XGI Volari V8 Ultra :) will there be room for it in our hearts? / AGP Slots?

[videoclone]

Ok if your also wondering what the heck this Volari is and why adds for it are popping up all over hardware websites then your in the same boat as me looks like Nvidia and ATI have a new comer on there hands but will it have what it takes too stand up too ATI's new R420 core or Nvidia's NV40 just around the corner either way spec's for this baby look nice hope its not another Xaber high hopes low performance.

XGI Volari V8 Ultra
2x FULLY Compliant DX9.0 GPU's on the same board.
Spec's PDF

For those of you who cant be bothered with the PDF heres the Specs -
2x GPU's
16x Pipelines
350Mhz Core
1000Mhz Ram DDR2
256bit bus
512MB DDR2

 

[Genx87]

The obvious question is.................when are we going to see a review?

 

[modedepe]

Sounds impressive on paper, but we need some benchmarks! I'm also wondering if this 2x gpu setup is really going to be any good..we know that a lot of the previous multi gpu setups were less than stunning.

 

[McArra]

5600+ 3dMark03 seems promising. Let's see what it can do in games.

 

[ahsumdude]

I remember BitBoys Oy and all their claims of performance beyond comprehension with that Glaze 3D nonsense. Doesn't this all sound familiar to anyone?

 

[jasonja]

This is Trident/SiS... new name, same old crap. Think of the quantum leap this company would have to pull off in terms of technology, driver support, game vendor support, marketing, etc to make a successful product. Not going to happen, IMO it's a paper launch of a product that will be a blip on the radar. Putting two chips on one board is the first sign of desperation that performance isn't up to par with ATI and nVidia.

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: jasonja
This is Trident/SiS... new name, same old crap. Think of the quantum leap this company would have to pull off in terms of technology, driver support, game vendor support, marketing, etc to make a successful product. Not going to happen, IMO it's a paper launch of a product that will be a blip on the radar. Putting two chips on one board is the first sign of desperation that performance isn't up to par with ATI and nVidia.

Actually, it really depends on price and performance. If it can do well with the current API's, and be competetive with the 5600/9600 and lower cards in terms of speed and price, then they may actually do quite well. Most of the money is made in mainstream, you don't have to have the fastest product to make money, you have to sell in the mainstream.

 

Originally posted by: ahsumdude
I remember BitBoys Oy and all their claims of performance beyond comprehension with that Glaze 3D nonsense. Doesn't this all sound familiar to anyone?

What does one have to do with the other, exactly? Oh let me answer that for you. Nothing!!
Bottom line is, we wont know until we see it in action. Please don't guess. You would just be wrong. So would I.

 

Originally posted by: jasonja
This is Trident/SiS... new name, same old crap. Think of the quantum leap this company would have to pull off in terms of technology, driver support, game vendor support, marketing, etc to make a successful product. Not going to happen, IMO it's a paper launch of a product that will be a blip on the radar. Putting two chips on one board is the first sign of desperation that performance isn't up to par with ATI and nVidia.

Do you think that SiS doesn't have enough resources (money) to accomplish this? Unfortunately in this world, money can accomplish anything and I'm sure SiS has plenty to spare. And did you think that there will never be a new competitor in the graphics card market? Just nvidia and ati until the end of time? If Intel or AMD suddenly chose to enter the graphics fray full force (and I'm not talking about Intel Exxtreme Graphics either) Nvidia and ATI would most likely get hammered. They have what would seem to be endless resources to accomplish any technological feat of their choosing. I am of course talking about money and scientific staff. An eccentric billionaire who doesn't have a brain in his head, could just get lucky and hire the right people to build the right stuff would be enough to do it.

GM

 

[McArra]

3d mark03 score is very nice, not every card can do 5600+. I want to see a review as soon as possible.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

I do agree with jasonja about how dual chip video cards are usually a sign of desparatation amongst companies trying to keep up with performance pace. 3Dfx relied on this with their Voodoo 5 and they certain turned out just fine . And ATI and their Rage MAXX certainly took the market by storm... Well honostly on paper the products do seem to show SOME promise but one thing we do not know that we did during the other dual chip video cards is how a single chip solution will perform. Volari duo may be a desparate attempt to keep up with a 9800 Pro / 5900 Ultra while at the same time we do not even know where a common Volari V8 single chip will place. Heck, even if the Volari V8 places just below a 5600/9600, that would allow the V8 Ultra to soundly keep up if not surpass a 9800 Pro or 5900 Ultra. Again it is somewhat just wishful thinking on most all of our parts but it would be awesome if it were true... REVIEWS SOON PLEASE!!!

