Gigabyte's 3D1 brings SLI to a single card

An anonymous reader writes "Gigabyte have implemented nVidia's SLI on a single graphics board, dubbed the "3D1." The card features two GeForce 6600GT cores (I would imagine two 6800 cores would draw too much power and create too much heat for a single PCB.) Hexus.net have a review of the board, which in various tests was able to compete with a 6800GT, but will it be marketed at a favourable price? You may also want to read Hexus' article - 'An Introduction to SLI' - for a look at how SLI technology works."

Comments

Why?

[Apreche]

Ok, I seriously don't get this SLI thing. I mean, sure there are nuts out there who simply must get 10,000 fps in their favorite games at full resolution. You know, because it make a difference. Just like those audiophiles who buy $5,000 power cables.

Seriously, what modern PC game wont run well with just one card? I've got an FX 5900 non-ultra 128MB. Doom3 and Half-Life 2 are both my bitch. And if I recall there haven't been any other PC games this year worth mentioning. And if you're not using the extra power to play games, and you're doing some serious 3d work you should have some professional SGI style equipment. The only reason I can really see to have this is if you were developing a PC game that is going to come out in a year or two and you need to have hardware as fast as what we will probably have then.

So um yeah. Who's wasting their moneys? In fact, with those moneys you can buy a better monitor. Which makes a much bigger difference if the monitor you have is not super awesome.

Re:Why?

[Mindwarp]

I've got an FX 5900 non-ultra 128MB. Doom3 and Half-Life 2 are both my bitch.

Really? You can run both of those titles at maximum detail settings, at 1600x1200, with 16x oversampling and 8x full-screen anti-aliasing at 60fps+ on an FX5900? I've gotta get me one of those FX5900 cards, as my 6800GT basically turns into a thermonuclear device when I try those settings.

The point is that there are plenty of people out there who DO want to run their games at the maximum possible resolutions and image quality, and quite a few of those people are willing to spend the $500 plus necessary to get the performance they desire.

Re:Why?

[Vaystrem]

This is an interesting post because a year or so ago most people would have been saying the same thing about your FX 5900.

The point is - most people do not have upper teir graphics cards. Just like most people do not run the absolute top of the line AMD & Intel processors. They are too expensive and all about marketing.

Myself with a laptop currently only have a Radeon 7500 onboard. My previous desktop had a Radeon 8500. YOU do not need an SLI or next-gen top teir card because you already have a last gen top teir card.

Those of us, and there are many, who don't do need an upgrade.

Why the SLI thing?

I buy one 6600GT for my motherboard. I'm happy, I like it. 2 years later my games start to suffer, I buy another one. Go look at the benchmarks comparing hte Single to Double... its a 50-100% boost in performance depending on the application. That is really significant and considering where the prices of those cards will be in a year or two - has a lot of bang for the buck.

Your comment about buying a "Monitor" is ridiculous. If you have a 17" and a crappy graphics card and then go buy a 19" and still have that crappy graphics card - you won't be able to take advantage of the higher resolutions availble on that monitor. Yes some monitors just have better picture quality, Mitsubishi Diamondtron comes to mind, but again your argument doesn't make sense.

Re:Why?

[wernercd]

I personally couldn't see someone dropping 4k to raise a truck or put NOS in a car to drop it's 0-60.

Most people can't understand why I'm willing to drop $500 on a new graphics card and 1k on 1Terabyte of storage.

It has less to do with 'a fool and his money' as it has more to do with 'different strokes for different fokes.'

Someone dropping $500 on a graphics card just to play Solitare would be a waste of money. But most people who drop that much money aren't into it for that. The same way that pimping a car out if you ain't going to drive it is a waste in my opinion.

Peace

Re:Hello

[stratjakt]

You fully recommend a product you don't have yet. Who needs a marketing department when you've got an army of fanboys?

Re:multicore GPU's

[pmjordan]

Well, if you look at the specs of today's GPUs, they already feature 8-16 pixel processors and 2-8 vertex processors. (numbers somewhere in that order of magnitude) Therefore, they already have multiple cores in a sense. What ATI and nVidia are doing is increasing the complexity of each pixel/vertex pipelines to add features, and adding new pipelines, and widening the memory bus to increase speed. You'll notice that clock speeds are in the 300-500MHz range, presumably for the same reasons why dual-core CPUs (will) have lower clock speeds than their single-core counterparts.

~phil

Re:Some numbers for you

[stratjakt]

It may be wiser to get a single 6600GT now and SLI later

No! No! If you plan to SLI, buy two matching cards now. You'll pull your hair out trying to find the exact same model and revision to match the one you already have.

Same goes for multiple CPUs or dual channel RAM. Buy a matching set now, or you're in for a headache down the road.

PC Video cards have reached the point where, unless you're an "enthusiast" who likes to spend money, you don't need to spend more than 150-200 bucks.

Nowadays the race is who can run Doom 3 at 1600x1200 at 70 vs 72 FPS. If you consider the average home PC with a 17" monitor that can't even display 1600x1200, and most gaming is done at 1024x768 or 800x600, it seems kind of pointless.

I generally play at 1024x768, and all these new uber-cards really offer me nothing new over my Radeon 9800, and don't seem to be planning anything new for the next while. They're just ramping up the speed, but I haven't seen any landmark gee-whiz features (true steps forward like hardware T&L, programmable pixel shaders) being added.

Re:If I read the article right

[Equinox11]

By the way.. I never got the deal about static electricity destroying things since I've always lived and worked in Florida. On a trip to New York it was suddenly all clear... In pitch blackness I ruffled my bed sheets to see a trail of lightning bolts blue in the blackness... I was like WOAH! So that's why there are all those warnings and wrist straps and such! So the whole static thing is dependant on where you live to a large degree.

Re:So,

[Gaima]

The current SLI solutions, from what little (admitidly) I've seen, actually split the 16 lanes between the 2 PCIe x16 slots.
Giving 8 lanes per slot, which is still more than enough bandwidth.