Asus Dual GPU 6800Ultra!!!

[Killrose]

I wonder what sort of huge HS/fan that thing uses? Whatever it is, it better vent to the outside of the case.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: mamisano
I have a question.... why? Dual chip design died out with 3Dfx, and should have stayed that way. For the extra price some people are paying for SLI boards and 2 video cards, it just makes me question their faculties. With Dual Chip and SLI, how many more FPS do you need for these games? Is it just the fact of owning something that will score x% better on benchmarks for bragging rights?

Any of the current high-end cards should be sufficient for any gaming needs, at a lower price than sli/dual cards and without the hassle of driver issues to contend with. But hey, its your money.

*shrug*

Why do people pay $100 or more higher for an Ultra or PE model of a card when they could get 90-95% of the performance with the next model down?

Why do people pay >$200 for a video card when a 6600GT will run anything at 10X7X32?

Why do people buy water cooling?

Why do people pay $100s more for FX and EE cpus that only give them a few extra frames?

SLI is a better buy, by far. On some games it gives a very high performance return for the investment.

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: Rollo
SLI is a better buy, by far. On some games it gives a very high performance return for the investment.

Which games would those be, exactly? I was under the impression a single 6800U can handle any game currently out there unless it's set to a very high resolution or AA/AF.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Creig

Originally posted by: Rollo
SLI is a better buy, by far. On some games it gives a very high performance return for the investment.

Which games would those be, exactly? I was under the impression a single 6800U can handle any game currently out there unless it's set to a very high resolution or AA/AF.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2284&p=13
Doesn't look to me like a 6800U handles Doom3 at 16X12 4X8X very well, when Quake 4 comes out it will likely be worse for multiplayer rocket fights?

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2284&p=14
Doesn't look like a 6800U handles Far Cry at 16X12 4X8X either- any other questions Creig?


BTW- "very high resolution and AA/AF" are the reason people buy 6800GT/6800U SLI- it does cost a lot of money.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Creig

Originally posted by: Rollo
SLI is a better buy, by far. On some games it gives a very high performance return for the investment.

Which games would those be, exactly? I was under the impression a single 6800U can handle any game currently out there unless it's set to a very high resolution or AA/AF.

Uh... have you seen the benches (any of them) with, say, Doom3, FarCry, and HL2 when at high resolution with AA/AF?

Of course, you don't *need* to run at 1600x1200 with full AA/AF enabled... but if you want to, and want to still have playable framerates on the newest games, you'll be bringing pretty much any available single card to its knees. Like Rollo said, SLI gives a much better bang/buck improvement than other super-high-end upgrades (very fast RAM, super-fast CPUs, etc.)

There's also the professional market (doing CAD/CAM, etc. with huge high-polygon models), where getting, say, 75% more power for 100% more price is a pretty damn good deal compared to what this stuff costs in the first place.

 

[Creig]

I guess I should clarify. Most people don't try running games at 1600x1200 + 4x AA/8x AF. So it will only be a "better buy, by far" to those few who do. For the rest, it will be a waste of money.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Creig
I guess I should clarify. Most people don't try running games at 1600x1200 + 4x AA/8x AF. So it will only be a "better buy, by far" to those few who do. For the rest, it will be a waste of money.

Okay... but most people don't run at 1600x1200 with 4xAA/8xAF because it runs too slowly, not because they wouldn't want to if they could. You're putting the cart before the horse.

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: Matthias99
Okay... but most people don't run at 1600x1200 with 4xAA/8xAF because it runs too slowly, not because they wouldn't want to if they could. You're putting the cart before the horse.

No, I was referring to the "better buy, by far" comment. A single 6800U can run Doom III in High Quality at:


No AA/AF

1024x 768 - 105.4 FPS
1280x1024 - 88.7 FPS
1600x1200 - 73.9 FPS


All framerates are totally acceptable.


4X AA/8X AF

1024x 768 - 78.5 FPS
1280x1024 - 56.4 FPS
1600x1200 - 42.2 FPS


The only really questionable setting is 1600x1200 4X AA/8X AF. Even 42.2 FPS is playable, but definitely has room for improvement. 1280x1024 4X AA/8X AF is nearly 60 FPS which has been used as "the magic number" as far as acceptability.

