Should Nvidia add Eyefinity to their Fermi boards?

[Redeemed]

Originally Posted by jimmyjames123

Did you even bother to read what DarthBeavis wrote? Here it is again, in response to someone who heard a "rumor" that NVIDIA was basically pulling out of the gaming market:



This is a very simple comment--not dissing ATI at all, no comments about price/performance, no comments about performance crown, no comments about GPU market strategy--and yet you go on a rant to say that he is "overconfident"? Overconfident in what, the fact that NVIDIA is most certainly not abandoning the gaming market? Are you kidding me?

If anything, you are the one (along with AMD/ATI R7xx/R8xx owners MustangSVT, Xion X2, Viral, etc) who is spreading FUD about NVIDIA's future architecture vs current and future ATI/AMD architecture, even though you and almost no one else here knows anything concrete about the future architectures. Seems silly.

I suppose we should drink the Kool-Aid and believe that the game is over before it even begins?

There are some positives and negatives to both NVIDIA's [ongoing] strategy and ATI/AMD's [most recent] strategy. You can't write off NVIDIA's strategy purely based on one generation of cards (ie. GT200-based). NVIDIA has succeeded numerous times with their strategy (NV40, G80, etc), so what is preventing them from doing so in the future? Let's face it, when NVIDIA came out with GT200, they were caught off guard with ATI/AMD's strategy for R700. NVIDIA surely hasn't been caught off guard this time.

I don't see the big reason for all the fuss. NVIDIA is making a much bigger architectural leap from GT200 to G100 than ATI/AMD is making from R700 to R800. So what if they are a few months later in comparison? That is just one way to spin it. In one years time, whenever ATI/AMD comes out with a new architecture, one can argue that NVIDIA beat ATI/AMD to the punch to a radically new architecture, and then NVIDIA's refresh will be waiting in the wings soon after ATI/AMD releases a radically new architecture. This is the nature of the GPU design cycle.

Well, seems like I hit a nerve.

Problem is nVidia doesn't have to compete with the 5800s- it's the 6800s from ATi they really have to worry about.

Think about it- odds are the 5970 will be the fastest card for some time. The GTX380 mostly likely will be the fastest single-GPU card, but the 5970 will still be on top. And unless nVidia has found some magic way to produce such a large chip while having it consume very little amounts of power- it might be technically impossible for them to do a dual GPU chip to compete with the 5970. Thus meaning they'll have to wait for their refresh to completely retake the performance crown.

By the time nVidia's refresh comes out, ATi will be gearing up to release their Radeon HD6800 series- which will more than likely floor the GTX3xx refresh.

Granted, this is all pure speculation- but with how late to the game nVidia is (expected march release, Feb at the earliest- between 4-6 months behind ATi) the time line adds up to what I've said.

Have I once claimed this to be the end of nVidia? No- not once. But I have said that they face a tough fight ahead being this far behind. Now with Intel withdrawing Larabee from the consumer market- that takes a lot of pressure off of both companies. However, nVidia has to play catch up now. Of course if Ati was able to catch up with how far behind they were and how little $$$ they had- nVidia can and will as well. I just don't think it's gonna' happen over night as ya'll seem to believe it will (including Darth Beavis).

I've also never said that the GT300 will be a bad chip- I'm fully expecting it to be a stellar performer with lots of awesome and new features. However, they better be including the cure to aids for the price they'll have to sell the cards for- considering how large it is, how power hungry it is (all based off of currently available specs, mind you). There's just no way they can release it at as low a price point as AMD can with their cards... that'd be selling it at a loss.

Then again, the currently released specs could be way off and the GT300 might be a more economical card than the 5800s. That'd be frikken awesome and I'd love it. Competition is what drives the market and innovation, after all.

Originally Posted by jimmyjames123

NVIDIA "Scalable Visualization Solutions":

http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/img/.../nv29.jpg.html

Previously unveiled on the Quadro line:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/qplex_svs_overview.html

Nice. Now, how about something targeting gamers and your average, everyday computer user? Oh, and something that wont cost an arm and a leg as well as your first born son.

[MustangSVT]

I want to remind everyone that ATI did not come up with this technology at all. Matrox Parhelia had 3 monitor support back in 2002. TripleHead2Go came out in 2004 or 2005, and TH2GO Digital came out a few years ago and Matrox gave it 5040x1050 support sometime in mid 2008. All ATI has done is give 5760x1200 and 7680x1600 support. I'm ignoring their 6 monitor because #1 it's impractical, #2 it's not even out yet.

[Xion X2]

Originally Posted by MustangSVT

I want to remind everyone that ATI did not come up with this technology at all. Matrox Parhelia had 3 monitor support back in 2002. TripleHead2Go came out in 2004 or 2005, and TH2GO Digital came out a few years ago and Matrox gave it 5040x1050 support sometime in mid 2008. All ATI has done is give 5760x1200 and 7680x1600 support. I'm ignoring their 6 monitor because #1 it's impractical, #2 it's not even out yet.

