Folks, you don't NEED a master card to run X1600's in Crossfire
Master cards are now only needed only needed for the old cores (X800/850), and the high-bandwidth top end cards (X1800XT, X1900XT/XTX). The 1300's and 1600's don't even need the dongle.
That said, unless you want to gradually upgrade, it makes more sense in terms of performance (and cost) to go with a single high end 512mb card...You can now pick up an X1800XT for about what you'd spend on two X1600XT's, and the X1800XT will outperform the pair of X1600's (and you can always Crossfire that later). For that matter, if you can find one that won't asplode, a 7900GT would kick the asses of two X1600XTs.
Or spend a little more money and buy a single X1900XT (shop around, they can be had for $360-$400 at places like NewEgg). And If one card is all you want, you won't need to buy a Crossfire motherboard if you already have a PCI-e motherboard, a savings which can easily cover the cost of going with a single X1900Xt instead of two X1600XT's.
But please, don't even THINK about buying a pair of X1600 Pro cards.
Finally, most Intel 975x boards will support Crossfire just fine, for those of you looking to jump over to the Conroe bandwagon or just sticking with Intel.
And to the posters above...You DO need to stay in the same card series to use Crossfire...an X1900XT and an X850 pair won't work, even if one of them is a master card...nor will the upcoming R600 (DX10) card work with an X1900. Just won't work, period.
Now, that said, there's a CHANCE that ATI will let you use a second, mismatched card, to offload physics work from the CPU, but that's just theory and talk from ATI (and Nvidia is making the same kind of noises), and not something we'll see for at least a year, if it happens at all.
Last edited by Croak (2006-06-04 00:38:48)