So do you think the majority of gamers are going to think it's worth an additional $400-$500 in order to gain that one resolution/AA/AF combination? Probably not.

So I stand by what I said in that most people would consider it a waste of money for dual 6800u's.

For those that absolutely have to run at the highest possible settings or have money to burn, then there's no reason not to go with SLI'd 6800u's.

 

[Matthias99]

So do you think the majority of gamers are going to think it's worth an additional $400-$500 in order to gain that one resolution/AA/AF combination? Probably not.

So I stand by what I said in that most people would consider it a waste of money for dual 6800u's.

For those that absolutely have to run at the highest possible settings or have money to burn, then there's no reason not to go with SLI'd 6800u's.

Hey, I'm not disagreeing with that. But it's definitely a better deal to spend $400-500 more on a dual 6800GT/Ultra than it is to buy, say, an FX-55 CPU instead of a 3500+, or a lot of other things (watercooling, super-expensive RAM, 10/15KRPM hard drives) that people put in high-end 'gaming' rigs. I think that's what Rollo was getting at. It DOES actually improve performance across the board by quite a bit -- it's just that it's way overkill for anything but today's most demanding games with all the settings cranked up.

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: Matthias99
It DOES actually improve performance across the board by quite a bit -- it's just that it's way overkill for anything but today's most demanding games with all the settings cranked up.

Wasn't that my original point?

I was under the impression a single 6800U can handle any game currently out there unless it's set to a very high resolution or AA/AF.

I'm not disagreeing that SLI can improve performance by a large margin. It's just that the settings where it actually takes framerates from "unacceptable" to "acceptable" are exceedingly small. Most people wouldn't want to spend such a large chunk of money to be able to play at those settings. It's simply not a "better buy, by far" for most gamers.

 

[Matthias99]

I'm not disagreeing that SLI can improve performance by a large margin. It's just that the settings where it actually takes framerates from "unacceptable" to "acceptable" are exceedingly small.

You should, to be fair, also take into account the settings where it takes you from "acceptable" to "really, really fast", which can be significant as well. Plus, even more demanding games will be out at some point, which will make the differences more dramatic. But yes, generally, most gamers would be more than happy with the performance of a single high-end card these days.

Most people wouldn't want to spend such a large chunk of money to be able to play at those settings.

Well, *most* people wouldn't even buy a $200 6600GT, so I'm not sure how relevant this is. There is a market (a small one, but a market nonetheless) for super-high-end parts that cost more than a whole midrange computer.

It's simply not a "better buy, by far" for most gamers.

I think it sort of depends on what you are comparing it to. It's a 'better buy, by far' than an FX-55 CPU if you're looking to improve gaming performance (which is what Rollo was comparing it to when he made the comment you keep quoting). I wouldn't say it's a good bang/buck compared to, say, a single 6600GT (and I don't think anyone else would, either). IMO, it's not worth the cost given the performance of single cards today -- of course, I don't even think a single $400 card is worth it compared to what you can get for $200.

 

[ohnnyj]

I enjoy playing at 1920x1200 on my widescreen monitor and single card solutions can't really offer that so SLI is the only way I can play games like HL2 at this res w/2xAA and 16xAF. When a lot of action is going on onscreen it can dip into the 30s but stays in the 100s usually. So by having even faster graphics cards one can ensure that no matter what happens on screen and at no matter what settings one can have acceptable and playable framerates.

 

[Fenuxx]

I was lucky enough to get my 6800GT for less than $200 (eBay :heart: ). I think that it is the single greatest card to have ever produced electric signals sent to my monitor for me. This whole SLI thing is really annoying to me, not because I have AGP, which, in fact, I could care less. The thing that bothers me is that PCI-E and SLI both cost WAY more than they should, especially for the performance that they give. To wit: a PCI-E (SLI-enabled) mobo will cost you roughly $200 or more (maybe less). Then, say buy a 6800U for $500 and another for another $500. Is the performance increase you get worth paying another $500 over the crazy-expensive card you just bought? IMHO, HELL MFin NO!! The increase one gets with SLI is roughly 40-60% (depending on the game, maybe a bit more), but nowhere NEAR 2x the framerate of a single card. This is the way I look at it, and think this whole PCI-E\SLI thing is moot. Null and void. Now, don't get me wrong, the idea is great, but this whole "new world order" thing that AMD\Intel\NVIDIA\ATI is pushing with PCI-E is a bunch of crap, and in the back of everybody's minds, they know it too. PCI-E wasn't even necessary when it was introduced, and I still don't think it is.

