First Dual GPU says Toms

[9mmCensor]

"Gigabyte creates first dual-GPU graphics card"
http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20041216_115811.html


Really.

[wanab]

who the fook needs 2 cards when you can have 2 chips on 1 card. :santa:


sounds like it runs better than 2 card setup also.


thinks are getting interesting now. :bang head

[Aphex_Tom_9]

so... (2 6600's on 1 card) > (1 X850XTPE) > (1 6800 U)
even though (2 6600's in SLI) = (about a 6800 U)

either they're BSing the results, or they put some serious tweaks in somewhere...
the concept is promising, though.

[dguy6789]

Yea, this is cool, cheaper then sli, and only one card. This will be the fastest single card available.

[deathBOB]

May be right, they say it does have a 256 bit memory bus. Considering how speedy each individual chip is (clock wise) it might compete with 6800 U.

Pretty good deal if u get one of those and a nice mobo in the same package!

[Vrykyl]

also wouldnt being on one pcb remove the current sli issue of each card in sli only running at pci-e 8x? ie the 2 cores can comunicate at pcie 16x across the pcb and then transmit to the mobo at 16x too?? instead of crippling each gpu to half speed?

[wanab]

Yea, this is cool, cheaper then sli, and only one card. This will be the fastest single card available.


WRONG answer! :eh?:


500-600 is greater than 2 6600GT @ $200 each. :cool:

[JDXNC]

Hmm, guess Tom never heard of the Volari V8 Duo (http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/volari-duo/) :rolleyes:

[CandymanCan]

thiers already a thread on this in the Nvidia section has been all day

[Aphex_Tom_9]

WRONG answer! :eh?:


500-600 is greater than 2 6600GT @ $200 each. :cool:
but this is apparently much better than just 2 plain 6600's in SLI...

Hmm, guess Tom never heard of the Volari V8 Duo

haha, yes, but that thing is pretty terrible...

[uno]

Thats even better.......now we're talking cool, bundle this dual gpu card with the motherboard for less than $500 retail. The downside is my new sytem just keeps creeping further into the future, I was already waiting for the new Gigabyte board.....

[JDXNC]

haha, yes, but that thing is pretty terrible...

None the less, it exists, and is not far behind an FX5800.

[deathBOB]

Note the fact they never use the word "first" in the article...

[Stumpjumper5200]

I guess my Voodoo 5 doesn't exist then, dammit :temper:

How about two dual GPU card in SLI? :attn:

[JonasQ]

My question is, how do you overclock it? Do the drivers treat it as two different gpu's? Do you have to overclock both to the same speeds? What is the thermal footprint going to be like?

[Flip-Mode]

Well I will remember this day, in 10 years when someone posts a "Remember the first duble core video card" thread. I'm a sucker for nostalgia.

[9mmCensor]

I guess my Voodoo 5 doesn't exist then, dammit

Thats what I was getting at.

[Cowboy X]

Thats what I was getting at.


Unfortunately that is wrong as well the first consumer 'SLI on one card' setup was by a company called Quantum who made a single card twin Voodoo2 SLI .It was called the Obsidian X24 . They also had some other cards with more cores but they were for military and industrial simulators .

Gigabyte is indeed far from the first . But I guess that is what we call spin and marketing . What is sad is when a supposed to be professional technology site ( THG ) doesn't realise that . ( Or worse recognise it but still publish it . )

[TollhouseFrank]

it sounds promising. if i remember right, about 2 weeks ago, i posed it thereotically if someone did dual core on a video card, then put it in SLI... could you just imagine the power? (and the PSU requirements?)

[9mmCensor]

Unfortunately that is wrong as well the first consumer 'SLI on one card' setup was by a company called Quantum who made a single card twin Voodoo2 SLI .It was called the Obsidian X24 . They also had some other cards with more cores but they were for military and industrial simulators .

