Product: ATI Announces CrossFire Video Card Solution

ATI Technologies has announced details surrounding its asymmetric CrossFire video card solution, which allows users to combine the rendering horsepower of two ATI graphics cards with a third devoted to modeling the environment. In addition, the configuration furthers adds to the PC capabilities made possible through Intel's Core 2 Duo platform. ATI's CrossFire X1900 multi-GPU solution in combination with Intel Core 2 Duo processors address both CPU and GPU bottlenecks within a PC, producing high image quality and performance in games, while a single ATI Radeon X1K GPU processes realistic physics. The Radeon X1900 XTX is one the highest performing physics processor available today, delivering 360 Gflops of processing power. The GPU allows for scenes with up to 20-30,000 distinct objects that can now be accurately simulated and rendered at real-time frame rates. CrossFire offers users a choice of physics configurations rather than being locked into symmetrical setups. This flexible architecture allows asymmetrical configurations as unlike cards can be used for physics processing in both 1+1 and 2+1 setups. Within these configurations, one or two graphics cards are used for game rendering, while another card is used for physics. This open architecture accommodates a wider array of users, whether they want to use a high-end graphics card for physics, or a mainstream card. In addition, ATI also announced today that it is working with middleware provider Havok, and that the firm's Havok FX software allows developers to enable more convincing detailed environments. Finally, ATI announced that it has ramped up the CrossFire certification program to make it easier for consumers to recognize what products are CrossFire-ready. To ensure compatibility of components, and strong performance for CrossFire systems, over 90 products have been tested and certified since the program's inception in March. Interested users can find the most up-to-date list of CrossFire certified components, including graphics cards, motherboards, power supplies, and memory, at on the CrossFire website.