Now, some say that it "alleviates bandwidth restrictions". From what? Sound? SATA? Ethernet? RAID? What? The answer is NOTHING. Chipset manufacturers have spent the better part of a decade trying to move everything away from the PCI bus, into a native setting. Ethernet - Integrated. SATA - Integrated. RAID - Integrated. Sound - Integrated. Now, we all know that most onboard sound sucks ass, so thats why the Audigy2\4 is still alive and kicking. So great, where's the PCI-E version of that, if the bandwidth is needed SOOO MUCH! There isn't one. The only things a gamer or power user would ever need, thats not integrated in a high end mobo, is a sound card, MAYBE a network card, and a TV-Tuner. I could see PCI-E being great for all those newb "eMachines" things, where everything is a chip that plugs into a corresponding bus, but certainly not a power user's machine.

AHHHH, I've finally vented that. Needed to do that for a while.

 

[Gamingphreek]

Geforcetony that entire speel made almost no sense. You have most of your statements wrong also.

-Kevin

 

[CherryBOMB]

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer

Originally posted by: CherryBOMB
Does any one remember MaximumPC Mag back when the Voodo was hot in 1998?
On the back cover of several mags there was a Photo of a Video card with like 7 to 10 chips on it,It looked like 15" long, had multiple companies chips on it.
I will have to try to dig that look out and scan for this thread.
And yes there is talk of AGP Runing with PCI-X on the same board,refrence][ in the CPU mag as of late!
-CB

you mean this ?

bitchin fast 3d

I can't belive you found this :Q nice work! SPEACHLESS=so cool

 

[Insomniak]

I hate to kill this party, but did anyone else notice the fact that this card doesn't have a single molex connector?

Regular, single core 6800Us need two lines from the 12v themselves, meaning this thing would need presumably three or four, yet none are visible?

I think we're in photoshop country folks, unless the molexs are hiding on the backside, which would be especially odd.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Insomniak
I hate to kill this party, but did anyone else notice the fact that this card doesn't have a single molex connector?

Regular, single core 6800Us need two lines from the 12v themselves, meaning this thing would need presumably three or four, yet none are visible?

I think we're in photoshop country folks, unless the molexs are hiding on the backside, which would be especially odd.

There appear to be two PEG power connectors (the 6-pin PCI Express graphics connectors) on the top edge of the card. They're very obvious if you look at the photo. PCI Express graphics cards don't use 4-pin 'molex' connectors.

There's nothing magical about doing this; it's not really very different from what Gigabyte did on their dual-6600GT card.

 

[nRollo]

Mathias99 is right, I was saying it's a better "bang for buck" buy than most PCParts, thought my examples clarified that.

 

[sparkyclarky]

It's most likely real, but simply a prototype that will never reach production. Sapphire was doing similar things with ATI cards in the past.

 

[jiffylube1024]

If this was a magical Photo-chop, methinks they would make the design a bit more elegant looking. This looks like what would be necessary for a dual 6800U card: a really really effing tall PCB with copious amounts of space around the GPUs for the memory traces.

There's nothing elegant or sleek looking about this card; it's brute force all the way. Surprisingly few # of caps though, especially for an Nvidia card...

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: jiffylube1024
Surprisingly few # of caps though

Noticed that myself. You'd think a card of that length/power consumption would need more, not less.

 

[PrayForDeath]

Hard OCP and Digit life have some pics for the card with the cooler (single fan) on their homepage.

 

[zakee00]

http://hardocp.com/
this is for real; they saw it in person. i doubt they will make many of them though probably a limited edtion product.
i'd rather have two seperate video cards then 2 cores on one card personally, less heat issues i would assume.

 

[PrayForDeath]

Originally posted by: zakee00
http://hardocp.com/
this is for real; they saw it in person. i doubt they will make many of them though probably a limited edtion product.
i'd rather have two seperate video cards then 2 cores on one card personally, less heat issues i would assume.

What if you had the possibilty of running dual-cores on AGP? Wouldn't that be nice?