QUAD everything lately... sheesh

[W1nTry]

There are Quad Core CPUs, Quad SLI and NOW, QUAD Crossfire....

ATI to make Quad Crossfire

What happens when you combine R590 and Gemini


By Theo Valich: Tuesday 04 April 2006, 14:15

 ALTHOUGH ATI first laughed at Nvidia's SLI concept, it will use its "Gemini" concept not just for two X1600s.
ATI has decided to combine two Gemini boards that feature two R590 chips each. You're reading it right, we're talking about dual R590 boards working together, or a Quad GPU powered ATI product.

The final physical design is far from being completed but ATI's Gemini X1600 is a concept where two chips fit on a single PCB. However, in order to create room for two 256 bit memory interface and quadrupled power consumption and heat dissipation - you need to be very creative. Enter creative engineering.

When it comes to the software side, ATI will have an easier ride. Since first dual ATI Crossfire originally used a tiling system, there is no problem for ATI to make four GPU configurations - each GPU will just render its own tile and SuperTiling mode can work right away.

For Alternate Frame Rendering (AFR) and Split Frame Rendering (SFR), more work needs to be done, but you can be sure of one thing. It is coming.

[Spazosaurus]

Hmmmm. It was just a matter of time until @TI came up with something like this. They're in Nvidia's shadow as usual.

[W1nTry]

You're starting to sound like crixx dere dak. ATI can do things Nvidia cannot yuh know. For instance:
They will be first to 80nm
They have AVIVO which is encoding on your GPU for FREE and available before Nvidia's version, I not even sure Nvidia own out yet
The X1900XTX is the fastest single card out
THe X1900xxx series has a 512bit memory interface and the 9700 was the first with a 256-bit memory interface
Their image quality is still superior to Nvidia's even though they've improved greatly
They support GDDR4 on the new series cards
Technically  multi-GPU was a ATI thing, multi card was 3dfx aka voodoo who was BOUGHT over by Nvidia, whilst ATI has made multi-GPU cards for the US military in the past, as much as 4-8 cores per card...

Just some food for thought before you start making silly insinuations that ATI is following Nvidia. Cause to be honest WHO DE HELL CAN AFFORD QUAD SLI? only the ridiculously rich. Again its putting LIPSTICK on a PIG.

Oh BTW I jes read ONLY ATI can do FSAA and HDR in Oblivion at present :p following my @rs3

[Spazosaurus]

Don't get me wrong. I'm not into the ATI/Nvidia fanboyism thing. Yes, you have made some good points there but I feel that I am being reasonable when I say that before the x8xx and x1x00, they were mostly in Nvidia's shadow and this multi GPU thing is just another borrowed concept. OK then multi GPU was done for the military etc but I'm primarily focusing on the consumer market. It could also be that Nvidia saw ATI doing that for the militatry and thought to themselves...Hmmmmm, maybe we could do this on a consumer level...I don't know. I myself was contemplating getting myself a 7900gt for my next upgrade, but on closer observation, the games that i am mostly interested in performs better on ATI hardware.

[W1nTry]

More news and specs on the QSLI:

Two Quad SLI 7950GX2s draw 286W

Shorter board is long on power


By Fuad Abazovic: Wednesday 03 May 2006, 12:20

WE GOT some interesting material that features Quad SLI GX2 cards and we are happy to share a few details with you.
A new Quad SLI GX2 board features two Geforce 7950 GX2 GPUs on a two separate printed circuit boards. The chip is based on G71M, as we said before, packaged at 37.5x37.5 mm package.

The board is 22.5cm long, much shorter than the original 33.5cm-long Geforce 7900 GX2 card. The old Quad SLI is available at OEMs only.

The new 7950 GX2 card consumes 143W per card. As you need two GX2 cards to make the Quad SLI work, you will end up with a total draw of 286W for two cards. The core is clocked at 500MHz while the GDDR 3 memory runs at 1200MHz. Each chip addresses 512MB of memory, meaning that each card has 1024MB memory or that Quad SLI totally features 2GB of graphic memory.

Each card comes equipped with two Dual link DVI-I connectors and seven-pin HDTV out. The card supports HDCP and we are sure that you cannot use more than a single monitor in Quad SLI.

Nvidia is keeping quite in its reviews but you should be able to buy and order those cards soon. We still don’t know whether those cards will go to retail, nor the price, but we guess it'll be close to €750 for a single Geforce 7950 GX2 card. µ

[Spazosaurus]

They have a 7950? Daymn!! Two GOSU cards and only single monitor support? Double daymn!! 750 euros? per card??? Triple Daymn!!!

[W1nTry]

I think that was a typo on their behalf, or they are reffering to it only pushing 1 Dell/Apple 30" LCD.... yuh know playing games at 20++x16++ res nah.

[TrinireturnofGamez]

http://xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/geforce7900-quad-sli.html

  a few problems with quad SLI :
 Its only available to manufacturers such  as DELL...
  right now DELL uses P4s.. which slow and bottlenecked, makes no sense having plain 2 SLI cards with such inferiour CPUs.. muhc less 4! Even an FX60 is bottlenecked here , you'd need a quad core conroe to get the full power of the 4 cards ..
   Power usage  : you gonna need either TWO powersupplies or one 800 watt!!
  Game support : bugs in many games with graphical corruption
 and not to mention..  PRICE               

   Unless you pump up resolution to extremely high levels eg. 1600x1200 , in many cases its actually slower than SLI cards... 

[W1nTry]

Actually trini 1600x1200 isn't the ballpark they in, qith QSLI its more like 1920x1200 and upwards to an UPSURD 2,560 x 1,600 (read: Apple & Dell 30" LCD) That's where QSLI shows benefits. You are rigth that it is CPU limited though... I mean crossfire X1900XTX beat it... so that doesn't really say much (PS it beat it but not from 1920+) I guess if you have money for QSLI you have money for a 30" LCD.

[Beomagi]

another review.

currently quad SLI runs HORRIBLY sometimes
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/QuadSLI/10
also in quake4 (wasn't this one of nvidia's strength's before? 0.0)

The crossfire solution actually looks better (although xfire disables avivo which is weird considering that it's currently independant of the card...)

I'm sticking to single card - even sli isn't perfect, though it's getting there.