That SLI/Crossfire is for people with too much money.
The rest of us can just buy one card, and wait 14 months for the next generation to come out, which will always increase performance by just as much as two cards would anyway.
So, since we're paying for two cards anyway, I rather spread the cost and get better returns.

With statements like ..

ATI's driver is the publicly available Catalyst 4.12 beta, which is specifically targeted to improve performance under Half Life 2 
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2278

According to sources, the driver will also increase the performance of Nvidia GPUs under Half-Life 2 
http://www.team-ninja.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=33141

Should we call ATI/nVIDIA drivers really drivers or utilities. What is this special driver code to improve performance for that product. The driver is like programming language. Whats happening is like programming langauge being altered to benifit a product.

Ths also means when we are downloading a driver we are infact downloading a redundant number of drivers in that package targeting the product i dont own, Isnt it like overcharging the customer, hence a lawsuit !?!

Muhammad Imran
Islamabad, Pakistan.

Catalyst 7.10 is good and dandy – that is, if you are not an AGP user. If you are then the drivers are not for you because DirectX won’t work. The same goes for 7.8, and 7.9. 
Shame on all you second rate customers still humping a dead technology! I bought my 512MB 1950 Pro AGP almost 3 months ago and I am honored to have been able to get a working driver for it at all. I go on the interweb and see all these namby-pamby users all whining that lord AMD won’t give their stinky AGP slot any love. You plebeians disgust me!

Wow, NVIDIA could learn a thing or two from them now. Esp in the laptop sector if they would like to firmly hold onto it. The best we get is sites like http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/ trying to support us. 

Not everyone changes their graphics card every 6months/year and 'old' devices can always have a lot more life squeezed out of them!!

as with all recent Catalyst releases, this one also does NOT recognize the AGP versions of newer cards like the 2600 series. 

the only drivers that work with those are the ones shipped on cd, but these drivers have major issues. want to play Quake Wars:Enemy Territory? Forget it, incompatible, try a new Catalyst driver, oh wait..

they are selling AGP versions, but don't even bother to write drivers for them. incompetent bastards.

Tried this upgrade on a few older card (9000 series) and saw basically no difference, from the sounds of it you need to be running SLI to see any big increases. Also on some of the machines 
I lost DX support after upgrading. Tried cleaning reinstalling, tweaking, etc. End result is I had to retro-grade drivers to restore DX. So don't get too fired about the support for older cards.

Nvidia has a freebsd driver that works and was developed by nvidia. Then there is no linux release, witch makes me think that linux drivers arent going to get a better installer. 
How about they work on that damn installer, an automatic kernel header compilation would be nice. I have both nvidia and ATI cards. ATI has been stepping on my toes too much, thats the only reason i ever got an nvidia card.

I did some calculations on that page you linked as evidence, and a 70% increase puts it in competition with the 8800 GTX (SLI)

Old #'s

2x2900XT:
1280x1024-55FPS
1200x1600-43FPS
1920x1440-33FPS

2x8800GTX:
1280x1024-89FPS
1200x1600-73FPS
1920x1440-61FPS

2x2900XT: (with hypothetical boost)
1280x1024-93FPS - (55FPS*1.7)
1200x1600-73FPS - (43FPS*1.7)
1920x1440-56FPS - (33FPS*1.7)

With statements like ..

ATI's driver is the publicly available Catalyst 4.12 beta, which is specifically targeted to improve performance under Half Life 2 
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2278

According to sources, the driver will also increase the performance of Nvidia GPUs under Half-Life 2 
http://www.team-ninja.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=33141

Should we call ATI/nVIDIA drivers really drivers or utilities. What is this special driver code to improve performance for that product. The driver is like programming language. Whats happening is like programming langauge being altered to benifit a product.

Ths also means when we are downloading a driver we are infact downloading a redundant number of drivers in that package targeting the product i dont own, Isnt it like overcharging the customer, hence a lawsuit !?!

Muhammad Imran
Islamabad, Pakistan.

I knew I wasn't gonna regret buying that HD2900XT. So it looks like crossfire is finally working out in vista? Guess I might have to buy a second card...

It seems to do nothing unless you use Crossfire.....
But who is using that anyway?
Single cards beat those "records" all the time....:-)

I think some restraint is recommended before getting excited about of these 'performance gains.' And testing. And benchmarking and such. 

For instance, let's start from the top with Bioshock. 

70% sounds really good, doesn't it? 

But all this means is that Crossfire in Bioshock in DX10 actually WORKS for the first time. 

Evidence-o: http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/vista_sli_crossfire/4.html

With Cat 7.9, one 2900 XT performed stronger than a Crossfire'd pair. 

So... while saying they've reached a 70% performance gain could be the truth, it shouldn't really impress anyone. It just means that CrossFire product is working as advertised for the first time. 

BTW ^^^ just applies for Bioshock. Don't really have the time right now to go into the other numbers... 




An update that includes support for older units such as my 9700 AIW Pro? Wonderful, if true. 
Yet ATI still demands you install the ORIGINAL disk that came with the card. Something I bought years ago and God knows where it's hiding. Why is it only ATI that insists on this?

Come on ATI ...this upgrade is only for Crossfire setups

How many people are using Crossfire really ??

I expected ATI to improve performance in Single card solutions as well

I am not so impressed