New Gigabyte SLI vid card - dual GPU!

[racolvin]

Dual GPU Vid card

Link from Tom's Hardware ... certainly does have interesting implications!

:beer:

R

 

[slash196]

Sweet shiggity diggity...

EDIT: It'll be interesting to see performace in other categories...if it can really top the X850XT PE in every game, then it'll be worth a bucket of drool...and they say that it'll be priced lower. Price/performance perfection?

 

[BW86]

cool

so you can you or can't you buy 2 of these and sli them?

 

[meltdown75]

when shtuff like that is brought out, makes ya think the next 'big thing' is just around the corner...

 

[Regs]

Lets just hope they make more than 2 games to test their limits.

 

[WobbleWobble]

I doubt you can use two of them and SLI them since they're already using SLI.

If it's a luxury part, how come it doesn't have dual DVI?

 

[Vegito]

doesn't look like theres sli connector on top.. maybe its the way the photo was shot..

 

[ponyo]

interesting...

 

[SonicIce]

prices, please.

 

[CALIKUSH]

I wonder what the price point for this card is going to be. Will it be cheaper than a geforce 6800 gt ? This looks very interesting. I also wonder how the SLI forceware driver will recognize the 2 gpu's. I'm also interested in the official power requirements.

 

[Tiamat]

Originally posted by: forcesho
doesn't look like theres sli connector on top.. maybe its the way the photo was shot..

It doesnt have one. THe SLI connection is already utilized on the board between the two gpus. Gigabyte is doing this probably so you dont have to buy a motherboard specifically with dual x16 slots.

 

[Dug]

Originally posted by: slash196
Sweet shiggity diggity...

EDIT: It'll be interesting to see performace in other categories...if it can really top the X850XT PE in every game, then it'll be worth a bucket of drool...and they say that it'll be priced lower. Price/performance perfection?

I find that hard to believe. It's just two 6600gt's in SLI. Just look at the benchmarks. It may beat it in Doom and 3dmark, but that's about it.

And it'll have to be cheap. Two 6600GT's are about $375

 

[fkloster]

AGP or PCI-X????? ( I think its PCI-X) God thats one power hungry bitch

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: slash196
Sweet shiggity diggity...

EDIT: It'll be interesting to see performace in other categories...if it can really top the X850XT PE in every game, then it'll be worth a bucket of drool...and they say that it'll be priced lower. Price/performance perfection?

I'm not seeing how this is going to top an X800XT all around, unless they magically found 6600GT cores with 256-bit memory controllers built in. There are 6600GT SLI scores up on Futuremark's ORB already, and they're in the 13-15K range (compared to around 15K for OCed 6800GT/Ultras, and 17-18K for overclocked X800XTPEs), so this doesn't exactly seem to be raising the bar much in terms of raw performance, even for a single card. In real gaming benches (and especially with AA/AF), a 6600GT SLI is still slower than a 6800GT most of the time because of the significantly lower memory bandwidth.

Could be interesting. I'd hold out for real benchmarks by a third party before getting too excited, though.

 

[overst33r]

Originally posted by: SonicIce
prices, please.

$500-$600
Look harder next time :laugh:

 

[slash196]

Originally posted by: mariok2006

Originally posted by: SonicIce
prices, please.

$500-$600
Look harder next time :laugh:

Actually, those are quoted prices for the competing single-gpu solutions. The pricing on this board hasn't been disclosed, and is purportedly less. $450 maybe?

 

[Dug]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: slash196
Sweet shiggity diggity...

EDIT: It'll be interesting to see performace in other categories...if it can really top the X850XT PE in every game, then it'll be worth a bucket of drool...and they say that it'll be priced lower. Price/performance perfection?

I'm not seeing how this is going to top an X800XT all around, unless they magically found 6600GT cores with 256-bit memory controllers built in. There are 6600GT SLI scores up on Futuremark's ORB already, and they're in the 13-15K range (compared to around 15K for OCed 6800GT/Ultras, and 17-18K for overclocked X800XTPEs), so this doesn't exactly seem to be raising the bar much in terms of raw performance, even for a single card. In real gaming benches (and especially with AA/AF), a 6600GT SLI is still slower than a 6800GT most of the time because of the significantly lower memory bandwidth.

Could be interesting. I'd hold out for real benchmarks by a third party before getting too excited, though.

It could be interesting. They claim 256 bit memory bandwidth as opposed to 128 of the regular 6600gt.
With 500Mhz cores it might scream. But as with all launches of late- it'll probably be 3-6 months down the road.

 

[FishTankX]

Can anyone say 'Quantum'?

 

[LTC8K6]

But the 6600GT cores don't have 256bit memory interfaces. It's just market speak for 2 128bit busses I bet.

 

[FishTankX]

It's possible that they can both access 128 bits of the memory bus at the same time. Thus, the effective bandwidth is something like somewhere between 128 bit and 256 bit because they share writes to the frame buffer. If they're smart, they'll also distribute load based on textures, so that the cores render objects with different textures, jacking up their memory bandwidth efficency again. There in lies the posibility for the 6600's to do well, just with 256 bit memory.

 

[Mrvile]

Well Gigabyte claims that it's 256/256, which I do hope to god it is, but since I just recently bought a 6800GT it really doesn't matter to me

Anyway it looks sweet, and agreeing with Meltdown the next big thing is just around the bend, can't wait till dual (maybe even quad?) ultras or even Radeon vid cards.

But the 256bit interface would give the 6600GT a nice performance leap, and with two of them...

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: FishTankX
It's possible that they can both access 128 bits of the memory bus at the same time. Thus, the effective bandwidth is something like somewhere between 128 bit and 256 bit because they share writes to the frame buffer. If they're smart, they'll also distribute load based on textures, so that the cores render objects with different textures, jacking up their memory bandwidth efficency again. There in lies the posibility for the 6600's to do well, just with 256 bit memory.

The thing is, there has been no indication so far that NVIDIA's SLI tech can do any of this memory load-sharing. We'll have to wait for a more thorough review, I guess.

 

[Dug]

Originally posted by: FishTankX
Can anyone say 'Quantum'?

LOL! There's a blast from the past.


Quantum Obsidian review

WOW! 68fps in Quake2 1024x768 only $600.

 

[Mrvile]

Matthias, I remember reading somewhere that SLI did NOT have shared memory, which is why dual 6600GTs ran slower than a single 6800GT. I'm guessing Gigabyte changed the chipset and it has nothing to do with the SLI.

 

[thecrecarc]

wow..... i want that!