HOLY CRAP!! NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra PCI-E.........S L I!!!!!!!!

[jfall]

Anyone think ATI will release something similar?

 

[morksbeanbag]

GOOD GOD MAN! i thought that motherboards with PCI express would only have 1 16x slot. are these things really going to be made or are they just like some sort of prototype thing?

 

[THUGSROOK]

more info.....

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/nvidia_sli/default.asp

 

[Carbonadium4]

Yeah i just want pcie for scsi controllers... faster ones..

 

[GTaudiophile]

Haha! Desperate measures for desperate times, IMO. Sounds like what 3dFX had to do to stay competitive. Now look at NVDA repeating history in the face of ATI.

NVDA can barely get the AGP 6800U into retail channels in significant numbers and here they come with an SLI solution? Just where are people suppose to buy TWO PCIe models? Expensive, hot, requires a personal nuclear reactor, and special mobo = DOA.

NVDA will announce with all sorts of hype and fanfare, show lots of benches comparing it to a X800XT, and get the loyals in the press to claim NVDA the new King of FPS! Then again, maybe ATI will respond with an X800XT MAXX?

 

[DerekWilson]

Our NDA article is up...

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=2097

I'm not sure I agree with you on "what 3dfx had to do to stay competitive" thing ... with the voodoo 2 they were top of the heap, and were still there when SLI came along AFAIK ... it wasn't til voodoo 3 that things tanked and never picked up again IMO. Though it has been a while since I refreshed that particular bit of history in my mind... mabye i'll go dig up some old articles...

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
Haha! Desperate measures for desperate times, IMO. Sounds like what 3dFX had to do to stay competitive. Now look at NVDA repeating history in the face of ATI.

NVDA can barely get the AGP 6800U into retails channels in significant numbers and here they come with an SLI solution? Just where are people suppose to buy TWO PCIe models? Expensive, hot, requires a personal nuclear reactor, and special mobo = DOA.

NVDA will announce with all sorts of hype and fanfare, show lots of benches comparing it to a X800XT, and get the loyals in the press to claim NVDA the new King of FPS! Then again, maybe ATI will respond with an X800XT MAXX?

I think it makes sense and follows the same logic that is behind the CPU makers moving to dual cores. Ati will either follow suit or get beatdown hard in the king of speed race.

 

[beatle]

Interesting how Nvidia is borrowing the acronym from the defunct 3dfx technology. They're just calling it "Scalable Link Interface" instead of "Scan Line Interleaving." It's a familiar term to any hardcore gamer.

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
Haha! Desperate measures for desperate times, IMO. Sounds like what 3dFX had to do to stay competitive. Now look at NVDA repeating history in the face of ATI.

NVDA can barely get the AGP 6800U into retails channels in significant numbers and here they come with an SLI solution? Just where are people suppose to buy TWO PCIe models? Expensive, hot, requires a personal nuclear reactor, and special mobo = DOA.

NVDA will announce with all sorts of hype and fanfare, show lots of benches comparing it to a X800XT, and get the loyals in the press to claim NVDA the new King of FPS! Then again, maybe ATI will respond with an X800XT MAXX?

At the end of the year the hardware limitations should gone (if nForce4 boards rolls out), and they probably will have the production running with a higher yield. Sure, only few will be able and willing to do such a setup, but that's what dreams are made of

 

[DerekWilson]

Also, even if you guys don't think this thing is viable now, what would you think if NVIDIA actually listened to our conclusion -- truely upgradeable graphics by tacking on another GPU -- it would work if they could standardize on a truely "scalable link interface" for current and future GPUs ... load balancing software should be able to handle balancing for different performance characteristics along side what it does already ...

But we'll see if the true potential of this announcement is ever tapped in due time... For now, its still Pretty Cool (TM) even if it isn't practical

 

[Pariah]

Originally posted by: KristopherKubicki
Looks like NVidia just gave a swift kick to the teeth of Alienware.

I think more like NVIDIA was the technology behind what alienware was doing. But thats just me.

Kristopher

Today's articles certainly look like a kick to the teeth for Alienware, not a cooperative operation.

