i heard a rumor

[darkmiasma]

i heard a rumor that ATI was looking at having a dual VPU (kinda like the old V5 5500) ...

i can't seem to find the link where i was reading this, but has anyone else heard about it?

- mike

[Bigus Dickus]

ATi has already marketed a dual GPU in the past... the Rage Fury Maxx.

There were also working Radeon256 Maxx engineering boards, and multi-chip Radeon 8500 boards were manufactured by Evans & Sutherland for simulator graphics applications.

The R300 can run in multi-chip mode, and I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't at least plans for making engineering demonstration boards containing two or more R300 chips.

Now... whether we'll ever see another one of these products in the consumer market is another discussion entirely.

[darkmiasma]

i remember the Rage Fury Maxx now that you mention it ...

what I was referring to was probably a rumor for a dual chipped R300/R300+ chip ...

would there really be a need for this though? and what kind of benefit could you get out of having 2 VPU's?

[Nv40]

wow!

that will be really cool! ans r300 in sli mode

or dual chip mode..

very interesting!


but it would be better a single card . with the power of
two R300! or Nv30.. i think we need to wait and see..
but i remember that JCarmack told earlier this year that
Multichips cards will be available next year...
really exciting..

[The Baron]

it won't happen. at least not anytime soon.

2 words: power consumption. I think that should be all I have to say. :p

[MrNasty]

I think it would be too expensive to produce for mass retail but sombody out there clearly wants to string the things together and get 300 fps in doom3 :)

[Bigus Dickus]

Like I said, I don't doubt that there aren't at least plans to have engineering samples of dual or better R300 boards. However, I don't think they are economically feasible in the current market. If the market changed, perhaps, but I don't expect that to happen either.

If new generations of chips were released every two years (well, I'm not talking about nVidia's trend of releasing new architectures once every two years, but rather not even releasing a refresh but once every two years) it might make more sense as a one year refresh part. But with less than 12 months new cores coming out, I don't see it.

Sure, there would be some people that would pay whatever it costs, and I'd love to have it as an option in case I found a few hundred dollars in an old shoe somewhere, but I don't think they could sell enough to cover the R&D and setup costs. Perhaps you could argue the point of a "loss leader," but you better be really damn convincing. :)

[Uttar]

Originally posted by Nv40
i think we need to wait and see..
but i remember that JCarmack told earlier this year that
Multichips cards will be available next year...
really exciting..

I'm not sure about this, but I think he meant things like Pixar could ask for multichip NV30s/R300s in the future. After all, it was officially said that the R300 design is made so that *256* chips can be used at the same time. Woah! Gimme! :)
I wonder how many NV30s could be used at the same time...


Uttar

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by Uttar
I'm not sure about this, but I think he meant things like Pixar could ask for multichip NV30s/R300s in the future. After all, it was officially said that the R300 design is made so that *256* chips can be used at the same time. Woah! Gimme! :)
I wonder how many NV30s could be used at the same time...


Uttar

in either case your monthly power bill would probably exceed the cost of one card :p

[Uttar]

Originally posted by StealthHawk
in either case your monthly power bill would probably exceed the cost of one card :p

Hehe, agreed. But it's not like Pixar can't pay for that :p


Uttar

[suburbanguy]

There were also working Radeon256 Maxx engineering boards, and multi-chip Radeon 8500 boards were manufactured by Evans & Sutherland for simulator graphics applications

ah hah! I KNEW I had read that somewhere....




The R300 can run in multi-chip mode, and I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't at least plans for making engineering demonstration boards containing two or more R300 chips.

yeah upto 256 R300 VPUs can work together. geeezus.

[Darth Rancid]

Anyone know if these rumored dual R300 boards would use the same AFR technology that the Fury MAXX did or something more like 3dfx's SLI?

I can't see AFR being much use with more than two chips.. there were problems even with two chips...

If I have not gotten things completely wrong, AFR stands for "Alternative Frame Rendering", and that was exactly what the MAXX did, it let one chip work on frame x and the other on frame x+1... unlike SLI which has both chips working on the same frame.

I read, (at reactorcritical), that there was a problem with this, that sometimes it would happen that the drivers screwed up and the x+1 chip shut down for like half a second, effectively, the card ran with two chips "only" about 95% of the time... this didn't show very much in benchmarks, but RC made a time/fps graph, which showed the MAXX dropping to half its performance every now and then while playing Quake3. They reported that this made the card feel play worse than it benched, which I can understand, while I can't see the difference between 40 and 80 fps, I can definetely feel it in the controls...

