you just stop waiting for those drivers and you jump to the other side.


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## EarthDog (Apr 10, 2013)

manofthem said:


> No, I appreciate the thread and videos you posted, and I'm not denying the issue.
> 
> My comment was more directed to comments like a second card in crossfire is a "paperweight" and the like, which I have seen posted before.


Its what happens when one makes comments like Dave did in the first post of his thread to people that don't have a clue. If I had a dollar for every post I have seen like that or to avoid it at all costs or its broken here, I would be retired. The tone to me was alarmist at best (crossfirex is "useless"...those that bought a second card "get nothing out of it") and and since Dave has earned people's respect they listen and ended up taking that text too literal imo.


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## BigMack70 (Apr 10, 2013)

radrok said:


> Vega has proven that Quad SLI is playable and actually very enjoyable.
> 
> Head over his thread on [H] or OCN, he's running quad Titan and he has a youtube channel too with some surround videos.
> 
> ...



Crap scaling is not a pleasant experience in my opinion, but point taken.


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## cadaveca (Apr 10, 2013)

EarthDog said:


> Since Dave has earned people's respect they listen and ended up taking that text too literal imo.



Sure, but me saying that right from the word go, gets it out of the way. I also said "this is why AMD is going to fix it". Can't blame anyone else for the text I wrote, that's all on my head. 


Because for me, it is literally as bad as that. I literally explored every possible avenue for why CrossfireX was behaving poorly, visually, to me, when benches said otherwise, and even FPS. Drives, PSUs, boards, memory, CPUs, SDDs/HDDs, blah blah blah, ad naseum. I'm left-handed. To some, that's explain why I'm more sensitive to this issue than most. I also tend to run high-end configs, multi-monitor and such, that few users do. 


For me, that second, third and fourth card I have, they are basically useless. I expect, that when this card launches, that will change. Actually, I expect the first WHQL after the card lunches to fix it for all cards, honestly.


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## m1dg3t (Apr 10, 2013)

If anyone on this forum knows CrossFire, it's Dave. IIRC He has ran 2/3/4 card setups since HD49xx days.

I wonder if something like this would work on my z77e itx, prolly not... 

All things aside i think AMD is making a HUGE push in the gaming industry and the next year or 2 should hold a lot for the Red "team"


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## MxPhenom 216 (Apr 10, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> Sure, but me saying that right from the word go, gets it out of the way. I also said "this is why AMD is going to fix it". Can't blame anyone else for the text I wrote, that's all on my head.
> 
> 
> Because for me, it is literally as bad as that. I literally explored every possible avenue for why CrossfireX was behaving poorly, visually, to me, when benches said otherwise, and even FPS. Drives, PSUs, boards, memory, CPUs, SDDs/HDDs, blah blah blah, ad naseum. I'm left-handed. To some, that's explain why I'm more sensitive to this issue than most. I also tend to run high-end configs, multi-monitor and such, that few users do.
> ...



I didn't know you were left handed Dave! I am too. Join the club!



m1dg3t said:


> If anyone on this forum knows CrossFire, it's Dave. IIRC He has ran 2/3/4 card setups since HD49xx days.
> 
> I wonder if something like this would work on my z77e itx, prolly not...
> 
> All things aside i think AMD is making a HUGE push in the gaming industry and the next year or 2 should hold a lot for the Red "team"



Why wouldn't it work. That board has a PCIe 3.0 slot right?


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## EarthDog (Apr 10, 2013)

That makes 3 of us wrong armers. 

Yeah, I hear ya dave... Ive seen it too... at times from both camps really. Nothing you could have done about it really. It is what it is.


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## m1dg3t (Apr 10, 2013)

MxPhenom 216 said:


> I didn't know you were left handed Dave! I am too. Join the club!
> 
> 
> 
> Why wouldn't it work. That board has a PCIe 3.0 slot right?



For the record, i'm ambidextrous  I have 3 wrongarms in my immediate family... 

The board is PCIe 3.0 but doesn't support CF/SLI due to be itx. I was just curious for the future upgrades available to me with this machine  I have no idea how it would work with it being single card, admittedly i know nothing about multi card GFX


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## cdawall (Apr 10, 2013)

m1dg3t said:


> If anyone on this forum knows CrossFire, it's Dave. IIRC He has ran 2/3/4 card setups since HD49xx days.



I have run xfire since the 3 series days as well. Games then were heavily hit or miss at least now its a lot more likely they will support it rather than not.


