CPU3D Exclusive: Crossfire MIX works on Intel based systems too

Earlier this week, we posted an article on how to Crossfire 2 totally different HD38xx cards from different manufacturers. It was tested on an AMD Spider platform with a 790FX based motherboard, using a Phenom processor and DDR2 ram. It produced some excellent results during our benchmarks ...

Now check this out ... We tested this Crossfire MIX on our Intel based HydroBox III system, and guess what ... it also works too.

Here's our specs of our Intel based HydroBox III system:

 - Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (G0) Processor @ 2.4Ghz
 - Asus P5E3 Deluxe Motherboard
 - OCZ DDR3-1800 PC3-14400 2Gb Kit
 - MSI Radeon HD3870 OC Edition 512Mb DDR4
 - Asus EAH3850 TOP 256Mb DDR3
 - 250Gb Western Digitial 7,200rpm HDD
 - Coolermaster Real Power M850 PSU
 - Custom watercooling with Swiftech Apogee GTX and 240W Peltier TEC

The Photos

The ATI Catalyst Drivers v8.2

ATi's latest Catalyst drivers v8.2 has been reported to allow two totally different HD38xx cards from different manufacturers to be used in Crossfire configuration. It's worth noting that the cards we used have different GPU core speeds as well as different memory speeds. You can download these drivers ... HERE (Vista 32-bit).

MSI RX3870 OC Edition 512Mb DDR4
 - GPU core @ 800Mhz
 - Memory @ 2250Mhz

Asus EAH3850 TOP 256Mb DDR3
 - GPU @ 730Mhz
 - Memory @ 1900Mhz

In the advanced options of the ATi Catalyst drivers, you can enable the Crossfire configuration as shown below. However, since our two Radeon cards are totally different, the Catalyst setup reports a problem with your Crossfire configuration. This doesn't mean that it's working. To prove that it does work ... all we had to do was to run some benchmarks. :)

Everest Information

The Scores

3DMark 2005 - Default settings 1024x768 

3DMark 2006 - Default settings 1280x1024