Yeah, but that's all 3rd party stuff that costs additional cash. That was my point before, that Eyefinity is built-in driver support for anyone who has a 5xxx series card and a few extra monitors. No additional add-on card/device required.

And I don't know too much about those above multi-monitor solutions that you mentioned, but were they more for workstations or do they also work well for gaming?

If you were under NDA then constantly hinting at and stating that you can't comment because of NDA would violate the contract. NDA means you do not talk at all, no hints or even defense regarding such contract.

[Viral]

He's allowed to say that he's under NDA unless it's in the agreement that he can't. I don't see why that would be the case.

Like I said before, unfortunately for us all it serves is to beat his own drum. Although we can assume that Fermi will have something similar to eyefinity, if it doesn't we can blame beavis

Originally Posted by Viral

He's allowed to say that he's under NDA unless it's in the agreement that he can't. I don't see why that would be the case.

Like I said before, unfortunately for us all it serves is to beat his own drum. Although we can assume that Fermi will have something similar to eyefinity, if it doesn't we can blame beavis

All he can say is that he is under NDA, that is it. Yet he hints at support or some feature. Every NDA I signed stated that I can only respond that you cannot talk about anything regarding that specific company or any upcoming products.

When I worked as a Data Manager at AT&T I often had to sign NDAs when I received information regarding a new device. I couldn't even mention anything regarding them to other employees.

[Viral]

Originally Posted by |MaguS|

All he can say is that he is under NDA, that is it. Yet he hints at support or some feature. Every NDA I signed stated that I can only respond that you cannot talk about anything regarding that specific company or any upcoming products.

When I worked as a Data Manager at AT&T I often had to sign NDAs when I received information regarding a new device. I couldn't even mention anything regarding them to other employees.

Good to know. He's not exactly stating anything outright, but you do have a point.

I guess some people just can't help wave their inside knowledge in front of everyone's faces.

[Xion X2]

Originally Posted by slaWter

TH2G works very well for games. It is/was the number one choice for many racing simmers over the last couple of years.
The big advantage is that you can hock up every card, even multi-gpu setups, without special profiles. Eyefinity needs special Crossfire profiles to work well.

There's even a freeware software solution, SoftTH. Probably the most flexible of all.
Eyefinity probably has the best marketing, feature and flexibility wise it's not there yet.

How much are the add-on cards or software?

[KasuCode]

Im pretty sure Nvidia will add tripple (or more) monitor support like Eyefinity. I would be surprised if they didnt. Eyefinity is possible on a single card due to Displayports bandwidth. So its just Nvidia making the software support for it.

[MustangSVT]

Originally Posted by slaWter

TH2G works very well for games. It is/was the number one choice for many racing simmers over the last couple of years.
The big advantage is that you can hock up every card, even multi-gpu setups, without special profiles. Eyefinity needs special Crossfire profiles to work well.

There's even a freeware software solution, SoftTH. Probably the most flexible of all.
Eyefinity probably has the best marketing, feature and flexibility wise it's not there yet.

Could not have said it better myself. The advantage of TH2G is because you're tricking Windows into thinking it's got 1 monitor, it works with ATI, nVIDIA, SLI and CF.

The reason I'm not a huge fan of EyeFinity myself is because I would have expected their solution to be as flexible as SoftTH which is FREE, but it's not even close to being as flexible.

[KasuCode]

Originally Posted by MustangSVT

Could not have said it better myself. The advantage of TH2G is because you're tricking Windows into thinking it's got 1 monitor, it works with ATI, nVIDIA, SLI and CF.

The reason I'm not a huge fan of EyeFinity myself is because I would have expected their solution to be as flexible as SoftTH which is FREE, but it's not even close to being as flexible.

Windows sees my 3 monitors as 1 just the same. There is no limitation. Any game that will play with TH2G I can play at, at least the same resolution as TH2G and in almost every case ive tried can play at 5760x1080 I cant speak for crossfire as I currently do not have a crossfire setup. But with my 5870, Eyefinity has been one of the best gaming experiences in quite some time.

[MustangSVT]

Originally Posted by DarthBeavis

Do you know if they changed it so you can use three widescreen monitors? That was the only drawback
Crysis on three 1080p LCD monitors.


I will have to read up on Display-port technology as I am clueless about it. I assume it is faster than HDMI?

The only resolutions supported by Matrox Th2Go are 5040x1050 and 4320x900 for widescreen, and I think one that's like 3x1280x768 or something like that. So if you have 16:9 monitors with 1920x1080 or 1600x900, then it won't work properly I think. Your monitors also need to support 57 Hz or 59 Hz. It doesn't do 3x1920x1200 either, you have to run your 1920x1200 monitors at 1680x1050 (like I do). So it has its fair share of limitations.