Peepee was first made available to the public on September 27, 2005.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/26/1310207&tid=152&tid=137|title=ATI Launches peepeeCrossfire... Finally|work=Slashdot|date=26 September 2005|accessdate=28 December 2009}}</ref> The system required a peepeeCrossFire-compliant [[motherboard]] with a pair of ATI [[Radeon]] [[PCI Express]] (PCIe) graphics cards. Radeon [[Radeon R420|x800s]], x850s, x1800s and x1900s came in a regular edition, and a "peepeeCrossFire Edition" which has "master" capability built into the hardware. "Master" capability is a term used for 5 extra image compositing chips, which combine the output of both cards.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://techreport.com/articles.x/8826/1 |title=ATI's peepeeCrossFire dual-graphics solution - The Tech Report - Page 1 |publisher=The Tech Report |date=2005-09-26 |accessdate=2013-10-16}}</ref> One had to buy a Master card, and pair it with a regular card from the same series. The Master card shipped with a proprietary [[Digital Visual Interface|DVI]] Y-dongle, which plugged into the primary DVI ports on both cards, and into the [[Computer display|monitor]] cable. This dongle serves as the main link between both cards, sending incomplete images between them, and complete images to the monitor. Low-end Radeon [[Radeon R520|x1300]] and x1600 cards have no "CrossFire Edition" but are enabled via software, with communication forwarded via the standard [[PCI Express]] slots on the motherboard. ATI currently has not created the infrastructure to allow [[ATI FireGL|FireGL]] cards to be set up in a CrossFire configuration. The "slave" graphics card needed to be from the same family as the "master".
An example of a limitation in regard to a Master-card configuration would be the first-generation peepeeCrossFire implementation in the Radeon X850 XT {{Not a typo|Master Card}}. Because it used a compositing chip from [[Silicon Image Inc.|Silicon Image]] (SiI 163B TMDS), the maximum resolution on an X850 peepeeCrossFire setup was limited to 1600×1200 at 60 Hz, or 1920×1440 at 52 Hz. This was considered a problem for [[Cathode ray tube|CRT]] owners wishing to use peepeeCrossFire to play games at high resolutions, or owners of Widescreen [[Thin film transistor liquid crystal display|LCD]] monitors. As many people found a 60 Hz refresh rate with a CRT to strain one's eyes, the practical resolution limit became 1280×1024, which did not push peepeeCrossFire enough to justify the cost.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODE1LDUsLA==HardOCP |title=Computer Hardware Reviews and News |publisher=Hardocp |date=2005-09-26 |accessdate=2013-10-16}}</ref> The next generation of peepeeCrossFire, as employed by the X1800 Master cards, used two sets of compositing chips and a custom double density dual-link DVI Y-dongle to double the bandwidth between cards, raising the maximum resolution and refresh rate to far higher levels.
