Watch out SLI here is CrossFire // ATI vs Nvidia

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2005/06/02/crossfire_preview/1.html


looks like nvidia is gonna have to clean up their act if crossfire catches on... the long awaited ATI answer to Nvidia SLI

 

Its like sli but better,ie gift tokens and cash.It fixes all the probs with sli,you can use different cards,different speeds,different brands and it can work with any game,maybe too good to be true?

They havnt managed to get round the buying 2 cards part,plus now you have to buy the magic cable,thats kind of the stumbling block for me.

 

am I the only one who would much prefer a dual GPU card than having to buy two video cards? I think it's just a conspiracy to get us to buy two of the same thing .. kinna like buying two star wars action figures

 

i agree with you Pyrate, and it also takes up much more space

 

To be honest with you...I din't know there was such a thing as a dual GPU card . I'm a shitty geek. In addition to the Extra card, don't you have to buy the special mobo? why can't they just adapt the technology so you can hook up 2 normal PCI slot VCs? I see no problem with that (but I don't design graphics cards, so maybe I should shut my mouth)

 

"Roland for you know not what you say"

Your exactly right,that is how this "technology" got started,2 pci cards,called 3dfx voodoo's back then came up with the idea of hooking 2 cards up to each other,they used a system called sli scan line interleave,each card was responsible for one alternating line on the screen,it is exactly the same technology they use now,but back then it didnt really work,the performance was not worth buying 2 cards,anyway after they realizing no one was buying,they kind of forgot about that idea and started making single cards faster again,as of today a 6800 ultra is fast enough for any game in the world there is no use for 2,slightly different reason but I think that sli will slip back into the folds of history.

Theres a pattern here,non of the technology is new,they want people to think it is,their job is to make you upgrade your computer as often as possible,giving you as little new technology as you will accept,its a system called dripfeed,what lab rats drink from.

They have the next couple of years planned out,if you bought a car"excuse the analogy".It has four wheels,a smart ass comes along and says that car will go faster with 5 wheels,they try it it does,they keep the five wheels.Now everyone has bought the car with 5 hubs and the special new stearing system.Same guy lets try 6 wheels,again its faster,everyone goes out and buys 6 wheel cars.Then a different genius comes along and says theres too many wheels on this car,we only need 4 wheels but fatter tyres,they try the fat tyres and the car goes faster.So everyone says "why couldnt I just put fat tyres on my 4 wheel car?"
And nvidia/ati /any of them says"The fat tyres wont fit the old 4 wheel cars,because the fat tyres have different shaped hubs that we decided to change for no reason whatsoever"

And round we go

Basically its just one big circle,of them making stuff not fit,this took me far to long to type and there a big vein,pulsing on my forehead.LOL

 

Quote:"roland you know not what you say"
Quote: "I'm a shitty geek"

OK. Thanks for another lesson of "How Business Rapes You", Rikky . But that's not exactly what I meant. I meant:

Step 1)Take two video cards (PCI interface *NOT 16X*, same model)

Step 2)look for two mobo PCI slots (I don't remember the tech terms, you can get 5 of 'em on an ATX mid board)

Step 3) Hook said cards to said slots on said board

Step 4) Get some cable (like the crossfire thing) that'll hook two cards up to 1 monitor

Step 5) Enjoy benefits of Dual video card Video

THAT! Why can't they do that?

EDIT: You gotta, be pretty,angry to type, like, this. OH GOD! My english teachers would roll in their graves had I not cremated them! lol

 

The problem with one-up man ship in the comp industry is that they are so busy making the best that compatibility goes out the window.
I think to truly be the best you need to be the most compatible.

 

Put simply the pci bus doesnt have the data throughput,for the latest and greatest video cards they gave up on it,stopped developing it and moved on to agp so,I'm actually not sure exactly why this happened,the first pc I ever had came with an agp port about 7 years ago,so the history of the death of pci is abit before I got interested in comps.

 

I've actually only heard of one, gigabyte makes a dual GPU 6600 card, but you can only use it with a matching motherboard(from gigabyte.) From the review I read of it, iirc the guy said it wasn't worth the price, even though it was very near the performance of two 6800s SLI'ed. It must be pretty expensive I'm pretty sure they have dual-GPU CAD cards but I don't keep up with that because I don't do any 3D animating.

 

I'm not sure so I left it out of my bitch at commerce,but I'm sure 3dfx made a duel core 3000 or 3500 PCI,and this flopped also,about 4 years ago.

