ATI may be up for something

[Gamer X]

Inquirer article

THE WIERDEST BIT of news comes to us from no less than three mobo makers at Computex, and it concerns ATI.

The whispers are that ATI is now asking mobo makers to make their high-end boards with slots for three 16x GPUs. All three slots may not need to have a full 16 lanes routed to them, 4 or 8 may work out fine, but the slot physically must be 16x.

If you are going to so Crossfire, at least two would need to be 16x. I wonder what they want the third card for? µ

 

[Genx87]

PPU? lol

I dont think ATI is the only manufacturer clamoring for more PCIE slots. There are other devices that can and should be using this interface.

Raid cards come to mind.

 

[imported_JeReMY]

:Q:Q:Q

 

[potato28]

Originally posted by: Genx87
PPU? lol

I dont think ATI is the only manufacturer clamoring for more PCIE slots. There are other devices that can and should be using this interface.

Raid cards come to mind.

Sound cards too. Maybe some company should make a cheaper PCI-E solution to compete with Creative's crappy support and driver's.

 

[Exsomnis]

Triple crossfire tbh and it will be just as crap as crossfire.

 

[Exsomnis]

 

[redbox]

Originally posted by: Genx87
PPU? lol

I dont think ATI is the only manufacturer clamoring for more PCIE slots. There are other devices that can and should be using this interface.

Raid cards come to mind.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO they can't put more on that takes off my valuable pci slots. I need those for sound cards (not those creative pos's either) audio editing I need 3 pci slots or I need the audio industry to step it up a notch and start making pci-e hardware.

 

[Exsomnis]

Of course this is the inq, the inq suck cocks.

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: Genx87
PPU? lol

I dont think ATI is the only manufacturer clamoring for more PCIE slots. There are other devices that can and should be using this interface.

Raid cards come to mind.

....

x16 slots, not general PCIe slots, but PCIe x16.

 

[thilanliyan]

It was for physics on X1k series card I read somewhere. 3 slots for anyone that also wants crossfire.

 

[redbox]

Originally posted by: thilan29
It was for physics on X1k series card I read somewhere. 3 slots for anyone that also wants crossfire.

that makes a little more sense then three GPU's just for graphics. I wonder if NV will follow suit with their physics thing?

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Don't read into it too closely, it could just be an attempt to standardize a solution similar to what companies such as JetWay and eVGA put out (where the two slots are for running 2 video cards, the 1 slot for running 1, with no need to worry about jumpers or settings).

Of course if all 3 can functional independantly as well, you could still end up running 1x/2x/4x PCIe stuff off of the empty 16x slots.

 

[WelshBloke]

Originally posted by: thilan29
It was for physics on X1k series card I read somewhere. 3 slots for anyone that also wants crossfire.

That is what its for.

Sounds like a good solution, when you upgrade you can use an old card (x1k up) for physics.

 

[LittleNemoNES]

Originally posted by: Exsomnis
Triple crossfire tbh and it will be just as crap as crossfire.

...

How is Crossfire crap?

 

[secretanchitman]

the extra slot might be used for a PPU...thats what i saw on the inq, but dont quote me on that!

 

[EffeX]

The extra slot is for an X1000 series card to be used for physics acceleration...If your gonna post atleast know wth ur talking about.

 

[Sonikku]

Originally posted by: EffeX
The extra slot is for an X1000 series card to be used for physics acceleration...If your gonna post atleast know wth ur talking about.

Never!!

...

I see a third PCIe slot as being a problem. The latest crossfire board has two, and if you use them you won't have a single PCI slot to use. Just how is it going to work for 3?

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: potato28

Originally posted by: Genx87
PPU? lol

I dont think ATI is the only manufacturer clamoring for more PCIE slots. There are other devices that can and should be using this interface.

Raid cards come to mind.

Sound cards too. Maybe some company should make a cheaper PCI-E solution to compete with Creative's crappy support and driver's.

Personally, I'd rather see software sound engines, even the X-Fi isn't that powerful, and with dual core cpus we have the power to offload wavetraced sound to the cpu. A single cpu core dedicated to sound (not like games are using it for anything else right now) would blow the X-Fi away. With quad core coming in the near future, there's no need for full blown sound cards to exist, why buy the hardware twice?
Core 1 - Game code
Core 2 - Additional game code + optimizations for the renderer (hidden surface removal)
Core 3 - Physics Processing
Core 4 - Sound processing with real time dolby digital encoding

 

[TAGImperialMarch]

It's for the 1k series to do either Physics processing or sound processing.

 

[imported_michaelpatrick33]

Originally posted by: Sonikku

Originally posted by: EffeX
The extra slot is for an X1000 series card to be used for physics acceleration...If your gonna post atleast know wth ur talking about.

Never!!

...

I see a third PCIe slot as being a problem. The latest crossfire board has two, and if you use them you won't have a single PCI slot to use. Just how is it going to work for 3?

Silly rabbit that is why you watercool! MMMM small blocks and great performance MMMMM .... MMMM

I have a feeling like some others have said that third slot will become a physics/sound processing card slot. It will be interesting in the next few years to see if sound cards and cough physics cards get killed by the graphics cards gpus (as they become more and more general purpose).

 

[LittleNemoNES]

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTA3OSwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

Secret revealed