 

[3chordcharlie]

SLI automatically looks after load-balancing, but at the expense of both cards needing to essentially know all the geometry of the whole scene, IIRC. So the cards were sharing the load of rendering, but both needed to have all the information about the scene. I would guess this is the reason for the top/bottom split - so that each card is essentially rendering a smaller scene, rather than 'half' of a larger one.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
Haha! Desperate measures for desperate times, IMO. Sounds like what 3dFX had to do to stay competitive. Now look at NVDA repeating history in the face of ATI.

NVDA can barely get the AGP 6800U into retail channels in significant numbers and here they come with an SLI solution? Just where are people suppose to buy TWO PCIe models? Expensive, hot, requires a personal nuclear reactor, and special mobo = DOA.

NVDA will announce with all sorts of hype and fanfare, show lots of benches comparing it to a X800XT, and get the loyals in the press to claim NVDA the new King of FPS! Then again, maybe ATI will respond with an X800XT MAXX?

This post of pure unadulterated scared fanboism almost makes me want to go read what they're posting over at Rage3D forums...

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Megatomic

Originally posted by: GTaudiophile
Haha! Desperate measures for desperate times, IMO. Sounds like what 3dFX had to do to stay competitive. Now look at NVDA repeating history in the face of ATI.

NVDA can barely get the AGP 6800U into retail channels in significant numbers and here they come with an SLI solution? Just where are people suppose to buy TWO PCIe models? Expensive, hot, requires a personal nuclear reactor, and special mobo = DOA.

NVDA will announce with all sorts of hype and fanfare, show lots of benches comparing it to a X800XT, and get the loyals in the press to claim NVDA the new King of FPS! Then again, maybe ATI will respond with an X800XT MAXX?

This post of pure unadulterated scared fanboism almost makes me want to go read what they're posting over at Rage3D forums...

GTA probably cut and pasted from what he posted at Rage3D.

Doesn't look like nVidia will need "SLI" in the "performance crown" race.

It's just this is a great solution - especially as it can be adapted to Quattros and 3D workstation rendering (where this is "chump change" for a nearly 2x faster solution).

OF COURSE ati will follow with their MAXX solution - they have to if they are even gonna stay in this race before r500.

:roll:

"Comparing to X800"???!!?

Dual Ultras will eat an o/c'd x800 XT-PE for breakfast and spit out the pixel dust . . . .

 

[Steg55]

W00T! That is some SERIOUS graphics processing power.

I just hope the nforce 4 (mentioned here) has more than 24 PCI lanes so it supplies to full 16x bandwidth to both cards. Seeing as nvidia are designing both the cards and the chipset pci tunnel then they should know what the cards need and hense supply them with all the required bandwidth.

The toms hardware guide piece on this is quite detailed with a few extra bits anandtech missed (here)

I just hope this method is faster than the Alienware version.

I don't think ATi will be able to do something similar, at least on a hardware level, this round. Nvidia have clearly designed the NV40 with this in mind and have quite carefully built the controller onto the GPU. ATi would probebly need to do some serious redesigning to add that functionality....

But then again....could a bridge chip be enginerred to do the job? Thats a possibility

Oh and a message for GTaudiophile
Fanboyism is more or less accepted these days - everyone is biased towards either nVidia or ATi in some way. Obvious fan boys posts will be shuned by the otherside and accepted by the side you support. However, insulting the genius of 3DFX will get you nowhere, and the community will happily stand together and support 3DFX, nVidia or ATi fanboy alike. 3DFX will forever remain as the best EVER producer of graphics processing units and holding the most 'Firsts' in the graphics industry. Hell, every time your machine renders a textured polygon its using techniques first developed by 3DFX with the first ever 3D proccessor. This may well be a fanboy post - but the difference is that EVERYONE can respect the might of 3DFX.

One of these days I will buy a plinth for my Voodoo 3 2000 and mount it - it was the first card I had that supported OpenGL, and the cause of my addiction to Quake 3.

Now some one hand me a new motherboard, a FX-55, some LL ram, 2 6800's......

Steg

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Steg55
W00T! That is some SERIOUS graphics processing power.