 

[rbV5]

Lets hope its a better effort than the last Xabre.

 

[thraxes]

Aaaaahh I say this is pre-computex vaporware
Also known as "Bitboys go to China"

 

[Alkali]

Shoot me, but 5,600 Marks for a dual GPU config?

Seems poor to me concidering nVidia and ATi will have GFX cards out earlier than this dual card with higher 3DMark scores...

 

[Ronin]

Keep in mind these are preliminary benchmarks from them at this point. There are plenty of revisions to come, I'm sure, whether it be driver or hardware. Let's cut them some slack until we actually see the product (or if, as it were).

 

[LeoMael]

But will games actually take advantage of dual GPUs?

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: LeoMael
But will games actually take advantage of dual GPUs?

Yes, because it sounds like each GPU will render every other frame. This isn't like a dual CPU setup where programs have to be written to take advantage of such a setup, dual GPU's are more like a RAID 0 array where they split the work so each GPU is rendering half the frames a single GPU solution would have to render. So let's say a single GPU in one second can produce 100 frames, if each GPU is to render every other frame, then one will be rendering the even frames out of those same 100 frams, and one will be rendering the odd. Now because each GPU will be rendering only 50 frames it should only take half the time to render them, so it the dual GPU setup could render those same 100 frames in half a second, or in a full second they could do 200. In theory you'd get exactly twice the performance but just like with RAID arrays this isn't exactly true, whatever methed the Volari Duo will end up using I doubt it will be 100% efficient but it should still be pretty close to double the performance.

 

[chilled]

Factor in price ppl......it could become more popular than you think if they can offer 9700 performance at 9600 PRO price. That does rely on decent though (aka ATI, nvidia) which is pretty hard to do.

 

[ss284]

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
I do agree with jasonja about how dual chip video cards are usually a sign of desparatation amongst companies trying to keep up with performance pace. 3Dfx relied on this with their Voodoo 5 and they certain turned out just fine . And ATI and their Rage MAXX certainly took the market by storm... Well honostly on paper the products do seem to show SOME promise but one thing we do not know that we did during the other dual chip video cards is how a single chip solution will perform. Volari duo may be a desparate attempt to keep up with a 9800 Pro / 5900 Ultra while at the same time we do not even know where a common Volari V8 single chip will place. Heck, even if the Volari V8 places just below a 5600/9600, that would allow the V8 Ultra to soundly keep up if not surpass a 9800 Pro or 5900 Ultra. Again it is somewhat just wishful thinking on most all of our parts but it would be awesome if it were true... REVIEWS SOON PLEASE!!!

3dfx did sli when they were top, and it worked rather well.

 

[jasonja]

Originally posted by: gorillaman

Originally posted by: jasonja
This is Trident/SiS... new name, same old crap. Think of the quantum leap this company would have to pull off in terms of technology, driver support, game vendor support, marketing, etc to make a successful product. Not going to happen, IMO it's a paper launch of a product that will be a blip on the radar. Putting two chips on one board is the first sign of desperation that performance isn't up to par with ATI and nVidia.

Do you think that SiS doesn't have enough resources (money) to accomplish this? Unfortunately in this world, money can accomplish anything and I'm sure SiS has plenty to spare. And did you think that there will never be a new competitor in the graphics card market? Just nvidia and ati until the end of time? If Intel or AMD suddenly chose to enter the graphics fray full force (and I'm not talking about Intel Exxtreme Graphics either) Nvidia and ATI would most likely get hammered. They have what would seem to be endless resources to accomplish any technological feat of their choosing. I am of course talking about money and scientific staff. An eccentric billionaire who doesn't have a brain in his head, could just get lucky and hire the right people to build the right stuff would be enough to do it.
GM

Actually I don't think SiS has enough resources to compete. To put it in perspective, SiS made about $102 million last quarter, ATI made $342 million. Most of SiS's money comes from chipset sales which ATI will now start to take away market share from them in that area too. So SiS has fewer employees, less money, no technology to build on, and strong competitors going after their only real market.