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## manofthem (Apr 10, 2013)

m1dg3t said:


> The board is PCIe 3.0 but doesn't support CF/SLI due to be itx. I was just curious for the future upgrades available to me with this machine  I have no idea how it would work with it being single card, admittedly i know nothing about multi card GFX



Your board doesn't support cfx/SLI in the sense of 2 individual cards since it has a single pcie slot. But a dual gpu card (7990/690) will work on that board.

If you're interested in taking a gander at 690 in an ITX build, mosey on through this thread on [H], pretty nice.


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## Prima.Vera (Apr 10, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> Because for me, it is literally as bad as that. *I literally explored every possible avenue for why CrossfireX was behaving poorly, visually, to me, when benches said otherwise, and even FPS*. Drives, PSUs, boards, memory, CPUs, SDDs/HDDs, blah blah blah, ad naseum. I'm left-handed. To some, that's explain why I'm more sensitive to this issue than most. I also tend to run high-end configs, multi-monitor and such, that few users do.
> 
> 
> For me, that second, third and fourth card I have, they are basically useless. I expect, that when this card launches, that will change. Actually, I expect the first WHQL after the card lunches to fix it for all cards, honestly.



Ha, exactly! Is nice to see that is not only me that gets only 50% (at tops) working games on CrossfireX. Actually I have just noticed that mostly all the games that support Unreal Engine works very good on Crossfire. The other engines...lottery.


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## NeoXF (Apr 10, 2013)

Kaynar said:


> I hope this official move to 2x7970 will lead to acceptable Xfire performance so that I may buy a 2nd 7970...



My toughts exactly...



manofthem said:


> So on topic, I'm excited for the 7990, and depending on price, I would be interested in one. Any word on whether it can be crossfired with a 7970?



I'm a bit fuzzy on this one... on one hand, look at R7870XTs CFing with R7970GHzs... on the other, they're both Tahiti chips... (official) R7990 isn't...


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## cadaveca (Apr 10, 2013)

m1dg3t said:


> If anyone on this forum knows CrossFire, it's Dave. IIRC He has ran 2/3/4 card setups since HD49xx days.



I've run Crossfire since it came out on the X800. Those cards were hard to get, X850, using the funky DVI-like link cables, was much more common.



cdawall said:


> I have run xfire since the 3 series days as well. Games then were heavily hit or miss at least now its a lot more likely they will support it rather than not.



Crossfire has never been this bad OVERALL. Nearly 90% of DX10/11 titles have issues for me, and DX9 games are fine. 6-series Crossfire has like 95% scaling, and none of the issues the 7-series does, at least...the drivers back then weren't such a problem. But back then, we never had the GPU power we have now, too. I think that might be part of it.


However, this is the second generation that AMD has had a design that wasn't used fully at launch...the first 512 MB card only used 256 MB of ram for MONTHS after they first came out(I clearly remember everyone saying 512MB was useless, then a driver came out and boost performance). That says a lot about how much the 7-series driver base has changed, and I am pretty sure that the whole driver team changed over the life of the 7-series, too. I knew about this problem, yet still have four AMD 79xx-series GPUs, so clearly I still have _some_ faith in AMD.


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## radrok (Apr 10, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> so clearly I still have _some_ faith in AMD.



Man I honestly admire you.


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## fullinfusion (Apr 10, 2013)

Paper weight imo. Sorry amd to little to late... oh hey why dont ya just do a rebrand and call it a 8990 lol

Sorry bur couldnt help myself on that.


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## m1dg3t (Apr 10, 2013)

cdawall said:


> I have run xfire since the 3 series days as well. Games then were heavily hit or miss at least now its a lot more likely they will support it rather than not.



So you are familiar yourself. SLI Isn't all that great either IMO. They may be better at it than ATi currently is but i still don't see the value in it personally at this time 



manofthem said:


> Your board doesn't support cfx/SLI in the sense of 2 individual cards since it has a single pcie slot. But a dual gpu card (7990/690) will work on that board.
> 
> If you're interested in taking a gander at 690 in an ITX build, mosey on through this thread on [H], pretty nice.



Wasn't sure, thanks for clearing it up! That is a pretty nice mod, that case is REALLY small and dude did it great job getting everything in there!  

I just think the he could have saved on the CPU, IIRC that board can't OC  



cadaveca said:


> I've run Crossfire since it came out on the X800. Those cards were hard to get, X850, using the funky DVI-like link cables, was much more common.



HaHa Grampa CrossFire in Da Hizzouse! I remember the dongle days  PCIe only 









cadaveca said:


> Crossfire has never been this bad OVERALL. Nearly 90% of DX10/11 titles have issues for me, and DX9 games are fine. 6-series Crossfire has like 95% scaling, and none of the issues the 7-series does, at least...the drivers back then weren't such a problem. But back then, we never had the GPU power we have now, too. I think that might be part of it.



