Sli2

[whitebloodcell]

Apparently SLI2 has been confirmed

Read the article http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23593

Basically they are doubling the PCI-E lanes, I can't see the point, isnt 8x Lanes each enough?

[RAMMAN]

just comes to show NOTHING is futureproof.

[Flip-Mode]

Are current PCI-E lanes saturated? I think they are just paniking becouse of CrossFire.

[whitebloodcell]

Are current PCI-E lanes saturated? I think they are just paniking becouse of CrossFire.

Not even close

[>HyperlogiK<]

It is almost certainly just a marketing ploy, nVidia developed the first solution, and while Ati is pushing Crossfire 1.0 nVidia have already brought out SLi 2.0, like when they renamed mobile Palominos to Athlon 4 becuase of the Pentium 4.

[Sjaak]

Well, both cards using x16 instead of x8 will give a small boost..everything is worth it.

Calling it SLI2 would be a little too far gone IMO, SLI 1.01 would be better for such a small improvement.

[whitebloodcell]

Maybe there will be some other improvements to warrant the 2.0 suffix. Like 100% speed increases, and compatibility with every game. (I know unlikely but it'd be nice.)

[Nandro]

But arent they doing SLI now with 4 or more cards? I dont remember where I read it, but I do remember seeing it. It also looks like the pci-e bus is getting so fast it will be alot more effective for cards using turbo-cache.

[whitebloodcell]

But arent they doing SLI now with 4 or more cards? I dont remember where I read it, but I do remember seeing it. It also looks like the pci-e bus is getting so fast it will be alot more effective for cards using turbo-cache.

It was that Gigabyte Mobo with 4xPCI-E Slots you are thining of. Not sure how it was supposed to work.

[Mr.Guvernment]

8x bandwidth is not beign saturated yet so dual 16x sure as heck won. - possibly with the g70 and r520 or what ever but certainly not currently.

[Nandro]

But wouldnt 4x6800ultra benefit somewhat?

[>HyperlogiK<]

good point, didn't they originally say that the sli spec could THEORETICALLY allow for was it 8 or 16 cards if there were enough pci-e lanes avaliable. Just think of the shaders and lighting :) :) :)

[whitebloodcell]

Just think of the shaders and lighting :) :) :)
Just think of the cost EEK! :eek:

[Grande Juan]

I think what most people fail to realize, is that current sli uses 16 lanes, 8 for each card. The problem is since there are only 20 lanes available, that only leaves four lanes for the other pcie devices. SLI 2 doubles the lanes to forty, 16 lanes for both cards and 8 lanes left over for other devices. The extra four lanes is what their after, it certainly makes no sense in taking away lanes from the video cards, to accomplish this. Even if they are currently not being saturated, that would be a step backwards.

[whitebloodcell]

A PCi-E 1x Lane is enough for any other add on card is it not?

[Sjaak]

A PCi-E 1x Lane is enough for any other add on card is it not?

For sound and network, yeah, but for raid adapters x4 may be needed.

[blitzkrieg1110]

Just think of the cost EEK! :eek:
ya, i cant imagine paying enough $ to buy like 4 cards........it simply isnt worth it in my opinion. in todays games, 1 card is still enough (if its a medium high-high end card) for most gaming and the only reason (i see) to get sli is to increase your benchmark scores. wooo......hooo....... :eh?:

[Mr.Guvernment]

Or to run games at absolute MAX res on your 20" widescreen LCD :D since running it @ some lower res would look like crap :D

the PCie banwidth with the ATi cards look as though it is goiong to be used laregely by the data transfer back and forth between the cards, beside using the high speed digital cable - which only transfer the raw data from one card to another, the other data from what i understand will be passed with the PCIe bus - so the extract bandwidth could be very useful for ATi - since NVIDIA uses the bridge.

[the adam]

omg.... I get a new board/card to futureproof so when the cards prices come down i can run sli. Now I have to go and probally buy another board and another card

Great I just find out no halo 2 for pc and now that my system will be opsolete by fall.

[whitebloodcell]

omg.... I get a new board/card to futureproof so when the cards prices come down i can run sli. Now I have to go and probally buy another board and another card

Great I just find out no halo 2 for pc and now that my system will be opsolete by fall.

Not having a good day then.

EDIT: 5 Stars. OMG

[Mr.Guvernment]

no such thing as future proofing any more in the PC market since PCIe came out - maybe not for @ least a year or 2 until PCIe and this dual card stuff settles down if ever.

i think a computer is future proofed for maybe a year or 2 now a days, no more of this 3+ years your good to go :(

[Janus67]

omg.... I get a new board/card to futureproof so when the cards prices come down i can run sli. Now I have to go and probally buy another board and another card

Great I just find out no halo 2 for pc and now that my system will be opsolete by fall.
no matter when you buy your system though, it will be obsolete in a period of a few months.

This sounds somewhat promising, but I doubt it will give enough of a performance increase over SLI(1.0)

[Nandro]

I am sure they will find new ways to use it. I was reading an article about a pci-e based HD solution that uses reuglar DDR ram. Allowing you to use it as a HD for instant boots and access. This in itself is not new, what was new was that it was affordable. I think the card itself was $200 then you would just add the ram. What they need to do is make things like that or turbo cache for the video cards with fast access.

[whitebloodcell]

I am sure they will find new ways to use it. I was reading an article about a pci-e based HD solution that uses reuglar DDR ram. Allowing you to use it as a HD for instant boots and access. This in itself is not new, what was new was that it was affordable. I think the card itself was $200 then you would just add the ram. What they need to do is make things like that or turbo cache for the video cards with fast access.

