AMD Crossfire X Support For Quad-GPUs To Arrive In March

[vdf22]

Originally Posted by magictorch

Is it better to fuse the cards together into a unit...i.e. how do 2 3870's compare with the GX2??

I suppose you mean the 3870x2? GX2 is Nvidia's dual-GPU card. Comparing 2x3870 with 3870x2: ATI Radeon HD3870 X2 1GB Review

Originally Posted by magictorch

BTW a single core 45nm penryn if it existed would kick the crap out of P4-they are always evolving to smaller, faster and more energy efficient. They just need to keep throwing money into R+D and think things through... Personally I'm looking forward to organic holographic displays and games coded for them.

The trouble is AMD doesn't have much money for R&D so sticking 2 GPU's on a card is the best they can do ATM.

[magictorch]

Originally Posted by tom.mullie

The X2 is better than 2 3870s in crossfire, but not by much, its true. However, more processors in less slots is better, as we reach the limits of how much physical space there is on an ATX board. And while the drivers aren't yet great, there is no doubt they are rapidly improving.

As for Penryn beating P4, sure. But software developers (and us) demand that we at least pace Moore's law. The limit of single core processing is so close that it is all but impossible to double performance in 18 months. Witness the switch from silicon to Hafnium inside the Penryn core. we have actually reached the lower limit for the size of a silicon chip, and will never make one smaller. so we aren't at the end, but we are too close to ignore whats coming.

Yes but you could move to something more exotic than wafers and transistors. Theyll find a way but your right there isnt anything round the corner.

[magictorch]

[quote=vdf22;39710]I suppose you mean the 3870x2? GX2 is Nvidia's dual-GPU card. Comparing 2x3870 with 3870x2: ATI Radeon HD3870 X2 1GB Review

yes thats the one-x2, GX2 I, 5 flavors of 8000series --I get confused easily

[vdf22]

Originally Posted by magictorch

yes thats the one-x2, GX2 I, 5 flavors of 8000series --I get confused easily

It's not surprising.

[vdf22]

Of course, the 3870x2 and 3870 are clocked differently. While the 3870 has a faster memory speed, the x2 has a higher clocked GPU (825 vs 775 I believe). Therefore, since the 3870x2 performs faster it might just be because of the higher clock, not because it's more efficient having two GPU's on one board. Although I would think if the clocks were the same the x2 would likely still be faster by a tad, due to having the GPU's so close together. Also the x2 supports PCIe2, so on a motherboard that supports it it would likely be a fair amount faster, according to AMD's slides anyway.

Oh, and by the way, has anyone seen a PCIe1.1 vs 2 benchmark anywhere? I'd like to see if it really is that much faster. Perhaps someone here could do one?

[Ugly n Grey]

Aren't these the drivers that allow the discrete GPU part in a laptop to be turned off in favour of the integrated GPU part for saving power ? My understanding is that these drivers will also be the enabler for Hybrid crossfire, allowing things like a low end video card to work in concert with the integrated graphics in 780G to boost games etc for the budget minded. There's a lot in this package besides quadfire.

[vinister]

damn does that mean I could use my new cards AND my old cards and not have to sell anything??

talk about injecting value into something thats headed for the trash bin!

[tom.mullie]

Originally Posted by vdf22

Oh, and by the way, has anyone seen a PCIe1.1 vs 2 benchmark anywhere? I'd like to see if it really is that much faster. Perhaps someone here could do one?

Try Tom's hardware. they did it, and found that there isn't much difference. It makes sense, since no card today is powerful enough to fill even 16 lanes of regular PCIe. And I beleive you're right, Ugly n Gray. Hybrid crossfire should also be included. Is it supposed to increase performance for laptops, or just save power?

[vdf22]

Originally Posted by tom.mullie

Try Tom's hardware. they did it, and found that there isn't much difference. It makes sense, since no card today is powerful enough to fill even 16 lanes of regular PCIe. And I beleive you're right, Ugly n Gray. Hybrid crossfire should also be included. Is it supposed to increase performance for laptops, or just save power?

I think it's supposed to do both.