crossfire? is it good or not?

[chuckdeg]

i got a sapphire x1950 pro...i was wondering if it would do any good to add another one...will this be as good as x1900xt?

[Oversized Rooster]

I got a chance to run dual X1950 Pro cards last month. That was a serious waste...

First of all, your PC will sound like a jet engine. Second, you're looking at a 20-25% boost. Very disappointing for double the price and heat creation.

And you can only run CrossFire on a single display. I run dual 19" LCDs, so that was the biggest drawback.

[Amourek]

Very disappointing for double the price and heat creation.

Double the electricity too. Espeically since the X1950 series is pretty inefficient in terms of power consumption compared to other cards in its class.

[apvm]

IMO both Crossfire and SLI are waste of money, you don't get double the performance with double the price plus in many ocassion a single card solution out perform dual. One thing for sure is you may also have to invest in a more expensive PSU

It is more for to show off than actual usefullness...JMO

[terrybear]

I agree ... I thought about dual solutions like that & honestly with my single X1950 XT I game nicely at 60 fps + in most games I play @ 1280x1024 which is what my LCD will allow me to do but never have had interest in playin higher then that.

only time ya might need it is if your powering like a 30"+ lcd :P

[Badman]

If your pushing your video card on huge displays like 24" and 30" then you might like it but even then its still probably cheaper to just buy a higher end card and you could even sell this one and make back some money.

[KorruptioN]

Double the electricity too. Espeically since the X1950 series is pretty inefficient in terms of power consumption compared to other cards in its class.

Not the X1950 Pro.

[Oversized Rooster]

Not the X1950 Pro.

Well it is not as bad as the X1900-series cards, but the X1950 Pro is a very inefficient card nonetheless.

And that 30cm-long PCB board doesn't help. I had to move one of my HD just to fit these cards in.

Compared to the new generation of DX10 cards, honestly the X1950 (and competitors) are massive, heat-producing and loud.

Kind of like the initial dual-cores. Sure, Intel was first with their Smithfield CPUs, but they were so hot, and offered questionable performance.

[KorruptioN]

The 80nm design helps.

My X1950 Pro has a lot of blank space on the PCB. They're using a longer design for unknown reasons. I've got a VF900 on mine so it doesn't make very much noise.

[Oversized Rooster]

The 80nm design helps.

My X1950 Pro has a lot of blank space on the PCB. They're using a longer design for unknown reasons. I've got a VF900 on mine so it doesn't make very much noise.

It's a well-known, economic reason. They're using that PCB because they already have the design from the X1800 and X1900 series. So it's cheapest to adapt it rather than make a more efficient and smaller new design.

You definitely need an aftermarket cooler. The X1950 Pro reference cooler is terrible. But I once had a Radeon X1900XTX - that used a taller cooler which was even worse. It made whining noises. Had to replace it with an AC Accelero X2.

You'd think at these price points, the companies would equip us with decent coolers from the factory...ones that not only meet cooling requirements, but noise requirements.