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Asus Crams Three GPUs onto a Single Graphics Card
Barence writes "PC Pro has up a look at Asus' concept triple-GPU graphics card. It's a tech demo, so it's not going to see release at any point in the future, but it's an interesting look at how far manufacturers can push technology, as well as just how inefficient multi-GPU graphics cards currently are. 'Asus has spaced [the GPUs] out, placing one on the top of the card and two on the underside. This creates its own problem, though: attaching heatsinks and fans to both sides of the card would prevent it from fitting into some case arrangements, and defeat access to neighbouring expansion slots. So instead, Asus has used a low-profile heat-pipe system that channels the heat to a heatsink at the back of the card, from where it's dissipated by externally-powered fluid cooling pipes.'"
In a related topic, I think I'll buy Crysis in about five years when hardware exists that can run it after the first few levels....
I an content with the drivers that I have. However, I am still looking for a decent high end card that does not need two slots in my case. How about fixing heat and size issues first?
I think the talk about the cooling is important since one of the most difficult tasks is not how to get three GPUs on a single chip, but to get a viable cooling solution that doesn't sound like a vacuum cleaner and one that doesn't require too much space (or it would essentially kill the whole concept).
Full Tilt
Well to be fair the new games do have better graphics. But the problem comes down to the fact that graphics are improving beyond the average persons eye and interpret graphics. Much like sound cards a decade ago. We had some major improvements from the Ad-Lib up to the SoundBlaster 16. But after that even though the cards have massive improvements average joe doesn't know the difference. The same thing is happening to video cards now. The new games that fully utilize the card adds effects that are very subtile, or on the old systems they cheated to add the effects (Fixed background Bitmaped Images, A semi-transparancy layer to simulate haze. While now the background is getting nearly fully rendered so if there is a mountain in the background and you have a powerful enough graphics card and a high enough resolution you can see each blade of grass on that mountain, and the Haze is like real haze not as uniformed as before more like real life. But the average Game player wouldn't really focus on these details, if they are actually interested in playing the games.
Unlike the old days you can see a huge difference between a CGA, EGA, VGA and Super VGA. Then Super VGA held on for a while then the 3d Cards started coming out and there were huge improvements even now. But I think we are getting to a point again where the details they can produce is beyond what is needed.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Is it really a slashvertisement when we're talking about something that's barely past the concept stage? Granted, this is good coverage for Asus (who, IMO deserve it), but I also thought news like this was exactly what Slashdot was for.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
I don't buy that. The first razor is always going to be doing most of the cutting because it's in front. The others are just there for show.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Why can't we put our efforts toward more efficient GPUs? Just as most users won't ever be able to push their current CPUs at their maximum, most aren't even using the full power of their GPUs.
I want a fanless, 5W GPU with the power of GPUs from about 3 years ago. Can the new smaller transistors allow for this or am I asking for too much?
If ATI and nVidia keep pushing for raw power, they'll get beaten to the low-power finish line by the likes of intel and VIA.
Unfortunately Nvidia set the pace for all video card manufacturers when they spouted they were going to do 6 month product cycles. Trying to go faster than Moore's Law had resulted in top end cards being massively more expensive than yesteryear's top end cards and taking exponential amounts more of energy than they used to... to the point where the high end can't even sustain itself without not one but TWO specificly designed supplmental power leads from the PSU.
Multi GPU is the only way to keep that breakneck pace, just like the CPU world is trying to deal with hitting the wall (or, depending on who you ask, the low hanging fruit has already been picked). But the penalties for the reach exceeding the grasp is absolutely catching up with them.
More Twoson than Cupertino
The FA states that multi-threaded gaming is fundamentally flawed. How is this a valid statement? They are testing a multi-cored GPU using games that were most likely only developed to use, at MOST, two cores. Regardless of how many core you throw at it, the application (ie. your game) will NEVER use any of those cores.
In fact, gaming and graphics scale amazingly well as a multi-threaded application. In fact, as many in the graphics/gaming community have been stating recently, ray tracing would benefit greatly from more GPUs. Being able to trace multiple rays at a time would speed up rendering.
They state that it is fundamentally flawed when they should have said that it would be ignorant to assume that an application designed to use a single-core or dual-core GPU would benefit from extra GPUs.
-SaNo
As opposed to raytracing, which is so extremely parallel that it scales nearly linearly. In other words, your 3-way real-time raytracer graphics card (if/when such a beast is ever made) would perform at about 2.8x the one-GPU variant. And unless the Rapture^Wsingularity keeps you from getting a 192-GPU card, it'd render at 170x the reference or so.
(Of course, there's the question of global illumination. I don't know if those can be parallelized as easily, but there was a story about distributed photon mapping here some time back, where they used Blue Gene.)
I have to agree, I'm seeing less and less use for a higher-resolution screen for home/gaming use.
For games on the desktop, the maximum resolution you have to push (realistically) is 1920x1200 (really, anything larger at 2-3 feet away is overkill), and the maximum resolution you have to push on a television (if you're into that) is 1920x1080. Funny, midrange $150-200 cards can do that today, with high quality, in all games except Crysis.
So yeah, I can see the slowdown in graphics tech coming around. The fact that you can play any modern game in medium settings at 1280x1024 with a $75 add-in card shows us exactly why we're hitting the developmental wall. Most people are happy with our current level of graphics, and the cost of new graphics architectures rises exponentially with every new revision; so, if you don't have the demand, you're not going to rush production on the next-generation of GPU architectures.
Unfortunately, this leaves the %1 of hardcore gamers bitching, and they tend to bitch the loudest, so Nvidia and ATI are trying to placate them with stop-gap SLI solutions.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
Improved manufacturing processes and software/drivers have allowed us to have multiple processor cores and GPUs in a shoebox-sized Shuttle XPC. Asus's big, hot, and inefficient card just shows us that current manufacturing processes and software/drivers aren't ready for triple-GPU graphics cards. Maybe next generation.
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Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...
" so it's not going to see release at any point in the future,"
The future is a really long time.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
In other words, it doesn't work! I'll worry about cooling 3 GPUs when they are at least able to do something useful! Until then I would cool this board by unplugging 2 of the GPUs and enjoying practically the same performance.
Well to be fair the new games do have better graphics. But the problem comes down to the fact that graphics are improving beyond the average persons eye and interpret graphics. Much like sound cards a decade ago.
I think the biggest irony is that in multiplayer competitive people disable all these features anyway because
1) framerate is king
2) getting rid of advanced lighting, bump mapped animated textures, smoke, fog, clouds, falling snow, rain, etc, etc make your opponent easier to spot.