ATI has been around making video cards for a long time, over 20 years. In the time since they came into existence, ATI has seen many companies come and go including 3DFX, Trident, XGI and many others. Today ATI is one of a duopoly with NVIDIA on discrete graphics chips. ATI had revenue over 2 billion USD last year, making it one of their most successful years ever.
NVIDIA launched once again the idea of multiple graphics chips working together to improve performance with SLI in late 2004. ATI responded late last year with the X 850 Crossfire Editions. The X850XT Crossfire was a rather short-lived product with the X1800 Crossfire replacing it almost as soon as it was released.
Today I'm reviewing Crossfire in three modes, the ASUS X1800XT TOP with X1800 Crossfire Edition master card, the ASUS X1900XTX with X1900 Crossfire Edition master card and the X1600 Pro in Crossfire mode using dual Sapphire X1600 Pros. I don't have an X850 or an X850 Crossfire Edition card, so it will be left out of the review. It should be an interesting review however with all the cards tested.