[Raptorman]

I remember reading about the Rage Fury MAXX in Computer Games magazine a long time ago. Then, the lead ATi tech said that the MAXX technology would be available to "all" ATi chipsets for possible future use. They also stated that there would be future products using the MAXX technology. No doubt ATi has plans to make an AFR R300, but not likely for mass market. As stated before it probably will be for companies like Pixar.

As for SLI technique, ATi will never use that. nVIDIA owns the patents on that technology since they bought 3dfx, and they are not about to let it go I'm sure. Infact, I would expect nVIDIA to implement it, but they have said before they do not want to use a multi-chip solution.

As for ATi's AFR solution in the MAXX cards, it does have some problems. One chip rendering a frame, and the other rendering the frame after it has caused some problems (mostly driver issues if I am not mistaken). Though, I think by now ATi should have ironed out all of those problems with the MAXX technology.

I think there will be multi-chip video cards next year, as the 3dfx techs at nVIDIA are probably trying to get officials there to implement SLI technology into nVIDIA products. As I see this as a very useful technology, and I love it for gaming. As I still use my Voodoo 5 5500 PCI for older games such as Starsiege that run best, and look best under GLIDE. Anyway, back to the subject at hand, SLI tech is in nVIDIA's hands, and they will not overlook it I'm sure. We just have to wait and see when nVIDIA will implement SLI, and ATi start using their MAXX technology once again for the mainstream market.

[thcdru2k]

i for one do not want to shell out money for two cards :)

keep it single chip

[saturnotaku]

The Rage Fury MAXX, while cool in principle was horrible in terms of execution. From what I remember, first of all the card would not run at all under Windows 2000. Secondly, ATI's software had to "trick" Windows into seeing one chip as AGP and the other as PCI. This is what would cause one chip to get ahead of the other, causing those performance problems. I don't think ATI would want history to repeat itself by releasing an R300 MAXX, unless they want to fool computers into seeing both chips as PCI devices. :p

[sancheuz]

I heard another rumor. Seriously, that the r400 was only going to be as fast as the nv30. So , ati will use that to compete with nv30, but would not be faster.

[poursoul]

that's not a rumor that's an opinion. I just can't imagine someone meeting up with another person in a dark corner, and on of them whispers softly, "I heard another rumor. Seriously, that the r400 was only going to be as fast as the nv30. So , ati will use that to compete with nv30, but would not be faster."

And they both gasp in horror.

sorry if that was melow dramatic.;)

[tazdevl]

Originally posted by sancheuz
I heard another rumor. Seriously, that the r400 was only going to be as fast as the nv30. So , ati will use that to compete with nv30, but would not be faster.

That sounds like a pile of horse puckey. If you believe that I have a bridge to sell you.

[Bigus Dickus]

Originally posted by saturnotaku
The Rage Fury MAXX, while cool in principle was horrible in terms of execution. From what I remember, first of all the card would not run at all under Windows 2000. Secondly, ATI's software had to "trick" Windows into seeing one chip as AGP and the other as PCI. This is what would cause one chip to get ahead of the other, causing those performance problems. I don't think ATI would want history to repeat itself by releasing an R300 MAXX, unless they want to fool computers into seeing both chips as PCI devices. :p Quite right. The Rage Fury MAXX had some serious technical issues.

However, ATi has since developed a hardware AGP "bridge" chip that controlls two (or more?) chips in an AFR configuration, allowing them to both work in AGP mode under any Windows OS. The Radeon 8500DV/AIW versions used this bridge for the GPU and Tuner/theater chips.

[poursoul]

At this time I would like to point you all to this thread.

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4920

[saturnotaku]

Originally posted by Bigus Dickus
The Radeon 8500DV/AIW versions used this bridge for the GPU and Tuner/theater chips.

Those are two different chips, though. Do you know if such tech would work with two identical chips that do the work of a VPU/GPU instead of one GPU and a TV/FM tuner card?

[Jandar]

considering that there are 2 GPU and 4 GPU 8500 Ati boards being used by companies, I would say that the AGP Bridge chip works.


The ES Simfusion 5000 has either 2 or 4 8500 chips on it.

[Bigus Dickus]

Yes, I'm pretty sure that the bridge chip works with two GPU's as opposed to just a GPU and tuner, etc.

In fact, there were engineering samples of working Radeon MAXX boards using this bridge chip.