I've been working the 3D accelerator market since 98', I know how hard it is to make it in this industry. I've worked at the startups and the top dogs and I've learned that what ATI and nVidia has is a lot more than just the fastest benchmarks. We all know how meaningless benchmark scores alone are, what really matters is gaming stability and performance. That takes ISV support, developer support, and lots of talent in many areas. Most importantly it takes consumer confidence and brand recognition, ATI and nVidia have spent millions so that all the people of the world know what Radeon and Geforce are, is the average MAINSTREAM PC user going to know what a XGI Volari is? Maybe 2 years from now if they can keep making a good product that long, but I wouldn't bank on it. Looking at how many AWESOME companies failed or are struggling to survive now should easily tell you that it takes a lot more than money and luck to compete. 3dfx, Real3D, PowerVR, S3, Matrox, etc ... all once top of their game, now they are either gone or so far off the radar they might as well be. I do see a future with only 2 major graphic card companies in it. Intel has ruled the desktop for 15+ years, why is it so hard to believe that nVidia or ATI couldn't do the same?

SiS is barely even a player in the chipset market anymore, expecting them to rise from the ashes and compete with ATI and nVidia? come on now. SiS released the Xabre last year with a similar big press release and talked how cheap and fast it is. S3 announced DeltaChrome 6 months ago saying how fast and cheap it is... and of course as others have mentioned, can we forget the smack talking BitBoys? (Those guys make the Iraqi Info minister seem honest and John Romero seem modest) where are these products? Who owns one? Nobody, because while it might get a decent 3Dmark2k1 score, would you rather have that for $150 or a Radeon 9600 that you can actually count on working with most of your games?

I don't think Intel or AMD could get anywhere in the graphics market unless they bought nVidia or ATI. AMD would have a tough time buying either considering their financial situation not to mention they have a hard enough time keeping up with Intel. Intel already bought Real3D and made a mockery out of their technology by only putting it into graphic decelerators (chipsets). Both of those companies make chips far less expensively than today's GPU's and get to sell them for 10X the price, why would they want to get into graphics where the newest board with 256mb of memory and TV tuner, remote, etc still sells for less than the price of one of their top of the line CPU's?

 

[jasonja]

Originally posted by: ss284

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
I do agree with jasonja about how dual chip video cards are usually a sign of desparatation amongst companies trying to keep up with performance pace. 3Dfx relied on this with their Voodoo 5 and they certain turned out just fine . And ATI and their Rage MAXX certainly took the market by storm... Well honostly on paper the products do seem to show SOME promise but one thing we do not know that we did during the other dual chip video cards is how a single chip solution will perform. Volari duo may be a desparate attempt to keep up with a 9800 Pro / 5900 Ultra while at the same time we do not even know where a common Volari V8 single chip will place. Heck, even if the Volari V8 places just below a 5600/9600, that would allow the V8 Ultra to soundly keep up if not surpass a 9800 Pro or 5900 Ultra. Again it is somewhat just wishful thinking on most all of our parts but it would be awesome if it were true... REVIEWS SOON PLEASE!!!

3dfx did sli when they were top, and it worked rather well.

and SLI setup back in 98' cost me $600 and gave me a 30% framerate improvement in games. 3dfx went bankrupt. Yeah that worked out real well for both me and them

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: jasonja

Originally posted by: ss284

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
I do agree with jasonja about how dual chip video cards are usually a sign of desparatation amongst companies trying to keep up with performance pace. 3Dfx relied on this with their Voodoo 5 and they certain turned out just fine . And ATI and their Rage MAXX certainly took the market by storm... Well honostly on paper the products do seem to show SOME promise but one thing we do not know that we did during the other dual chip video cards is how a single chip solution will perform. Volari duo may be a desparate attempt to keep up with a 9800 Pro / 5900 Ultra while at the same time we do not even know where a common Volari V8 single chip will place. Heck, even if the Volari V8 places just below a 5600/9600, that would allow the V8 Ultra to soundly keep up if not surpass a 9800 Pro or 5900 Ultra. Again it is somewhat just wishful thinking on most all of our parts but it would be awesome if it were true... REVIEWS SOON PLEASE!!!

