ATI's R520 and R580 will need Master cards

ATI didn't have enough time during the development of its R520 to get rid of the master-slave card concept to run CrossFire and it looks their will only be a few R520 master card samples available at launch. A few weeks after the R520 launch we can expect some quantity of the R520 master cards.

The R580 will also need a master card but maybe the R600 which is slated for next year may get rid of the master card concept.

It takes approximately two years to finish a graphic chip and a graphic card and ATI didn’t even consider using dual cards in the same setup as an option. Nvidia opened the dual card doors for everyone and ATI just had to react. It took ATI a long time to do this - almost a year from its initial plan. ATI still has to ship Crossfire boards and we are expecting them in the next few weeks.