Sapphire HD2600 / Ati Radeon X300 CrossFire Help

[coolnick]

Hi Guys, I recently assembled a new pc which supports upto
3 graphic cards with crossfire enabled.

Now, my question is that I have intel mobo D975XBX2 which supports
Ati CrossFire technology. In that mobo along with 1 GB ram can I run
my two Ati Graphic Cards i.e Sapphire HD2600 512 MB / Ati Radeon X300 128 MB
for better performance ?

But, there is one more problem that my Sapphire HD2600 Pro 512 MB
gfx card is not crossfire enabled i.e. when i purchased it, the crossfire
enabled sign was not there on the box. Though the compatibility chart
at the amd ati website shows that HD2600 allows crossfire technology.

Below is the compatibility chart along with my comp. spec. :-

Compatibility chart : -
http://game.amd.com/us-en/content/image ... _Dec07.jpg

Mobo - Intel D975 Bad Axe 2
Processor - C2D 2.2 Ghz
Graphics - Sapphire HD2600 Pro 512MB
RAM - 1GB Kingston
HDD - 160 GB Seagate SATA
Power Supply - Cooler Master 500 Watt Original
cabinet - Zebronics Cabinet With 3 Fan Cooling + Temp LCD
DVD Writer - Sony
DVD ROM - Samsung

* Guys please tell me whether I can use these two gfx cards for my
crossfire technology or I have to use the same card ie both the cards
should be of same spec.

Best Regards,
Nishant

[KPRROK]

I know the new 3-series cards can be mixed and matched with the new AMD7-series MOBOs, but not sure about the older cards.

I had an x300 for a while, just swapped it out for a 2600XT a few months ago and it was a good upgrade. My x300 didn't have a crossfire bridge. It might be possible if you use the old external dongle that hooks both VGAs into one plug (that's a terrible description!), but I don't think it would be much good as the x300 is way below the 2600 in terms of performance and speed. That's like chaining a Pinto motor to a Ferrari to try to get a little extra power...wow, that's a bad image!

Of course, I'm not genius at this, so hopefully others will chip in and correct me if I'm wrong.

KPRROK

[martini161]

no, even with ati cards you cant do that. they have to be the same gpu or atleast the same series. and even if you can get it to work, you probably wouldnt see any porformance gain

[coolnick]

Hey martini bro its nice to see you back again...
Buddy all you guys my basic aim in doing that is because
I am not getting very good performance with my HD2600 pro.
Is it possible to go to sapphire to exchange this card for an XT version
of the same card...? I buyed it just 2 weeks ago, I think they
might exchange it.

Buddy at every forum or gfx card page I found that Sapphire HD2600 pro
has pixel shradder 4.0 but mine has 3.0 where as every website in its
description also says that its supports crossfire, but my card does not .

Guys I don't know what to do.....will the increse in ram and switching
from Xp 32 Bit OEM versiton to Windows Vista Ultimate 64Bit will work ?

Or you can provide me with any good sollution...all types of comments
and suggestion are welcome..

Best Regards,
Nishant

[DMB2000uk]

Don't switch to vista, as you will lose out on game performance (vista is about 5-10% worse than xp for game fps).

Are you positive that your 2600 pro doesn't support crossfire?
- If you were going by previous comments in this thread, they were meaning that it doesn't support hybrid crossfire, and only supports crossfire with another (sapphire) 2600pro.
- If you are going by the fact that it doesnt have connectors for a crossfire bridge (for some reason on google images some of the 2600 pro sapphire cards appear to have them, while others don't), you can run crossfire bridgeless. This gives you slighly worse performance than if you used a bridge, but if you haven't got one, then there isn't much you can do about that.

Depending on where you bought the 2600 pro from, they might still let you take it back and get a refund (then you could buy the better card). Some places charge a 'restocking fee' if you do this, others won't allow you once the box is opened. It depends on the stores rules that you bought it from.

According to toms hardwares VGA charts, you would see a maximum improvement in fps (from your single 2600 pro) of;
41% by going crossfire (with two 2600 pro's) and,
22% by switching to a 2600 XT.

Hope this helps you decide which route to go, as you will be able to judge for yourself if the performance improvements will be enough to give you the increase in fps you are after.