3dfx did sli when they were top, and it worked rather well.

and SLI setup back in 98' cost me $600 and gave me a 30% framerate improvement in games. 3dfx went bankrupt. Yeah that worked out real well for both me and them

Voodoo 5 = onboard SLI dual Vodoo 4s... (V5 6000 is 4 Voodoo 4s...) And they pretty much did boost performance by double with the V5 over the V4... SLI is ever other line (right?) it sounds like the Volari Duo will do every other frame...

 

[sodcha0s]

There really wasn't much wrong with 3dfx's technology, in fact it was cutting edge and worked quite well. The SLI setup DOUBLED performance. All their problems started when they decided to make their own boards, instead of just concentrating on making chips. That one bad business move is what cost them. I'm willing to bet if they had stayed the course, they'd still be right in the mix, if not on top.

This may be where Nvidia is hurting themselves at the moment, they jumped into the chipset business and maybe it's draining recources for GPU development. Just speculation on my part, but there are some similarities.

 

[jasonja]

Originally posted by: sodcha0s
There really wasn't much wrong with 3dfx's technology, in fact it was cutting edge and worked quite well. The SLI setup DOUBLED performance. All their problems started when they decided to make their own boards, instead of just concentrating on making chips. That one bad business move is what cost them. I'm willing to bet if they had stayed the course, they'd still be right in the mix, if not on top.

This may be where Nvidia is hurting themselves at the moment, they jumped into the chipset business and maybe it's draining recources for GPU development. Just speculation on my part, but there are some similarities.

Yes their was something wrong with their technology.. it required multiple GPU's to compete with nVidia's single GPU architecture. The more GPU's you add, the more the cost. Die size of a ASIC is a major design consideration when developing GPU's because it controls the cost of manufacturing. 3dfx attempted to brute force the problem by throwing more gates at the problem which drove their costs beyong what any OEM or the average consumer would pay for a graphics board. 3dfx had nothing to follow on the Voodoo5 and they had no midrange product or diversity, selling their own boards wasn't extremely smart but ATI and Matrox do it and they are still around. They focused solely on the highend and this is NOT where any graphics company makes their money (It didn't help that they pissed away millions of dollars on a super bowl commercials and other office ammenities) It's simply not feasible for a company to survive when it's only product is a $400-$600 graphic card that only 1% of PC owners may buy. nVidia and ATI are doing the right thing by making chipsets. Intel, although sucking hard in graphics, sells boatloads of chipsets with video built on. Why do you think VIA bought S3 and SiS bought Trident, they need onboard video to compete in chipsets now. It's this market that ATI and nVidia want to take because the OEMs love it.

 

[Insomniak]

Originally posted by: jasonja

Originally posted by: ss284

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles
I do agree with jasonja about how dual chip video cards are usually a sign of desparatation amongst companies trying to keep up with performance pace. 3Dfx relied on this with their Voodoo 5 and they certain turned out just fine . And ATI and their Rage MAXX certainly took the market by storm... Well honostly on paper the products do seem to show SOME promise but one thing we do not know that we did during the other dual chip video cards is how a single chip solution will perform. Volari duo may be a desparate attempt to keep up with a 9800 Pro / 5900 Ultra while at the same time we do not even know where a common Volari V8 single chip will place. Heck, even if the Volari V8 places just below a 5600/9600, that would allow the V8 Ultra to soundly keep up if not surpass a 9800 Pro or 5900 Ultra. Again it is somewhat just wishful thinking on most all of our parts but it would be awesome if it were true... REVIEWS SOON PLEASE!!!

3dfx did sli when they were top, and it worked rather well.

and SLI setup back in 98' cost me $600 and gave me a 30% framerate improvement in games. 3dfx went bankrupt. Yeah that worked out real well for both me and them

Cost me 300$ and I got a 43% increase. Where the hell did you buy? I got Diamond Monster 3D IIs from CompUSA for about 140$ each....