By Loyd Case
June 6, 2005
While I was wandering the halls of Computex, I was impressed by just how much mindshare ATI has garnered among motherboard makers with it's CrossFire technology. Motherboard makers, big and small, are all coming out with CrossFire capable main boards. The companies who also make graphics cards seemed a bit disappointed that they can't get in on the CrossFire Edition graphics card action, but they also realize it may boost sales of the standard ATI-based solutions.
While Nvidia no doubt has some concerns, it's still got a big market lead with its SLI tech. And while ATI is touting the flexibility of CrossFire, with its ability to mix and match graphics cards, Nvidia's SLI can push down into more affordable territory, since you can gang two 6600GT boards in an SLI system. In fact, we saw at least one socket 754 motherboard supporting SLI, which implies a dual graphics card system for under $1,000
Still, this presents a real dilemma for users. CrossFire won't work in Nvidia SLI motherboards and SLI boards won't work in CrossFire boards. It's probably technically feasible, but it means that the two GPU companies would have to expend precious engineering resources making changes to drivers so they can support a competitor's product. Well, the Red Sox won the World Series, so I suppose more unlikely events have happened.
