Radeon X1900 Crossfire Edition
ATI's dual graphics "Crossfire" system requires a "master" card to be paired with one of the standard X1900 boards. We've been supplied with the X1900 Crossfire Edition to look at the performances of the X1900 in Crossfire mode. Here are the details of the board:
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The Crossfire Edition board is running lower clock speeds than the XTX, and these actually happen to correspond to the X1900 XT speeds. If this were being run in a system with an XTX then the performances from the XTX side may be curtailed a little. Like the X1900 XTX the Crossfire Edition board also drops its core and memory speeds to 500/600MHz when running in 2D.
Like the X1900 XTX, the X1900 Crossfire Edition basically uses the same platform as the X1800 Crossfire Edition, with the same PCB and heatsink designs. The X1900 Crossfire Edition board also features the same composite engine as the X1800 Crossfire, which means that the Crossfire resolutions can go up to the full dual-DVI resolutions and rates by virtue of the dual DVI receivers and transmitters on the composite engine.
The back panel of the board has a connector for the input of the "slave" board (any standard X1900 board) also containing a dual-link DVI-I output, as well as another separate dual DVI out. Due to the size of the Crossfire I/O connector there is no room to facilitate a TV in/out port on the back of the board so it isn't carried in this case.
Like all the other announced X1900 configurations the Crossfire board comes with 512MB of memory. In this instance, unlike the X1900 XTX, the Crossfire Edition board we have has 1.2ns memory in place, which isn't a surprise given its slower memory rates.
