[OCA] AMD Radeon R9 290X – CrossFire Bridge Not Required Anymore

[Atomfix]

Since the release of the Radeon X1900 by ATi, AMD have been using the Crossfire Bridge to facilitate multi-GPU functionality. Prior to the introduction of the Radeon X1900 when AMD (ATi at that time before acquisition) had released their first PCI-E Radeon cards which used the PCI-E bus for communications rather than an external port or connector however a master card was required for full functionality of CrossFire which were expensive. NVIDIA at that time had already moved to SLI (Scalable Link Interface) that allowed to end bandwidth constraints of the PCI-e interface and send data between both graphics cards directly with the use of an external connector.

Source

[herulach]

Although its neater, and I suppose saves worrying about triple slot coolers, does this really add anything? If anything surely all it does is make it even more awkward down the bottom end of the market, where people maybe would want to use crossfire with a 4X slot.

[kalniel]

Getting rid of extraneous connectors is always good. This sounds like the move engines from the XBone...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

If you look at the full stack of slides from which the one in the OP was leaked from,it seems the R9 290X is released on October 15th:

http://videocardz.com/46186/amd-rade...d-october-15th

[scaryjim]

tbh, this isn't exactly new for AMD - they've done this with their lower end cards for a while. I assume previously it was a compromise between bandwidth and performance, and while they were running largely with PCIe 2 they decided the bridge remained necessary. Presumably they reckon there's enough spare bandwidth in PCIe 3 to facilitate even high performance cards running Crossfire over PCIe (presumably allied to some improvements in the efficiency of the implementation).

EDIT: looks like AMD have also removed the displayport requirement for 3 monitor eyefinity - assuming that makes it down through the full range it'll make the R7 250 a decent productivity card...

[sula]

Although its neater, and I suppose saves worrying about triple slot coolers, does this really add anything? If anything surely all it does is make it even more awkward down the bottom end of the market, where people maybe would want to use crossfire with a 4X slot.

No. It's "only" convenience. It does not add anything more 'tangible'. It's good thing though. One less thing to manage.

[JordanTr]

There was some motherboard which supports CF without bridge

[scaryjim]

bleurgh, read the thread why don't you I only said 2 comments above yours that crossfire without bridges has been available for some considerable time in lower-end AMD cards (and the whole things was entirely motherboard agnostic - as long as the board could house the two cards they'd work in crossfire).

If you think about it, it's obvious this is possible, otherwise how could you do hybrid crossfire and dual graphics? There's no bridge between the discrete GPU and the northbridge/APU, but you can still do crossfire. Now it's just the *only* way to do crossfire.

[SOOMRO]

Does R7 Series supports this CrossFire Technology???

[dfour]

I just hope this works well over pcie 2 as no amd board support pcie 3 atm (that I know off) I would assume that amd are confident that it will or have tested it and know that its ok for pcie 2.

[scaryjim]

Does R7 Series supports this CrossFire Technology???

Given that the 7790 did, I'm sure the R7 260X will. The R7 250/240 isn't quite so clear cut (due to their being a previously unreleased core), but I can't see why they wouldn't.

[D1DM]

I just hope this works well over pcie 2 as no amd board support pcie 3 atm (that I know off) I would assume that amd are confident that it will or have tested it and know that its ok for pcie 2.

FM2+ motherboards will support PCIe 3.0 with the right APUs/CPUs.

[dfour]

FM2+ motherboards will support PCIe 3.0 with the right APUs/CPUs.

Yes but unless the new amd mainstream chip comes out in fm2+ flavours instead of am3+ its quite irrelevant as I would guess people who buy fm2+ boards wont be spending £400+ on a graphics card.

[D1DM]

Now that you mention AM3+ you have reminded me that the ASUS SABERTOOTH 990FX/GEN3 R2.0 supports PCIe 3.0:
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/SAB...990FXGEN3_R20/

Also when looking at the manufacturer's product pages for FM2+ motherboards I have noticed ASRock, ASUS and MSI state:

Only FM2+ Processors can support PCIe3.0.

PCIE 3.0 is only supported with FM2+ CPU.

Surely that is a strong indication that AMD will be releasing FM2+ APUs/CPUs in the future.

[dfour]

even the CROSSHAIR V FORMULA-Z doesnt support pci-e 3