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Summary

This is a basic preview of this product intended for readers who just want a quick look at the new product.  If you are interested in the full review, with all the technical data and benchmarks that you are used to seeing on PC Perspective, please click on this link to get to that article.

We originally reviewed the CrossFire technology with the X850 XT CrossFire card back in September, so if you need a refresher on the technology behind it all, be sure to give that article a perusal first.  ATI promised us we would see the X1800 CrossFire cards by Christmas time -- and they succeeded, if only by the hairs on their chin.  Less than a week before the holiday buying season is over, we bring to you the X1800 XT CrossFire card.

On its outward appearance, the X1800 XT CrossFire (abbreviated as either XF or CF from now on) looks no different than the original, standard X1800 XT video card we reviewed in October.  It uses the same dual-slot GPU cooler and weighs about the same as well. 

The ATI Radeon X1800 XT CrossFire

The card itself has specs nearly identical to that of the original X1800 XT as well, sporting a blazing fast 625 MHz core clock and 512 MB of 720 MHz (1.44 GHz DDR) DDR3 memory.  And yes, the original X1800 XT did have its memory clocked at 750 MHz and we are not quite sure why the CrossFire card does not as well.  My guess is that the 1.5 GHz DDR3 memory was causing supply and pricing issues that ATI decided to do away with and try to keep the XF Edition card at as low a price as possible.

This is always a tricky subject when discussing buying two of any PC component over $300, but let's take a look at the value presented by the X1800 XT CrossFire card.  With a suggested retail of $599, pairing it with another X1800 XT brings your GPU purchase up to $1125 or so.  The green competition is set at $1500 for a pair of 512s (if you can find them) or a pair of GTX 256s for about $950.  As I mentioned above, the X1800 XT CrossFire config is outperforming the 7800 GTX 256s in SLI in many cases, though the 512s are there to pick up the slack where the 256s fumble.  That actually puts the X1800 XT CrossFire price right about where it should be: between the 512s and 256s from the NVIDIA 7800 GTX line.  In that light, then, just perhaps, the X1800 XT XF is a good value (what??) when compared to a pair of 7800 GTX 512s?!?  Can it be?  That of course is up to you.

The X1800 XT CrossFire master card is finally here and all the issues and problems (well most) with the original CrossFire release have been addressed.  It's not as elegant as SLI yet, but CrossFire gets the job done, bringing multi-GPU rendering to ATI's constituents as promised.  The XT combo looks like it might just be a worth while investment in graphics technology though the XL combo is definitely a bust for now. 

Next stop for ATI is R580 and maybe even integrated CrossFire...?  The world might just be standing on its head!

Be sure to use our price checking engine to find the best prices on the ATI X1800 XT CrossFire Edition, and anything else you may want to buy!

Click here for the Detailed Review