SLI and x600 / x300

O

oROEchimaru

Supreme [H]ardness
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Does anyone know if the pci cards will support sli mode? ( i think thats the term ) having duel video cards like the voodoo 2 days. i thought i remeber hearing one of the x800's if they came out in pci would support this. maybe i am making this all up.

if so, maybe having an x600 would be a good investment for people like me who only can spend 1k on a system. then maybe 6months-18months i could save up for the second x600 and have a really nice system upgrade. if this is possible, i think the x600 has its place, if not i dont think people are jumping to upgrade their non-agp motherboard machines lol, or maybe we shouldn't misjudge the x600 till we see some benchmarks.

anyone who can give feedback would be helpful, its just something i was thinking about when i could not sleep last night:)
 
It would be the first I've heard of mainstream SLI since the voodoo2. But I haven't been very up on new cards.
 
doesnt that new alienware system have two X800's in SLI (or something like it)? If aleinware can do it, im sure other cards / adapters will make it happen.
 
yes the alienware machine will, which they just make pcs from parts, and not a whole lot of manufacturing themselves. so i think someone will make a mb that can do it if they can. and if so 2 x600's would be a cool thing:) well they might perform less then 1 x800 who knows till we see benches then benches in sli.
 
Actually the alienware is a very proprietary system. It has a special motherboard (two high speed PCI-E graphics slots, uber rare) and a special PCI controller/splicer to output the image correctly (which can only go out as analogue as each card produce either hte top or bottom half)

Overall its a) very proprietary b) is very VERY expensive to develop so you probably won't ever see it done with $1XX/$2XX bracket cards, and c) won't be available from your favorite online store or Fry's anytime in the forseable future.

This ain't strap in two PCI videocards and connect them with some floppy/ide cable-esque thing like the voodoo2 days.
 
Warriorprophet said:
Actually the alienware is a very proprietary system. It has a special motherboard (two high speed PCI-E graphics slots, uber rare) and a special PCI controller/splicer to output the image correctly (which can only go out as analogue as each card produce either hte top or bottom half)

Overall its a) very proprietary b) is very VERY expensive to develop so you probably won't ever see it done with $1XX/$2XX bracket cards, and c) won't be available from your favorite online store or Fry's anytime in the forseable future.

This ain't strap in two PCI videocards and connect them with some floppy/ide cable-esque thing like the voodoo2 days.
Click to expand...

Actually current Alienware machines are standard off the shelf components except for the casing. Which they have started to have made for them. Before they were just Antec variants.

However Alienware like most OEM's would like to have a more proprietary system setup. I think now Alienware is large enough to make that happen. In this way they can cut their manufacturing costs and increase profits.
 
Ailenware has had this kind of technology for a long time, it will never be implemented on a large scale.
 
Alienware has developed a proprietary solution however I suspect there is more to come from others.
 
jacuzz1 said:
Alienware has developed a proprietary solution however I suspect there is more to come from others.
Click to expand...


Why? There hasn't been a mainstream SLI part since the voodoo2. I don't really see that changing.
 
My statement is pure speculation. Mankind will do things becuase its plausable. In an age of mulitple vendors producing essentialy the same thing, there is a need to standout. There is no pracitcle reason that i can thinks of other than marketing however as exemplified by agp 8x and early DDR designs, marketing tends to push the envelope and market driven inovation tends to be a self fullfilling prophecy.
 
There is nothing new about the Alienware dual video card system, and no it is not SLI.

This is PGC, Metabyte (Wicked3d) developed this back in 1999 and sold the technology to Alienware. http://www.alienware.com/press_release_pages/press_release_template.aspx?FileName=press050799.asp

But with AGP cards there was no real market for it, now that there will be motherboards with two PCI-E 16x slots, PGC can again raise it's little head.

BTW:
PGC is mostly a software solution, where the drivers split the display in half and send each half to different video cards.
(PGC = Parallel Graphics Cards)
SLI is a hardware solution where the cards are interconnected and each card renders alternate lines on the screen.
(SLI = Scan Line Interleave)
AFR (ATI's version) is a hardware solution where each alternate frame is rendered by a different GPU.
(AFR = Alternate Frame Rendering)

Of the three PGC is the most effecient as with SLI and AFR both GPU's need all the texture and vertex data for the whole screen, where as PGC each card only needs the data for it's part of the screen.

==>Lazn
 
and where they purchased the technology is irrelevant to my statements.
 
I saw an interview on G4TechTV about the Alienware system. Its 2 PCI-Express 6800Us.
 
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