Multiple Graphics Card Technology

There's been some interesting developments in graphics technology over the last few days... take a look at what's on it's way in the coming months...



Who ever thought we'd be going back to the days of Dual Graphics cards?

 

Frankly, I dont see the need. The latest video cards, like the X800 Pro, will provide more than playable framerates at all resolutions; I personally cant even tell the difference from 34 and 98 frames per second, and I can get 40 frames per second in virtually any game at high resolution. By the time a game comes out where the SLI solution will be practical, I can just purchase a single slot solution that will be cheaper, and most likely better, than this.

On the other hand, for those who want the tech, I think Nvidia has found its edge over ATI; very few people will want to invest in a rediculously expensive alienware system when you can make your own custom desktop, probably using Nforce 4 and one of the latest Athlon 64 chips. Alienware systems are quite expensive, which is why Nvidia may just come out on top in this case. Now, Alienware has advertised that their AVA is compatible with all cards-what would happen if you ran these all together? My guess would be incompatability, but hey, its fun to dream.

EDIT: I mean using quad Nvidia video cards and SLI inside the Alienware system... Oh the droolage...

 

you mean running 2 6800's and 2 X800's? or one of each?

The cards need to be identical, so I don't think that two pairs would work, although, a pair of pairs would work if there's a board that supports four PCI-Express 16x slots.

 

I wonder how hot the card on top will get.. isn't nvidia breaking their own rule about having the next add-on card in the system so close to the video card?

 

I agree that alienware systems are waaaay too expensive, and with the addition of Dual GPU's wont help bring the cost down either. This could be big, i mean now we can actually play games at speed we have never thought we could before. Anyone wanna lend me 6 grand lol??

 

Looks awesome just need to make some serious cash now.

 

i reckon ati will have some SLI business out fairly soon tbh, i doubt they'd let nvidia get an advantage like that over them
and seeing as nvidia's PCI-E system sucks (its an on-card agp/pci-e bridge) compared to ATi's native pci-e system it should be pretty awesome

 

Guys, stuff the cost or need or practicality or noise or whatever, this is 2 cards together we are talking about here!!!

Who cares whether any of us need them, you know we all want them..........

 

Now THAT's the spirit

 

I agree with the spirit there, Question,, with the pcb bridge, how much room would that leave to put in a waterblock??????

Question 2: Would it be possible to re-create the bridge on our own, but mod it to accept 3 or 4 cards at the same time????

 

Hi B3CK,

at the present moment, I've not seen the bridge first hand - NVIDIA have only paper released the technology so far; however we will get the chance to take a look at this technology first hand as soon as there are systems available that utilise the SLI bridge.

The second question... I don't think the SLI bridge can be modded at present, besides the motherboard would have to have support for 3 or 4 PCI-Express 16x slots before it's worth considering expanding the bridge

 

120w Gfx cards
x 2
-----
240w + oc barton 100w + 246w pelt = 586w I think my thermochill 120.3 isnt going to be up to the job