Something Called Hybrid CrossFireX
One of the unique features of the 890GX chipset is something called Hybrid CrossFireX. This is a feature that allows one to add an external GPU, in this case any HD 5450 based video card, and CrossFire it with the internal HD 4290 IGP. By doing this, you can increase your 3D Graphics performance by up to 28% according to AMD.
While I would normally just suggest to someone to simply buy a discrete video card solution, I was very curious to know if this solution would get us to a “good enough” scenario so we wouldn’t have to. Not to mention, an HD 5450 GPU can be had for as little as $34.99 US if you shop around so it’s really an inexpensive upgrade. It would be even better if it took your game from barely playable to playable.
To kill two birds with one stone, we’re going to compare both HD 4290 and Hybrid CrossFireX performance with a standard ATI HD 5450 to see if we can get the performance we need on the cheap. All tests were done with default settings unless otherwise stated.
Unigine Heaven 1.0 Benchmark – DX10
Unigine’s Heaven 1.0 benchmark gives us a good base in which to compare both IGP and Hybrid CrossFireX performance. It’s also a good benchmark for assessing potential performance in a lot of demanding, 3D intensive, MMORPG games. Using the DirectX 10 test, we can see how all of our boards perform both in both modes.
Based on these benchmarks we can see that the addition of the HD 5450 in Hybrid CrossFireX has a profound effect on performance. In fact, it doubles the scores across the board for all of motherboards. Although the differences between the boards are fairly minute, we can see the GIGABYTE slightly ahead of the pack, but not enough for you to actually feel a difference.
Street Fighter IV Benchmark
Since this platform appeals very well to a mass market, I figured that I’d choose some games that a mass market audience might play. This Street Fighter IV benchmark seemed very well suited to our testing needs.
The Hybrid CrossFireX has taken a potentially unplayable scenario with the IGP into an almost playable one. At nearly 30 FPS, the game is almost playable at default settings. Turning down some of the settings, you should be able to hit 30 FPS. The nice thing about this game is that you still get the SFIV experience even without the eye candy. Again, the GIGABYTE takes the lead in terms of performance by a very slight margin.
Resident Evil 5 – DirectX 10
While we’re on the CAPCOM kick here, we might as well check out Resident Evil. This benchmark does a pretty good job of representing a first person shooter scenario. Let’s see if we’re going to be able to play this game for real.
Unfortunately, Hybrid CrossFireX couldn’t help us out in this game, but it did nearly triple the frame rate. Given the increase in performance, it’s possible that somewhere out there, there is a game that we haven’t tested that could go from unplayable to playable on the 890GX with the addition of an HD 5450 GPU in Hybrid CrossFireX. We’d imagine that a number of more mature titles based on DirectX 9 like Portal and Half-Life, even Left 4 Dead, would be very playable. Just give us a request in the forums and we’ll be happy to run those.
Again, the GIGABYTE is slightly ahead in the benchmarks. We have double checked the settings, and the IGP and memory is not overclocked. But in reality, the difference is very small and not noticeable in real world gameplay.