Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
The technology for multi-GPU processing is already out there (SLI, Crossfire), and now the companies are trying to increase the number of GPUs that can be daisy-chained (CrossfireX, 3-way SLI).
However, it seems with all of these methods, the weak link is always driver support. I think that drivers will have to develop further before anything like this can take true form and be useful.
As an aside, did anyone notice that half of the Slashdot description sounded like an advertisement for Asus GPU cooling?
Fuck Everything, Were doing five cores.
Remember when All razors had a single blade? Then double blade razors were all the rage. These days, Triple and quad blade razors are around. Soon we will have 5 blades but I would call that a cheese grater.
Same thing with CPUs and now GPUs. Problem is, at what point dose it become a pissing contest rather than a way to provide more performance for an application that needs it.
And speaking of those demanding applications. Am I the only one who notice that some of the latest video games running on the best available hardware provide no improvement in appearance or game-play over older games of a similar type running on older hardware?
It's bad enough that I am tempted to think the programmers are just adding fat to make sure the game demands a more expensive video card.
Kevin.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
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.