I don't think ATi will be able to do something similar, at least on a hardware level, this round. Nvidia have clearly designed the NV40 with this in mind and have quite carefully built the controller onto the GPU. ATi would probebly need to do some serious redesigning to add that functionality....

But then again....could a bridge chip be enginerred to do the job? Thats a possibility

Steg

ati DID have their own dual-chip solution with the Rage MAXX . . . only they could never get it to work with Win2k - ever. . . . Upset a lot of people and left bitterness toward ati that still persists.

I believe ati already has their own solution built-into the r300 core that just probably needs "unlocking" for that "emergency" (their fall refresh).


just a guess . . .

 

[Steg55]

ati DID have their own dual-chip solution with the Rage MAXX . . . only they could never get it to work with Win2k - ever. . . . Upset a lot of people and left bitterness toward ati that still persists.

Heh, ok i did not know about that - that was before I really got into computer hardware.

I believe ati already has their own solution built-into the r300 core that just probably needs "unlocking" for that "emergency" (their fall refresh).

Just as possible as nvidia doing it I suppose - so you may well be correct. Then again its going to be fun watching ATis next move if they havnt predicted SLI.

Steg

 

[Megatomic]

The Rage128 MAXX was a POS, I tried it out back in the day and was completely unimpressed. I preferred my 2 Voodoo2 8MB cards (SLI) to it.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
The Rage128 MAXX was a POS, I tried it out back in the day and was completely unimpressed. I preferred my 2 Voodoo2 8MB cards (SLI) to it.

Really??!? . . . Actually it was pretty decent for Win98se.

The Rage Fury (32MB) was ati's 1st "performance' chipset and an answer to nVidia early GeForce (the 256 eclipsed the Rage in performance; the ati card had the better image quality).

The Maxx was 2 Rage chips that gave about 50+% more performance and was just slightly short of nVidia new GeForce . . . lack of driver support killed the Maxx (ati decided to concentrate on the Radeons).

 

[Megatomic]

I remember the MAXX well, my buddy played Half Life with it. I don't know, maybe it wasn't all that bad and maybe I was a 3dfx fanboy back then. But I did prefer my SLI V2 setup to it. Glide was sooo cool back then.

 

[nortexoid]

there will be a total of 4 people in the entire world that will run such a configuration.

big announcement.

 

[Megatomic]

I doubt it. If Alienware, Falcon Northwest, Voodoo, and the other OEM gaming PC manufacturers start selling systems with the new NV SLI setup then many people will have it.

Now you may be right if you are talking about ONLY the people who build their own systems... I know I won't be able to afford it but I sure can admire it from afar.

 

[Nebor]

ATI will absolutely have to come out with a similar technology, otherwise they will never regain the performance crown again. Think about, Nvidia has never made a product that was half as fast as it's ATI counterpart, even the 'failure' cards the gf4 (vs 9700) and the 5900 (vs 9800) weren't that slow. So Nvidia wouldn't even have to come out with the best chips anymore. Their cards could all perform 20% slower than ATIs, but when you stack two of them together, they still win.

Based on that, ATI will have to have their own dual card solution, if only to save face, since not a lot of people will be buying dual cards. (I think I might though. )

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: nortexoid
there will be a total of 4 people in the entire world that will run such a configuration.

big announcement.

You're forgetting the Pro 3D market . . . Tom says it so well:

NVIDIA will also offer SLI for its Quadro line of 3D workstation boards. NVIDIA should be able to make an especially strong impact in this market, since more performance automatically translates into shorter rendering times, which thus justifies every additional dollar spent.

nVidia has a WINNER!!!!

(don't worrk ati fanboys; soon you'll be touting the virture of ATI's new X900 XT-PE MAXX cards)


:roll:

 

[Nebor]

Originally posted by: apoppin


(don't worrk ati fanboys; soon you'll be touting the virture of ATI's new X900 XT-PE MAXX cards)

That reminds me of that episode of Top Gear w/ the Evo and the WRX where they're talking about the full names. The Subaru Impreza WRX STI Mark 4 or something like that...