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ATI Backs Up CrossFire Quality

ATI is striving to make the future of CrossFire motherboards that much brighter and we think you will be better off to buy ATI Certified motherboards if you have the opportunity to do so.

Hating Silicon?

ATI’s Radeon Xpress 200 chipset and CrossFire technology have been hot topics around HardOCP and other sites lately. I have even read one boutique computer company owner describe me as having a “hatred” for the Radeon Xpress 200 chipset. Well, that is far from the truth; I hope that this article will dispel some of that type of thinking or “non-thinking” as it may be, but even more importantly you should know what ATI is doing to make sure your CrossFire experience is everything it should be.

I had high hopes for ATI’s motherboard chipsets over the last year, but the simple fact of the matter is that my expectations for the Radeon Xpress 200 have not been met, yet. Our overall, hands-on experiences with the Radeon Xpress 200 chipset have simply not been good. However, that does not mean that we have slammed the door on such technology and “hate” it into submission. Actually, quite the opposite is true. We have made sure to keep an eye out for an Xpress 200 product that impresses us.

All CrossFired Up

The CrossFire motherboard that we have been using for our CrossFire video card evaluation came directly from ATI. I would like to point out that the ATI CrossFire motherboard we have used has been problem-free so far. The down side is that ATI does not sell the motherboard, so our board does not represent a product that our readers can purchase, although it can be said that it is an excellent “proof-of-concept” sample. ATI contacted us a few weeks ago to let us know that they wanted to send us a DFI built CrossFire motherboard, the DFI RDX200 CF-DR. We refused the motherboard so that we could purchase a retail motherboard from Newegg. Rejecting a non-retail motherboard sample is not an uncommon practice here at HardOCP, although we don’t always talk about it. We have purchased many motherboards and video cards that we have reviewed in the past. We don’t necessarily think that samples provided to us are “cherry picked,” but we simply want to ensure that the product we evaluate will be the same product that you can purchase. Quite simply our goal here is to cover products that represent exactly what you can buy. On the other side of that argument, you could state that ATI would be crazy to send us a board that they had not at least tested and found to work correctly. Be that what it may, I decided to purchase our own CrossFire motherboard for testing.

Running Into Trouble

I took delivery of our DFI CrossFire motherboard and prepped it for testing. We almost immediately ran into problems. The first thing I noticed was that I could not save my BIOS settings, exit the BIOS, and then reboot. After attempting to save and leave the BIOS, the motherboard would freeze at a blank screen. Resetting the board would allow a reboot, but that did not always work; sometimes a hard power down was needed. The reboot issues did not stop there. Even once we got an OS installed, the motherboard still exhibited reboot issues where it would hang on POST. Sometimes it would hang at IDE detection, sometimes at Silicon Image RAID controller detection, and sometimes it would hang after setting the interrupt channels. Then again, sometimes it would reboot just fine, but most times it would not. Checking the DFI support forums, I found that I was not alone in experiencing these issues. DFI sent us a replacement motherboard -- which was from a retail shipment. Keeping ATI in the loop, they asked if they could purchase the motherboard we were having issues with. We happily gave them the board at no cost to them and they picked up the shipping expense. ATI wanted to evaluate the issues we were seeing and having a board that we knew to have issues surely made this task easier instead of blindly picking samples.

Trying To Make It Right

DFI did in fact send a replacement board out of a retail stock shipment within a day. A new BETA BIOS was made public by DFI that was supposed to help our issues. It took a few days to get around to testing the motherboard, but again we saw the same exact issues we saw the first time -- more reboot and BIOS hangs. At this point, we notified DFI and ATI of the situation.

Now hypothetically, the DFI motherboard may have been 100% stable in a CrossFire gaming scenario, but the fact is that there is no way we can recommend a motherboard that will not reboot, so what is the point of us spending any more time and resources on a review of the board? In my mind, there is none. At this point, ATI asked me if I would hold off on reviewing the motherboard, and as is mentioned above, I was going to do that anyway. Given the heated nature of the Xpress 200 topic around here for the last few weeks, I was certainly not just going keep quiet, as we think our readers should know about our experiences with this motherboard.

ATI’s Certification Program

ATI has what they call a “Certified Motherboards” program.

There is an online FAQ that explains exactly what the ATI Certified Motherboards program is all about. But to cover the beef of the program, ATI tests partners’ motherboards to make sure they live up to ATI standards of quality, but this is done on a voluntary basis. I do not have an exact outline as to what ATI does to stress the motherboards, but I would be relatively sure that they do things to them that would not be done in any “normal” situation, and I believe they run a battery of engineering tests as well.

I would like to go on record right now and state that I would highly suggest that if you are going to purchase any motherboard with an ATI chipset, it should have passed ATI’s program qualifications. This is not to say that a motherboard cannot be tops in quality without certification from ATI, but I would say that it is likely that ATI not only holds a higher standard than many motherboard builders, but they also probably have the resources available to do some engineering analysis that may not be within reach of every motherboard builder.

DFI – ATI – Certification

Now knowing that this certification program is in place, and ATI is launching their CrossFire motherboard press campaign with DFI motherboards, one would think that DFI would damn sure be on the certification list. WRONG. Actually, not only is the DFI CrossFire motherboard not listed, but they are also not listed as a partner in the program at all. Call me crazy, but it seems to me that if you are going to put all your eggs in one basket, it would certainly be a “certified” basket if I was running ATI.