Dan

[coolnick]

Thanks A lot bro and yes this info has helped me a lot
as I wanted to buy another HD2600 card in a month or
two. Well buddy what about RAM, If I am increasing the ram to
2Gb is it going to hlep in the increase in the FPS Rates
because during 3d Mark Bench I hardly get around 5-6 FPS on 1280x104
resolution i.e. 17" monitor....

Well thanks once again.

[martini161]

yeah 2gb of ram is about standard now.

[DMB2000uk]

You will get a slight improvement from adding more RAM, but nothing drastic. It will help your system be more generally responsive though if you do a lot of things at the same time.

But you shouldn't worry about the 3D mark tests, as they are designed to be as complex as possible for the graphics card and a handful of fps is normal on all but the most high end systems.

Dan

[coolnick]

Hi guys, I have finally given back my GFX Card i.e. Sapphire HD2600 pro
and have decided to go for Sapphire HD2600 XT 512 MB GDDR3 CrossFirfe Enabled.
Well guys right now I am using my X300 gfx card so I just wanted to know
if my decision is right i.e. I am going from HD 2600 pro to HD 2600 XT with 512 MB.
Guys if you have any other better company or good card in the range of 110 - 120 $
then please let me know.

Well since my mobo supports crossfire, i would prefer a card which supports crossfire
with pixel shrader version 4.0 , 512MB GDDR3 memory interface.

I have also upgraded my ram to 2GB.

Guys, if i get this card will i be able to play any good game like crysic, juiced 2 HIN etc.
on my 17" LCD Samsung monitor with good frame rates along with better resolution
i.e. 1280x1024.

All kind of suggestions are very much welcomed and plz tell me within 1 day, cuz I have
to finalize my deal tomorrow....sorry guys if i am being a little rude...but its a little
urgent...

Best Regards,
Nishant

[DMB2000uk]

Go for a 3650, its around the same price and is a bit faster, get this specific one if you can as it is very heavily factory overclocked, and has a nice cooler on it.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814161219
if you can't, then even a stock 3650 should just about beat the 2600XT

If you can slightly stretch that budget (by $10), then you can get a 3850 from newegg which is a lot faster:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814161211
Don't get hung up on it only having 256 MB though, as it's the speed of the card, and not the total memory that counts.

Dan

[KPRROK]

I would agree that a 3650 would be better. The 2600XT, unless I'm not remembering correctly, is only a 128-bit interface, whereas the 3650 is 256-bit. Getting a 512MB 2600XT is overkill from my understanding and it's not going to be able to use the memory efficiently with that small of an interface.

I'm getting a 3650 for my new build, and I'm looking forward to it.

As for playing Crysis with that card, I wouldn't think it'll be too good. Of course, with a lower resolution you may be able to get some decent framerates, but don't count on it.

KPRROK

[coolnick]

Hi Guys, I live in india and here we don't have HIS and AMD as Ati Manufacturers but
we have MSi and Sapphire which manufacture ATI Cards. In many forums I read that
Sapphire Takes a lot of time to RMA the card as well as the drivers which are shipped with
sapphire are very poorly designed where as MSI R3650-T2D512 OC Radeon HD 3650 512MB
performs better as compared to sapphire and they(MSI) also has a very good support for us.

Well here are the cards which i have decided and will finalize today in the evening :-

1. MSI R3650-T2D512 OC Radeon HD 3650 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0
x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814127331

2.SAPPHIRE 100236L Radeon HD 3650 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express 2.0
x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102726

3.SAPPHIRE 100218L Radeon HD 2600XT 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express
x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102703

Guys, these were the best I could find with your help and now I want you to decide
the best for me...though since i am not indulge in gamming, My main purpose to
buying the card is for rendering purposes and mostly play racing games like Juiced2 just for
relaxation....I want a card which can manage to work with Vue 6 xStream , PS CS2,
Lightwave 3D 8 and can smoothly run my 64Bit Windows Vista / 32Bit Windows Xp
along with a handfull of games which can be played at 1280x1024 resolution.

Best Regards,
Nishant

[DMB2000uk]

Get the MSI 3650, as out of the two 3650's it has better graphics memory (GDDR3 instead of the GDDR2 in the sapphire one).

And it has more output connections.

Dan