Gigabyte is indeed far from the first . But I guess that is what we call spin and marketing . What is sad is when a supposed to be professional technology site ( THG ) doesn't realise that . ( Or worse recognise it but still publish it . )
yeah the corrected the article, already.

not to mention the ATI Rage MAXX, which if I remember had two cores as well

[Cowboy X]

Yes the Rage Fury Maxx had two cores doing alternate frame rendering ( AFR ) . While the 3Dfx cards' cores rendered every other line , hence the term Scan Line Interleave . Nvidia could have used this method , since they own 3Dfx but instead their SLI stands for Scaleable Link Interface ( or some folly like that ) and depending on the game or driver or user preference it can do AFR or split the screen into the top and bottm and render each by each core . What is cool, is where the driver load balances and decides where the dividing line is so intead of 50/50 , you may get 60/40 or 70/30 etc depending on how complex the top is from the bottom so that the cards are doing as close to equal work as possible .

I can't recall what the method is with S3's Volari line of cards .

[Agent_Mull]

What if you could then put 2 of these in SLI? :drool:

[lilxvietxboi]

thats one huge card.... i thought my freakin 6800 was long...(it barely fit my case)

this is going to be interesting the next few months... dual cores on pci... agp is fading faster than i thought it would have..

[Cowboy X]

thats one huge card.... i thought my freakin 6800 was long...(it barely fit my case)

this is going to be interesting the next few months... dual cores on pci... agp is fading faster than i thought it would have..

You need to look at the poll in this same forum on which interface people are using . Anything besides AGP is yet to register a vote .


Another thing people have to recall with this incarnation of SLI is that just a with the regular 2 card method orf the other Nvidia manufacturers , it relyies on drivers and game support ! When a game isn't supported you have to choose the SLI method with the Nvidia drivers ( normally AFR ) . But if it doesn't work or is buggy when you tried ................... the SLI setup will default to one card . And in this case , to a single 600GT ! :( . So please remember that . Make sure that you can live with the single card performance of any Nvidia based SLI setup .

Will a 6600 GT cut it for a hardcore gamer like me ............. not by itself ! How often this setup will have to revert to a single card ........... I dunno ,only time will tell . It's success will also depend on which games it works with , or more importantly doesn't with . Time and some reviews with a widerange of games will tell .

[micamica1217]

looks like I beat all you guys to it......http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=350401

for shame gents, not looking up the forums first to see if a thread is there already. LOL

mica

[dark_15]

looks like I beat all you guys to it......http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=350401

for shame gents, not looking up the forums first to see if a thread is there already. LOL

mica

thiers already a thread on this in the Nvidia section has been all day



nope... a few posts too slow...

[micamica1217]

nope... a few posts too slow...

too slow????

my post is over two hours before this started...
did I misunderstand you?

ah, who cares.
I was joking anyway.

mica

[Lifthanger]

also wouldnt being on one pcb remove the current sli issue of each card in sli only running at pci-e 8x? ie the 2 cores can comunicate at pcie 16x across the pcb and then transmit to the mobo at 16x too?? instead of crippling each gpu to half speed?

MAybe it can shorten signal latencies and things like this, but the most powerful video cards can hardly fill 4x pci-e, there's no difference between 16x and 8x performancewise. Noone's cut to half speed, because in fact there's still more than double the bandwidth needed. But still beeing physically closer together, has to bring advantages, of course I have neither proof nor do I know enough about video cards, but it seems as if its common sense, that 2x on board is faster than 2x in sli. :)

My question would be:
is it 128 MB 128 bit memory dedicated to each core, or is it a true 256MB 256 bit card? I guess its the first one because of resulting overhead, when both gpus use the same bus.. Maybe herein lies the answer.

[TimBlake84]

I don't get it. Why they are using 6600 cores?.... why not take it to the next level and slap 6800's on there? Also... the article doesn't once use the word "first".

[aNTiChRisT]

I was going to say, Voodoo5 anyone?

TomsBull****Guide.com

~t0m

OMG WE HAVE SAME NAME...

damn -_-

[someoneElse]

I don't get it. Why they are using 6600 cores?.... why not take it to the next level and slap 6800's on there?


Because they can get their hands on a lot more 6600 chips. Seems they actually want to sell it in something resembling volume.