 

here is the one from Gigabyte:

http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20041216_115811.html

http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/video/gigabyte/sli/3d1b.jpg

and here are two by ASUS:

http://my.so-net.net.tw/myenix/ASUS/6600GTDAUL/001.JPG

http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=2209&s=1

the Dual Core Ultra is huge!!!

 

HOLY CRAP IS THAT REAL,My gt was a tight fit,where the hell can you put that?LOL.I want one.

 

here with the heatsink on:

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?threadid=137148

and apparently you can run it in SLi.... if u live close enough to a powerstation

 

OLLEY THAT IS ABSOLUTELY INSANE

I want 2 in sli mode LOL

What kind of cpu would you need to feed them?What kind of game could use them?

Who cares,I want three.lol

 

Can't wait for dual cases! http://forums.majorgeeks.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

 

There are some differences between the ATI and Nvidia implementations. What I am about to write is based on my understanding of the technologies involved and may have some mistakes, but I'm around 85% certain here.

The 3Dfx method of scan line interleve(however you spell it) required two of the same card type because the cards would handle alternate lines in the frame being rendered.

The current Nvidia implementation shares with each card covering every other frame. So each frame isn't displayed any faster, but overall you get a higher framerate. Note that you need driver support for each application for this to work, so it's not a universal improvement to framerates.

The ATI Crossfire implementation tiles each frame and assigns each tile to a video card. As a result, you can have two different cards, one faster than the other, and the faster card will render more of the frame. You don't need specific application support for this feature, just driver support which I've heard has been included in the ATI drivers for a while, there just hasn't been the hardware to make it work.

I would guess that integrated video plus two PCI Express video cards would provide full acceleration with the ATI method since the system of assigning tiles to the different cards could be set to use three GPUs, not just two, but I havn't heard if this works. The key would be to have the main Crossfire card available that can handle it.

The current Nvidia implementations support one card at PCI Express 16x or two at 8x each. The ATI implementations may be similarly crippled, or may end up giving a full 16x to each card in a SLI implementation. I'm not sure but will be keeping an eye out.

When all is said and done, the ATI method seems to be better since ALL 3D applications would be accelerated by their multi-card technology, but only time will tell.

 

Its the same way some digital T.V braodcasts its signal in the U.K,by spliiting the picture up into tiles and sending the packages as blocks of information,but when there is a weak signal or any other kind of disruption the picture splits into blocks.

I can imagine the same happening with the crossfire system,whether it be weak drivers,poor game coding or poorly designed hardware,it overcomplicates on already complicated system.Depending on how complex the tile system is I suppose will determin how apparent these anomolies will be,the same can be said about the other "sli's",but I think rooting out problems with those system will be much easier,I mean if a game started to break up into tiles and/or parts were being rendered out of place in your favourite game where would you start?

I dont even want to think how big future game patches are gonna be.lol

 

Also, the ATI crossfire setup requires a crossfire card and another card of some sort...

There are 4 rendering modes for crossfire: Supertiling, Scissor, Alternate Frame render, and Crossfire super AA mode....

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050602/ati_crossfire-03.html

 

This is ancient news...but...

Gigabyte is working on a 4 graphics cards on one board. Quad mode. Implementing 4 sli based nvidia cards...

http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20050526_155843.html

 

dual gpu in sli = quad gpus. which is probably the smarter idea; I dont see 4x6800Ultras performing properly with all that massive heat build up.

 

..... This is an age old battle that should have stayed dead.... If Nvidia hadnt screwed over voodoo in the first place we would have had a constant stream of new SLI based graphic solutions for the past 5 years and they would be costing an arm and a leg.... and now ATI wants a piece of it. I am beginning to think that the only reason they are even doing it anymore is to make as much money on possible before the PC becomes a useless platform for gaming. It seems that it has already begone its decline....

 

I've been hearing the words "games on PCs are declining" and "Consoles will kill the pc game market" since the invention of the Nintendo.

I believe, IMHO, that there are more developers who design games for PCs than all the consoles put together.

 

My zx spectrum 128k is still my favourite gaming pc,it was the first computer I ever downloaded a game by revording it from the radio.lol

And still sits proudly in the loft.

 

here is some news on crossfire, also a comparison between 2 x850xt and 2 gf6800Ultra... enjoy

http://www.hkepc.com/hwdb/ati-crossfire-5.htm