Croosfire card pairing.

[Berk]

Firstly, thanks to everyone for posting on my last thread. All the comments were very helpful. So I descided to come back and call on the experiance of the group. I have descided to go with the Radeon xfire route after much debate. I am considering the 1800xt 512MB that I found for $340 or a 1900xtx which I found for $400(no that is not a typo). This lead me to my first question. The 1800 is an ATI retail box and the 1900xtx is Power Color or Sapphire. Are these brands worthwhile, or should I stick with ATI or a premium brand like HIS? Should I just jump on the deal as the card stats are just that much better? The other question, and the main reason for writing this, is about crossfire. Can you have a secondary slave card of a different type? In that I mean can I have a 1900xtx in my main slot and a 1800xt in the secondary? Would the slower card bring down the main or just use it as a slave that boost preformance, memory, and takes advantage of games that have crossfire support? Lastly would mixing brands make a differance? Hope to hear what you all think and thanks in advance for posting.

 

[mesarectifier]

Get one 1900XTX.

What screen are you using?

 

[zarzar]

You cannot run an X1800 card with an X1900 but you can run sapphire with power color as long as they are both 1800 or 1900.

Also, one needs to be a crossfire master card.

Get the X1900 XTX now and buy an X1900 master card later when needed. That will be soo nice.

 

[Primitivus]

Sapphire is a very good brand. The X1900 is undoubtedly the better buy

 

[pauldh]

I have heard that you can run a X1900 series crossfire master card with a X1800 series slave card but not the the other way around. Can't verify this, but it would be worth his while to search forums and even study review sites test systems to see if this has been done.

 

[clue69less]

Sapphire is a very good brand. The X1900 is undoubtedly the better buy

I believe this too. I have heard from a reliable source that Sapphire cards on average do not OC as well as cards made by ATI, HIS and Gigabyte but have not even tried to confirm it myself. I've certainly seen some good OCs on the Sapphire Toxic.

 

[Heyyou27]

You can run both cards together, but I'm pretty sure you won't get the added performance from the X1800 XT with the X1900XTX.

 

[firepyro555]

Last time i checked, you needed to use the same 2 GPUs.

idk about the x1800's but i know for the lower cards (13 and 16) you don't need master card

http://www.ati.com/technology/crossfire/certifiedconfigs.html