Alienware Introduces Video Array Technology

[FreshPrince]

I want to put one nVidia PCI-E and one ATI PCI-E video card in there....will that work?

get the best of both worlds right?

 

[merlocka]

Originally posted by: bluemax
Hasn't this been in development for more than two years?? I remember Alienware planning this for a long, long time.

Nice to see it come to fruition, but it's prohibitively expensive. If they can cut down the expense, they may still get market from rich enthusiasts.

But it's cheaper to simply buy the best card on the market for ~$500 and possibly a crazy $100 cooling solution to overclock it, and the difference between this option and Alienware's "SLI" will be marginal.... 25%?

And some would argue that a mega-cooling system is more impressive than a dual-video card "SLI" rig that cost $thousands.

Yes, but TWO mega-cooling systems in SLI would be better and you know it would be fun to see performance on this.

 

[SmokeRngs]

Originally posted by: bluemax

Originally posted by: SmokeRngs
Also, I think it would be a bad idea to use top of the line vid cards for something like this. A couple of midrange cards would probably work much better in the price performance area. A couple of $300 cards would probably perform a lot better than a single $500 card with the cost difference not being all that much.

That's the rub.... two $300 cards with a 50% performance gain would NOT outperform the $500 part! (in most cases!) Even include $100 for insane cooling and while the price may be the same, the $600 spent on top-of-the-line + awesome cooling is still faster than two $300 cards.



And the other point about most games being CPU limited is an excellent one. The only real benefit would be in goodies like high resolution + high FSAA which is kind of silly.

I didn't have a chance to actually read anything but I was going under the assumption that the 50% performance increase was done with two of the top of the line vid cards which are rather CPU limited. Then, using two midrange cards would be much cheaper and possibly have faster performance since they wouldn't be as CPU limited thus gaining the large performance gain over a single high end card.

Everything I am mentioning is nothing but speculation and probably based on info that is not true since I haven't actually read anything on it yet.

In the long run, this could be a very good thing. After a new cards comes out, many people have the older cards and a lot of people are looking to get rid of them for newer ones. In this case, it's easy to grab up a twin the of one you're currently using for cheap and toss it in. You would probably get a good performance boost without having to shell out a lot of money.

 

[SmokeRngs]

Originally posted by: bluemax
did they develop a motherboard with 2 AGP slots?? Technically, it's now possible... but it's the only way! ATI didn't develop PCI versions of their new stuff!!

No, it's not AGP, it's PCI Express. And ATI did develop PCI Express vid cards, that's what the R423 is, the PCI Express version of the R420.

 

[AlienwareJosh]

We are very excited about the overwhelming response we have received concerning our new Video Array technology. However, in order to quell the quickly growing storm of misinformation, we are providing a link to our Video Array FAQ. We hope that this FAQ will help clear the confusion surrounding the new technology.

This post is not meant to incite debate, nor does it mark the beginning of a Q&A session. It is merely being provided in an effort to prevent any false rumors from circulating.

http://www.alienware.com/alx_pages/main_content.aspx

Thank you all and have a nice day.

Joshua Spatz
Alienware Corporation

 

[SuperFreaky]

"Can we plug two dual head PCI-Express Video Cards to power 4 monitors?
Certainly. The X2 motherboard sports two PCI-Express high performance graphics slots. Populating these with high performance dual-head video cards opens up the door for 4 monitor application. For instance, one possible application is for flight simulation, where one monitor can be used for the front view, two other for peripheral view, and the fourth one for the control panel. "


Alright!

 

[apoppin]

forum bug

see below . . .

 

[apoppin]

What type of performance can we expect from Video Array?
Preliminary testing shows performance gains of more than 50%. The more graphics intense the application, the more performance increase gained.

It is a disturbing trend .. .

. . . this sets the stage for home computer costing as much as an SUV.

An EXTRA $500 for (another) high-end video card, 4 x 21" LCD monitors, dual dual-core procs . . . PHEW!

Upgrading can be a real burden (but you have a 'puter that'd run Longhorn NOW)



over 20K points in 3Dmark'04 . . .

. . . bragging rights . . .

. . . priceless

:roll:

just say no!