why no dual GPU cards?

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matt167

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Why has no company coined dual GPU cards? With most motherboards having at least 2 X16 PCIE slots, why not have one single card with 2 GPU's within it, and a ribbon cable as part of the card to connect with the second slot?

Or a single GPU that could utilize bandwidth from both slots..
 
No need to, Still not maxing out the bandwith of the PCIe slots. Also both AMD and NVIDIA make dual gpu cards.
 

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matt167 said:
Why has no company coined dual GPU cards? With most motherboards having at least 2 X16 PCIE slots, why not have one single card with 2 GPU's within it, and a ribbon cable as part of the card to connect with the second slot?

Or a single GPU that could utilize bandwidth from both slots..
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Where have you been? First dual GPU video card I can think of that was released to consumers is the NVIDIA 7950 GX2, which was released a decade ago in 2006.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2006/06/13/bfgtech_geforce_7950_gx2/1#.WGVnE1L2aUk

 
Never heard of a Titan Z either have you?

J5LWZKdh.jpg


Don't forget the 295X2 either from team Red, both of these are pretty new cards, along with the older 3870 X2 and I think the 4870 also came in a X2...Wait, I think the 5870 also had a X2, but I skipped that gen, so yeah, pretty much every gen we have had a dual GPU card somewhere.
 
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I may have been living under a rock somewhere.. I guess I've simply lost track.. I've never had enough to buy better than a midrange card. Actually I just spent $225 on an RX 480 and that's the most I've ever spent.
 
The problem with 2 GPU cards is that in order to make both chips happy, you typically have to lower clock speeds to accomodate the increased TDP of the cards. Most people opt for two single cards...often starting with one and adding a second later once prices and stock levels improve. To try and mitigate the TDP of a dual GPU card, often you get into triple slot territory...which can really hurt those who need those slots and often blocks high bandwidth PCI-E slots on the motherboard in the process.
 
I'm 28. But my earlier days of computing, I wasn't funded gaming hardware because my dad didn't believe in gaming on computer. So even though I remember 3dfx and " accelerated graphics " being on games I wished I could play. I didnt have anything better than an isa or PCI card until 2003 when I started working and could afford my own stuff. I built my first computer with my own parts to be able to play doom 3 which I bought at release. It was only a geforce 440 MX but it was enough. Ran a sempron 2500 processor that I overclocked to 2600 specs. I guess I overlooked all the more recent cards.
 
HD 4870 Quad Crossfire Review

Just like then, there are only a limited number of games with good CF/SLI scaling,

It was a lot easier to make multi-GPU work back in the days of 3dfx and ATI's Rage MAXX. Now that game engines do so much more things on the graphics card, and have so much more programmable elements, the days of easy scaling are gone.
 
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Well, everyone said that but I'll repeat - power consumption and cooling issues. On top of that you get the same sli/crosfire problems. And it also becomes stupidly expensive, as it's only worth to use top of the line chips for such a gpu. Now, you can sell a 1080 to someone. You can sell two 1080s to someone else for sli. The same product caters to two groups of people. A 1080x2 would need extra r&d money and it would only be interesting to very few people and so it would cost much more than two separate 1080 cards. But, since chips on the 1080x2 would share cooling and power delivery they would perform worse than two separate 1080 cards while costing more. The x2 cards were mainly used, afaik, by people who wanted 4-way sli - and that is dead.
Tl;dr: Two gpus as a single card would perform worse and cost more than two separate cards based on the same gpu.
 
I would be interested in Dual GPU solutions that has better implementation. Basically, it has all the disadvantages of SLI. Not much better performances and higher heat in one area.
 
RAutrey said:
Gotcha... I believe they were within a year of each other. It's a shame rampage never saw the light of day.
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True. The Voodoo5 was designed to be a scalable chip solution to start with though - 1-4, I believe. The MAXX was literally two bolted together :p
 
Quatum3d were shipping a Dual GPU board back in 1997, based on the Voodoo1 chips. Always wanted one of those boards, but could not afford them.
 
drlqpham said:
I would be interested in Dual GPU solutions that has better implementation. Basically, it has all the disadvantages of SLI. Not much better performances and higher heat in one area.
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There isn't a better interconnect on the consumer side, and I don't think we'll ever get one unless NVLink will trickle down from the HPC business. Dual-GPU cards are pretty much dead.
 
6990, 7990, GTX 690 GTX 590 , Titan Z, 295X2, Radeon Pro Duo, 4870x2, 5870x2, 6870x2, 9800 GX2, 7950 GX2, 460 2Win, 560 2Win, 5970, 6870x2, 4890x2, 4870x2, 3870x2, Powercolor Devil 13...

Plus several older ones and workstation cards ;)
 
rgMekanic said:
6990, 7990, GTX 690 GTX 590 , Titan Z, 295X2, Radeon Pro Duo, 4870x2, 5870x2, 6870x2, 9800 GX2, 7950 GX2, 460 2Win, 560 2Win, 5970, 6870x2, 4890x2, 4870x2, 3870x2, Powercolor Devil 13...

Plus several older ones and workstation cards ;)
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None more sexy than the ASUS Ares III. Single-slot R9 295X2, basically.
upload_2017-1-4_11-22-58.png
 
metadata said:
Quatum3d were shipping a Dual GPU board back in 1997, based on the Voodoo1 chips. Always wanted one of those boards, but could not afford them.
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Damn you're right - I forgot about that. They had one for the Voodoo2 as well - quad chips (since the 2 was a dual-chip solution). Rare. Powerful. somewhat buggy too IIRC, especially on teh Voodoo1.
 
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