Is it possible to do this?

Please dont burn me for this *hoping*

X1950 Pro in crossfire with HD 3870. I know its not possible..but has any1 tried? i know the x1950 Pro is more advanced in design cuz it uses the internal connect....but is it pairable with the 3870. or vice versa

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

PS ...im gona try it anyway this week...since im about to build my first crossfire system....should be interesting....

in theory it may be possible, but in practice i doubt it would work. Multi gpu designs still rely heavily on driver support, and if the drivers wont let you do it, its not gunna happen. But given the severe changes in architecture between RV570 and RV670, even if it did work the x1950 would be more likely to slow things down and increase overhead load on the system. Not to metion the mere 20,700 mshader operations per second offered by the x1950 pro wouldnt even make a dent in the 248,000 the hd3870 is capable of...

Mixed crossfire is something ATI wants to support, but you have to be realistic about it. Mixed crossfire is intended to be used with cards of the same theoretical GPU core power, IE the 3850+3850, 3850+3870, 3870+3870, 3870X2+3850, 3870X2+3870, and 3870X2+3870X2. All of those cards use the same RV670 with 320 shaders, the only real difference comes via the memory used(and its speed) and the speed of the core.

I dont even think HD2900 and HD38x0 series would crossfire together, and they are far closer in architecture and performance than the x1950 and hd3870. I do recall some testing was done with HD2900xt+HD3870 crossfire, but as I recall it was marginally slower than either HD2900xt crossfire or HD3870 crossfire, not to mention issues that occurred with compatibility with a lot of games.

It would be a bloody miracle.

I have an HD 3870 and an HD 3400 in my system (its there to drive a third monitor) and that barely even runs. Standby does not work with Vista and the system only boots if I set to start the 3400 first in the BIOS (despite both cards using identical drivers). ATI support told me that I could buy a FireGL if I wanted to run more than 2 monitors and that they otherwise will not support me.

As for Crossfire for a system running cards 3 generations apart, there is no way. ATI will allow for any 3850/3870/3870X2 combo, but even that was big news when they announced it. Honestly, there is no way that it'll work. Either way, the load balancing would be very hard to accomplish because the cards are totally different.

Sorry!

Wow thanks for all the info guys...and personally an honor to have Stang reply back.

Thanks again..but in a related thing...been readin reports of Ati's 4800 series due in June..i just picked up a pair of these 3870's. I still have a full 12 days to return em.

Im thinking return them...get the rampage up and runnin and last on my x1950pro for a while....until the 4870's are out...and get a pair of those instead at that time.

Sounds like a smart plan. The 3870 is a great card for its price, but unfortunately isn't as impressive in Crossfire setups, and especially when considering the 3870X2.

The HD 4000 series looks promising, and ESPECIALLY when compared to its competitor's offerings in the same price range. Let's just hope that ATI can capitalize on this opportunity and support these cards with solid drivers.