Also... the article doesn't once use the word "first".

That's because they changed it after publication, both the title and article text. I saw it in the original form before they removed their rather embarassing error.


[Edit for unfortunate typo]

[veryhumid]

what about the 3dlabs cards with two chips?

http://www.3dlabs.com/products/family.asp?fami=9

[speed bump]

Well they couldn't ship it with dual 6800 U chips cuase it would like be something like one of those giant 3dlabs cards coupled with a minumum of water cooling.

But hey Gigabyte could really make a killing if they shipped this card a Intel mobo and a phase change unit to cool all that in one box.

[JigPu]

Yes the Rage Fury Maxx had two cores doing alternate frame rendering ( AFR ) . While the 3Dfx cards' cores rendered every other frame , hence the term Scan Line Interleave . Nvidia could have used this method , since they own 3Dfx but instead their SLI stands for Scaleable Link Interface ( or some folly like that ) and depending on the game or driver or user preference it can do AFR or split the screen into the top and bottm and render each by each core . What is cool, is where the driver load balances and decides where the dividing line is so intead of 50/50 , you may get 60/40 or 70/30 etc depending on how complex the top is from the bottom so that the cards are doing as close to equal work as possible .

I can't recall what the method is with S3's Volari line of cards .
Not sure if you were just typing too fast since you got the rest right, but SLI (scan line interleave) actualy has each core drawing different lines of the same frame. Core 1 will render lines 0,2,4,6,8,10,... and core 2 will do lines 1,3,5,7,11,...


As for the Volari, they use a form of AFR like the Rage.
The processors will work in parallel, each rendering their own separate frames for display, with each having access to their own frame buffer and DDR or DDR2 memory. This connection between the two GPUs is called the BitFluent Bridge.

JigPu

[DeadSmiley]

WRONG answer! :eh?:


500-600 is greater than 2 6600GT @ $200 each. :cool:

The way I read this...

"While Gigabyte claims that the 3D1 will trump the performance of Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition and the GeForce 6800 Ultra cards, it says that the card will be offered in combination with the mainboard GA-K8NXP-SLI for less money than ATI's and Nvidia's single-GPU graphics cards alone. These high end cards current carry suggested retail prices between $500 and $600."

Was that the X850 XT PE and GeForce 6800 Ultra's cost between $500 and $600. The new dual core will be bundled with a mobo and still be less money. Did anyone else get that from the article?

[CandymanCan]

Yea im looking forward to seeing a card faster then a X850 XT PE, and come with a mobo and still be cheaper heh

[Dragonprince]

me too. even though they say it, doesnt mean any vendor will do it. Right now we are all still paying way over retail for top end cards....

[Cowboy X]

Not sure if you were just typing too fast since you got the rest right, but SLI (scan line interleave) actualy has each core drawing different lines of the same frame. Core 1 will render lines 0,2,4,6,8,10,... and core 2 will do lines 1,3,5,7,11,...


As for the Volari, they use a form of AFR like the Rage.


JigPu


Oops thanks . I meant every other line . I wish there was a slap myself smiley :) .I'll edit the post.

[Cowboy X]

too slow????

my post is over two hours before this started...
did I misunderstand you?

ah, who cares.
I was joking anyway.

mica

:) I think you beat my thread by 1/2 hr .

[Nandro]

Gigabyte can bundle the items themselves. They dont need any vendors to do it.

[Mr.Guvernment]

dont know how i missed this but sounds great!

see 2 GPU's on 1 card could be better then SLI and that is why it beats a single 6800U is because of bandwidth, they can use a hypertransport type deal better then the SLI conneciton :D

[Cowboy X]

Unfortunately the actual benchmarks don't justify our enthusiasm .

[hawtrawkr]

i just want to see someone put a couple pelts on one

[Steelpuma]

WRONG answer! :eh?:


500-600 is greater than 2 6600GT @ $200 each. :cool:

WRONG answer!

The $500-$600 includes the 3D1 card AND an nForce4 motherboard. That's actully really good value.