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ATI Multi GPU Will Need ATI Motherboard
- Thread starter Shifra
- Start date
MeanieMan said:And I would have treated the information the same as well.
The Inquirer said the same about Nvidia's SLi, which turned out to be a bunch of crap.
And then nVidia made it true by clamping down on NF4 Ultra to SLI hacks in Forceware
DougLite said:And then nVidia made it true by clamping down on NF4 Ultra to SLI hacks in Forceware
Thats only true for the nforce4 chipset family, to cut off cheap modders.
SLi still works for the Intel chipsets, mainly used in many of the early Alienware X2-ALX computers.
DermicSavage
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Jun 8, 2004
- Messages
- 1,107
Yet you're ignoring the fact that nvidia has patented the SLi bridge. So, I dont know if that blocks ATi from any type of card-to-card bridge, but it would sure as hell make it less of a pursuable option.MeanieMan said:And I would have treated the information the same as well.
The Inquirer said the same about Nvidia's SLi, which turned out to be a bunch of crap.
DermicSavage said:
How am I ignoring anything? And why does it matter if the bridge is patented. Its already been shown with the modded boards you don't need it (with a very small performance hit). Alienware's dual card solution also didn't need a bridge chip (without a performance hit).
MeanieMan said:How am I ignoring anything? And why does it matter if the bridge is patented. Its already been shown with the modded boards you don't need it (with a very small performance hit). Alienware's dual card solution also didn't need a bridge chip (without a performance hit).
last i heard alienwares own version ran the two video cards through a slave card in a PCI slot which put out the image.
Viper87227
Fully [H]
- Joined
- Jun 2, 2004
- Messages
- 18,017
The arguement on the bridge chip is pointless. ATI already said they wont be using one. Furthermore, it AMR will work with all the currect PCI-E X800 cards...anyone that owns one see a spot on the card for a bridge? Me neither. As far as nvidia goes, its been proven you don't need the bridge, but you get a performance hit. Someone correct me if I am wrong, but with out the bridge doesnt SLI run at 16x/2x vs 8x/8x?
Viper87227 said:
Yea it halves the two. ATI was looking into a native 16x2 board (which exist on the sever end) to help out with bandwhith issues which is actually where that bridge chip was suppose to help out alot. The R520 should stress the hell out of the information through 2 8X PCX in theory.
Viper87227 said:
from what i understand,
the PCIe speed isn't determined by the bridge but by the mode the motherboard is set in
if the motherboard is set in SLI the 2 PCIe slots run at 8x, if it is set in single card mode it is 16x for the single slot..
one interesting note i did find was this..
what i take from this is that with the SLI Bridge in place, it is equivelant to having both PCIe slots running at 16x...
i don't know if this is exactly true but i do know that the SLI bridge allows for the 2 cards to communicate with much higher bandwidth instead of it having to go over the PCIe bus.
anyone have any benchies with and without the sli bridge?
i may try some tonight if i get a moment...
no need..
from this
http://www.lostcircuits.com/video/6600gt_sli/3.shtml
you can clearly see the extra bandwidth the SLI Bridge is providing (and this is for the 6600GT) or the fact that the NV SLI is just not able to work without the bridge..
if you look at that particular benchmark..
SLI without the bridge is actually slower than a single card of the same model..
on one hand it makes sense.. having to push twice as much data over the PCIe bus @ 8x (first to process the info then to send it to the primary card) maybe showing the limit of a PCIe bus @ 8x..
from this
http://www.lostcircuits.com/video/6600gt_sli/3.shtml
you can clearly see the extra bandwidth the SLI Bridge is providing (and this is for the 6600GT) or the fact that the NV SLI is just not able to work without the bridge..
if you look at that particular benchmark..
SLI without the bridge is actually slower than a single card of the same model..
on one hand it makes sense.. having to push twice as much data over the PCIe bus @ 8x (first to process the info then to send it to the primary card) maybe showing the limit of a PCIe bus @ 8x..
Spank said:
True enough, although this means that ATI users will be waiting even longer as the recent RX200 (Radeon Xpress) chipsets for both Intel and AMD will not work with AMR "IF" the inquirer is correct. So while you may be able to keep your x800, you'll still need a whole new mobo.
Personally, I think this is a bad decision if this is acurate info. What the nForce4 SLI chipset currently does is allow through an SLI switch (card edge on current products, BIOS switch in about to be released products) to change the two PEG (PCI-E Graphics) slots to two x8 mode slots. Everything else is by "software" along with the sharing of the framebuffer information by the BRIDGE.
AMR will share the "framebuffer" information accross the PCI-E bus instead, which while it will work, will be significantly more traffic. This is self-throtling as ATI's cards get faster and capable of handling larger textures and whatnot will have ever "increasing" amount of framebuffer traffic over the PCI-E bus. So while the current spec "may" handle this, future graphics demands will eventually require some kinda bridge.
I suspect the "bridgeless" approach is to "appease" current ATI card owners that don't have a connector on their card for this method. Your ATI cards will work as advertised. Then at some point, perhaps with the release of the R520, there'll be a connector that will yield even more of a boost "BONUS"! This way current card owners are happy and future card owners will have AMR and Bridge benefits. This method would work on an nForce4 SLI board as is, but if ATI is "adding" to the PCI-E spec to allow them to make up for a bandwidth issue rather than a seperate bridge, this isn't necessarily as exciting as it would seem.
As shown, when the bridge is removed both cards still are operating on the PCI-E bus as "bridged" and are capable of SLI, but the framebuffer information does cause a performance hit.
Of course this is all pointless to debate as a released product can be a different story. We'll just have to wait and see and then benchmark both vendors products at that time.
Only !!!!!!s are certain of the results
And this is based on their desire to see their vendor be on top than reality sometimes. Kinda like who we feel deserves to win the pinnical sporting event for that type of sport, etc in the sports world.