Now all of this may seem very simple, but there are some very nasty factors at work here against ATI that are simply out of their control. And remember, ATI is currently under a press microscope that is expecting CrossFire to finally get here months after missing deadlines. I think ATI is under extreme pressure to finally execute CrossFire, or at least make a show of doing it whether or not it is truly upon us. In all fairness, I am one of the people applying pressure to them and expecting action. While I am not happy with what I am getting, I am seeing some real action by ATI and DFI in this matter, but back to that in a moment. Talking with the motherboard makers in China and Taiwan, we are beginning to understand some factors that are holding up more motherboards coming to market. Primarily, the ULi southbridge chipset to be used on almost every motherboard in the market is in terrible supply. Motherboard builders will tell you that they are not only waiting for ULi southbridge chipsets, but many are also waiting for PCBs as well. Therefore, we have two shortages that are directly influencing CrossFire motherboard availability, one more than the other.

So why is DFI first to market with their CrossFire motherboard? DFI, which can be considered a very small company in the motherboard game, bucked the system and decided to use the ATI SB450 southbridge, which was not plagued with supply issues. This southbridge has gotten some negative press over the last few months for what I really consider a “non-issue issue.” A non-issue issue is one of those things that everyone loves to gripe about, and may be correct in doing so, but it is truly something that means little in the real world computing experience. ATI’s southbridge’s USB 2.0 performance is 10% to 25% slower than the competition in terms of moving data across the bus. Therefore, if you are constantly filling up 1GB USB flash drives or use an external hard drive all the time, this issue might be relevant to you. I think that most will neither notice nor care about the USB 2 performance issue. The other knock against the SB450 southbridge is that it lacks a SATAII controller. Again, this is not a big issue as most SATAII drives are not able to saturate a SATA bus, much less one that is twice the bandwidth. The only way I can see it being an issue is if you are planning to run some large RAID arrays with SATAII drives. Therefore, the ATI SB450 has gotten some bad press, and it seems that most of the motherboard builders have turned against it by giving ULi their business. That said, the ULi southbridge has shown us issues in the past as well on Xpress 200 motherboards.

When it comes right down to it, my thoughts are that ATI has come under great pressure to execute, and DFI was the only other available partner to take to the party, so they went with them. To some extent, ATI’s decision is biting them in the butt; however, on the other hand, it is going to give their certification program some traction, and it will very likely let both ATI and DFI shine in the process if they can once again execute on their plans.

Fixing the Issues

So where do we go from here? ATI is deeply involved as they realize that DFI is the shining star in the current CrossFire motherboard market. First off, ATI has evaluated the DFI CrossFire motherboard under their ATI Certified program. To be succinct, the DFI RDX200 CF-DR CrossFire motherboard could not pass ATI’s Certified program in its current state. ATI found that a particular switch that DFI was using on their motherboard was creating an extra load on traces and degrading signal integrity. DFI has not discounted the solution being no larger than a BIOS fix as well. Obviously, if the issues can be corrected with a simple BIOS flash, this is certainly the easiest solution for you folks that already own the motherboard.

No matter what the solution, ATI and DFI are now working together to get the signal integrity restored in order to produce a solid motherboard that can pass ATI’s certification. I think this will certainly give gamers that are looking to purchase a CrossFire solution much more confidence in their decision.

Conclusions

CrossFire is very much an enthusiast product, especially as it sits right now. You are not going to be seeing a lot of system integrators offering such an immature solution that has obvious supply issues. So be sure that the folks that are currently concerned with CrossFire belong to a niche of a niche in the computer enthusiast arena. Consequently, while all of these problems may look dire to some of you, truthfully, they are not. It is also easy to argue that this is the perfect time for situations like these to be looked at because the numbers of companies impacted and dollars that have to be spent on solutions is going to be minimal in comparison to what might have been.

DFI has sold less than 1000 CrossFire motherboards worldwide. I am unsure how much of a financial problem a recall might cause, but be sure they do not want to do this and will work diligently to fix the issues with a BIOS update. If DFI is not able to fix the issue with a BIOS update, a recall might be in order, but this is yet to be seen. DFI has carved out their current place in the enthusiast market by catering to the hardcore enthusiast and overclocker. This is simply a market segment that will burn them at the stake should they feel that DFI has sold them a bad motherboard that will not be made good. It is in DFI’s best interest to make things “right” in this situation, and I think you can count on them to do so. If not, it could be the end of them. I do know one thing for sure: Jacky Huang, whom I’ve known for many years and is heading up DFI operations in North America, is a man that is very aware of his market and knows very well how it will react. Therefore, I have the utmost confidence in Jacky and DFI at this time.

I am still not convinced in the value of a Radeon Xpress 200 motherboard for the enthusiast, but rest assured that we will look at nearly every one that comes to market here very soon. I know for sure that if I was building a CrossFire motherboard and ATI was offering to help me make it better, I would certainly take advantage of that opportunity. There are a couple of companies that have the resources to do their own stability and compatibility testing, but those companies are few and far between.

One thing I have come to know in the last few weeks is just how committed ATI is to their motherboard chipset in the enthusiast marketplace. They certainly want to penetrate that end of the market and are making some solid claims as to moving forward. I think now that many of the motherboard companies will be looking at them to see how they react. Will ATI be there to nurture CrossFire to market if they have to? I hope that this will not be needed, but it is good to see that ATI is being proactive with their “Certified by ATI” program.

The Bottom Line

While my opinion on this might change in the future, I think that, at this juncture, an informed enthusiast looking to purchase a CrossFire motherboard solution would be best off starting at ATI’s own Certified pages. Sadly, there are no CrossFire motherboards on those pages yet. And while I may not be the world’s largest Radeon Xpress 200 fan, I still have a lot of faith in ATI. I truly hope that HardOCP is publishing glowing CrossFire motherboard reviews and system evaluations here soon.

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