This is both sad to hear and hard to believe  I'm wondering if it is because you run Eyefinity/MultiPanel? Like if you were running single panel only would you still have as many issues? I'm sure you tried everything...




cadaveca said:


> However, this is the second generation that AMD has had a design that wasn't used fully at launch...the first 512 MB card only used 256 MB of ram for MONTHS after they first came out(I clearly remember everyone saying 512MB was useless, then a driver came out and boost performance). That says a lot about how much the 7-series driver base has changed, and I am pretty sure that the whole driver team changed over the life of the 7-series, too. I knew about this problem, yet still have four AMD 79xx-series GPUs, so clearly I still have _some_ faith in AMD.



Well IIRC Nvidia had years to work with SLi tech before they released it to the masses so naturally they should have the better overall product. That said, i don't doubt ATi's ability with this new architecture and the ability of the driver team to get things sorted out a bit better in the near future. Especially considering the parterships AMD/ATi is currently involved in, and will be in the near future. I'm thinking that in ~2yrs i'll be installing a dual GPU card into my system


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## Prima.Vera (Apr 10, 2013)

m1dg3t said:


> This is both sad to hear and hard to believe  I'm wondering if it is because you run Eyefinity/MultiPanel? Like if you were running single panel only would you still have as many issues? I'm sure you tried everything...



I can confirm Dave's posting. I'm running 2x 5870s and most of DX10/11 games work worst in Crossfire than in single card mode.


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## terrastrife (Apr 11, 2013)

MxPhenom 216 said:


> What are you talking about? Linking 2 of the cards together or for the GPUs within the card?
> 
> Dual GPU cards like the 7990 and 690 is basically SLI and Crossfire on a stick. There is a chip on them to make the GPUs run in sync like a bridge would do for 2 separate cards.



the plx pcie chip is simply there to mux the dual pcie 16x lanes of each gpu to a single pcie 16x slot. it's like a fancy Y splitter.

there would still be traces for a 'crossfire ribbon' on the card.

because seriously, if plx owned the tech to enable sli or crossfire through their pcie ic's they would make a killing.



m1dg3t said:


> Well IIRC Nvidia had years to work with SLi tech before they released it to the masses so naturally they should have the better overall product. That said, i don't doubt ATi's ability with this new architecture and the ability of the driver team to get things sorted out a bit better in the near future. Especially considering the parterships AMD/ATi is currently involved in, and will be in the near future. I'm thinking that in ~2yrs i'll be installing a dual GPU card into my system



3DFX SLI 1998
ATI "MAXX" (crossfire) 2000
Nvidia SLI 2004


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## cdawall (Apr 11, 2013)

m1dg3t said:


> So you are familiar yourself. SLI Isn't all that great either IMO. They may be better at it than ATi currently is but i still don't see the value in it personally at this time



I have had a lot less issues running SLi than I ever had running crossfire. That I have ran since the 7 series to include the 7950GX2's. My other brother is actually running a GTS250/9800GTX+ SLi setup right now. He only plays things like minecraft (he is 13 years old) and CS:S so it's plenty for his 1680x1050 panel and boy was he excited on his bday when I found him that second card


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## dir_d (Apr 11, 2013)

Prima.Vera said:


> I can confirm Dave's posting. I'm running 2x 5870s and most of DX10/11 games work worst in Crossfire than in single card mode.



I dont think anyone should go xfire if they can manipulate it and get it to work for them. IE using Radeon Pro when viable and vsync.


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## HumanSmoke (Apr 11, 2013)

terrastrife said:


> 3DFX SLI 1998
> ATI "MAXX" (crossfire) 2000
> *XGI (based on SiS) early 2004  *(Volari Duo V8 Ultra)
> Nvidia SLI 2004



/fixed


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## Xzibit (Apr 11, 2013)

I still find the SLI vs Xfire debate strange

If your going by what PcPer data and saying that SLI is better is just plain silly.  

Its like saying your still willing to be robber but aslong as the robber makes the robbery as smooth as possible for you its okay.  Although the robber will only be smooth at 1080p and at 1440p he start roughing you up and at 5760x1080 the robber will call his buddy and they both rough you up 

I personally rather not be robbed at all. 

I'm sure theres plenty of web-site for that kind of fetish/mind set and cost far less then buying two GTX 680s.


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## cadaveca (Apr 11, 2013)

Xzibit said:


> I still find the SLI vs Xfire debate strange
> 
> If your going by what PcPer data and saying that SLI is better is just plain silly.
> 
> ...