You are referring the new Gigbyte things I assume. That runs on normal PCI if so.


no matter when you buy your system though, it will be obsolete in a period of a few months.

I bought my system nearly 19months ago and it is hardly obsolete. Plays HL2 fine.

[Goshawk]

no matter when you buy your system though, it will be obsolete in a period of a few months.

This sounds somewhat promising, but I doubt it will give enough of a performance increase over SLI(1.0)


A few months is on the optimistic side. If folks keep trying to stay on the cutting edge with computer hardware, those same folks are going to be panhandling folks like me at the dollar store, trying to sell me pencils and junk. :p

Back when the P5-133 ruled the earth and you were popular with the geek crowd for just having a quad-speed cd-rom, you'd at least stay on top for a month or two, then your buddies over at gateway would go and debut "the fastest computer 3var!" P5-166 ( ahh, the days of the original Descent deathmatch over a 28.8 ISA modem )

In the "bigger, better, faster, stronger" war of video cards, mobo's, RAM, you name it... If you don't shop with a level head, and address your immediate needs, you mine as well just throw your wallet on the grill and eat it for dinner.

As much as i would LOVE to pour all of my money into some uber l337 rig right now, what stops me from doing that is the fact that it will be mediocre tommorow and not run the newest games at the highest possible resolutions, or not run the newest games because of something that is holding my box back




please accept my apologies in advance if there is anyone who was offended by this post.


~ Gos

[whitebloodcell]

A few months is on the optimistic side. If folks keep trying to stay on the cutting edge with computer hardware, those same folks are going to be panhandling folks like me at the dollar store, trying to sell me pencils and junk. :p

Back when the P5-133 ruled the earth and you were popular with the geek crowd for just having a quad-speed cd-rom, you'd at least stay on top for a month or two, then your buddies over at gateway would go and debut "the fastest computer 3var!" P5-166 ( ahh, the days of the original Descent deathmatch over a 28.8 ISA modem )

In the "bigger, better, faster, stronger" war of video cards, mobo's, RAM, you name it... If you don't shop with a level head, and address your immediate needs, you mine as well just throw your wallet on the grill and eat it for dinner.

As much as i would LOVE to pour all of my money into some uber l337 rig right now, what stops me from doing that is the fact that it will be mediocre tommorow and not run the newest games at the highest possible resolutions, or not run the newest games because of something that is holding my box back




please accept my apologies in advance if there is anyone who was offended by this post.


~ Gos


Why would anyone be offended? But besides that. Descent was awesome. That and Duke Nukem 3D were my first games.

[Goshawk]

Why would anyone be offended? But besides that. Descent was awesome. That and Duke Nukem 3D were my first games.


*shrugs* perhaps i was feeling a bit preachy :p

[A1Killer]

lol i must be weird but i dont see a need for pci-e yet isn't it true that not even agp8x is being taxed yet? If that is the case then why pci-e why not make a card that taxes or comes close to doing so with agp8x and get that out of the way and then start fresh with a new vid card solution?

[whitebloodcell]

lol i must be weird but i dont see a need for pci-e yet isn't it true that not even agp8x is being taxed yet? If that is the case then why pci-e why not make a card that taxes or comes close to doing so with agp8x and get that out of the way and then start fresh with a new vid card solution?

Why wait for AGP to come a hindrance? Greater bandwidth can only be a good thing. For Graphics and other peripheraels. (sp?) such as Tv Cards and such. PCI-E also delivers more power.

[Mr.Guvernment]

dont forget PCIe can be used for other devices - imagine a 16 device SCSI card on PCI ? Now put it on a 8x or even a 4x PCIe lane... PCIe is not limited to just video cards - it is just other periphials are not as rapidly being developed as video cards.

[whitebloodcell]

dont forget PCIe can be used for other devices - imagine a 16 device SCSI card on PCI ? Now put it on a 8x or even a 4x PCIe lane... PCIe is not limited to just video cards - it is just other periphials are not as rapidly being developed as video cards.

How long do you think it will take for things like Sound Cards and TV Cards to adopt PCi-E

[Mr.Guvernment]

Sound card i dont think will ever use that much banwidth unless you get into high end audio system using large raw data.

Tv cards could due to the mpeg compressions and such and with digital tv / hdtv coming along rapidly.

i cant say when, they seem to be moving very slow - i guess in the server market PCI-X and 64bit PCI slots are enough and cheap to use instead of going PCIe :( or the chipsets just arent mature enough?

it will be nice when they do come out with these things.

[Goshawk]

Don't forget we're still living in the age of on-board video.

The majority of folks out there aren't gamers and don't really care what PCIe is, or even can do, or what AGP is.

Most people only care that it runs, and can get a connection to MSN or AOL to check email and save silly pictures

It's not the demand for higher bandwidth sockets thats bringing these things about, it's the likes of nVidia and ATI having a miniature arms race.


~ Gos

[Nandro]

It may help in the workstation market with pci-e raid cards and multiple high speed drives or as I stated earlier even solid state drives as they seem to be much more affordable now.

[AngelfireUk83]

How about SLi 1.5 sounds better to me just a small update from SLi 1.0 come on it's not like it's a stright upgrade is it. Cause if it was it would be double of what SLi 1.0 can do now like someone said above a small scare from CrossFire has made this announcment.