Well, the truth of the matter is that most SLI users are happy. As you can see, there are CrossfireX users who are not happy, so they have a larger voice right now. Welcome to the internet. No complainers = it works.


Unless of course, you want to tell us you run SLI and have issues, and can document them like PCPerspective does...then...people might actually listen to what you have to say. Until then, your comments are gonna fall on deaf ears. This is, after all, a 7990 thread, not an SLI thread. Crossfire has something to do with the OP, since the card in question is "Crossfire on a stick", which makes the comments from Crossfire users relevant. What Nvidia does, or is doing, or offers...doesn't matter here.


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## Xzibit (Apr 11, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> Well, the truth of the matter is that most SLI users are happy. As you can see, there are CrossfireX users who are not happy, so they have a larger voice right now. Welcome to the internet. No complainers = it works.
> 
> 
> Unless of course, you want to tell us you run SLI and have issues, and can document them like PCPerspective does...then...people might actually listen to what you have to say. Until then, your comments are gonna fall on deaf ears. This is, after all, a 7990 thread, not an SLI thread. Crossfire has something to do with the OP, since the card in question is "Crossfire on a stick", which makes the comments from Crossfire users relevant. What Nvidia does, or is doing, or offers...doesn't matter here.



Then i dont think SLI user are that knowledgable if they are looking at PCPer data and coming out satisfied.

I guess they can be satified compared to what or whom?  Not getting as screwed as Xfire users ?  They are still getting screwed nonetheless.

I dont see how you or anyone can be happy about that.  Although your saying as long as the user is oblivious its okay because there happy ?


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## cadaveca (Apr 11, 2013)

Xzibit said:


> Then i dont think SLI user are that knowledgable if they are looking at PCPer data and coming out satisfied.
> 
> I guess they can be satified compared to what or whom?  Not getting as screwed as Xfire users ?  They are still getting screwed nonetheless.
> 
> I dont see how you or anyone can be happy about that.  Although your saying as long as the user is oblivious its okay because there happy ?



If someone is enjoying Crossfire, then sure, I have no problem with that(works fine for me for benchmarking, and for DX9 titles). To me, what PCPerspective has done is not shown that Crossfire was broken.. I already knew that, and had been posting that for months and months.

All that PCPerspective offers, to me, is a reasonable explanation as to why, and it's and explanation that AMD verified. It also explained why AMD didn't release a driver in March to help fix this, as they had said they would.

That's all. SLI plays no part in this, for me. I don't compare the two. I also don't compare AMD vs Nvidia, since for me, AMD is the only option for VGAs. If a user likes Nvidia videocards, I'll tell them to buy one. I don't make such choices, and don't play favorites. Both sides have their benefits and consequences of use.


What I don't understand is why you care what other people think, and why you make these assumptions?


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## Fluffmeister (Apr 11, 2013)

*Xzibit* is just a fan of all things AMD, I hope he gets paid for all his hard PR work, because he certainly does a better job than the people that actually do.


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## Xzibit (Apr 11, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> What I don't understand is why you care what other people think, and why you make these assumptions?



I like to think its the same as anyone else.  To have a more informed user forum base then the hand full of regulars posting the usual  post.




Fluffmeister said:


> *Xzibit* is just a fan of all things AMD, I hope he gets paid for all his hard PR work, because he certainly does a better job than the people that actually do.



I'll take that as a compliment 

I doubt i'd be good at it since only one of my four current PCs in my house have a AMD product in them.  

Intel/Nvidia
Intel/Nvidia
Intel/Nvidia
Intel/AMD (Current one in my signutare since its the newest one)

I build a new one and giveaway one every 2yrs sometimes i'll update the GPU sooner. I just gave away the oldest pc to my neighbor which had Intel/Nvidia.  He mentioned he was struggling to talk to his son back east with his PC so after a few visits I gave him a PC which was atleast 3gens higher then what he was using.  

So if anything I should be getting paid by Intel/Nvidia for providing PCs to old and needy people.




Anyhow I think i've taken the topic way off course.  Back on track I'm still curious to know what chip it will be using ?


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## TheGuruStud (Apr 11, 2013)

I had 4890s and that shit was rock solid (upgrade from 8800GT SLI).

I also had 6950s (flashed of course lol) and games were fine except for the troublesome ones that also caused serious SLI issues.

7900 series scales far better than the 6900 series...but I only have one currently. Take away nvidia trickery and I don't think the problems are that bad (they can suck a giant one for all the AA problems that they intentionally cause).


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## Deadlyraver (Apr 11, 2013)

*drool*


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