inquirer says:rumours of out of case gfx chips

[Techno+]

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36403

man i hope these are just rmours, IMO separate gfx boxes will add too much to the cost.

 

[Rangers]

I think it's a great idea and inevitable, just like seperate, if not external power supplies for GFX cards.

It probably needs Nvidia to pioneer it, so people wont criticize it so much because it's Nvidia, but it'll def come.

Hmm, I have questions about this though..I'm envisioning a shuttle style SFF for your vide card someday. In some way this actually makes things simpler for the laymen. It's a modular component now and you dont even have to crack open your case. It also open up a lot of cooling options. However, having two boxes for your PC instead of one isn't very elegant.

But mainly, how would this connect to your PC? In the shuttle SFF scenario, you'd likely need to set it on top of your tower (or at least behind) which would presumably require some USB style cable..would this cause severe latency issues due to the length of the cord?

 

[armchair_architect]

It probably needs Nvidia to pioneer it, so people wont criticize it so much because it's Nvidia, but it'll def come.

They already did: http://www.nvidia.com/page/quadroplex.html

 

[silent_guy]

But mainly, how would this connect to your PC? In the shuttle SFF scenario, you'd likely need to set it on top of your tower (or at least behind) which would presumably require some USB style cable..would this cause severe latency issues due to the length of the cord?

According to the tech docs here, Quadroplex uses standard PCIe 16x over a VHDCI cable to communicate with the PC. In that case, latency won't be an issue. (For USB, bandwidth would be a bigger problem than latency, but, yes, latency by itself would also be hard: not really for pure downstream traffic, but for interrupts, which on USB have a granularity of 1ms.)

 

[The_Wolf_Who_Cried_Boy]

But mainly, how would this connect to your PC? In the shuttle SFF scenario, you'd likely need to set it on top of your tower (or at least behind) which would presumably require some USB style cable..would this cause severe latency issues due to the length of the cord?

Hypertransport 3 has an option to tun over an external cable up to a metre long at full speed (5.2 GTransfers/sec).

QuadFX would have an available HT link on processor 2...

 

[Geo]

It's not the first time I've heard this kind of thing, and usually associated with ATI. Tho I'd think NV has got to be thinking of it as well, as its really a power/heat thing. MaximumPC had a quote from ATI's R&D guy (his name escapes me at the moment) along these lines a few months back. So the idea is definitely kicking around out there.

 

[Techno+]

I think it will be good to have GPUs in package similar to the ones hardrives use,then add a bay in or outside the case for the GP box.

 

[Skrying]

I think it will be good to have GPUs in package similar to the ones hardrives use,then add a bay in or outside the case for the GP box.

Wouldn't work. If GPUs move outside the case then they'd need their own case, one with a fully functional cooling system, it'll be rather large also (imagine your current case plus another besides it about 1/3 the size). I really do not like the move from a consumer standpoint but for those who need high end professional GPUs and lots of them it would work well.

 

[Techno+]

well i meant from a pro point of view.

 

[RejZoR]

And it'll be called CrossBox instead CrossFire. And you'll be bale to stack whole bunch of boxes on top of eachother and interconnect them just like cabinets!

 

[Skrying]

well i meant from a pro point of view.

Well it wouldn't fit in a bay like a hard drive either, that'd be worse than its current placement.

 

[Rangers]

And it'll be called CrossBox instead CrossFire. And you'll be bale to stack whole bunch of boxes on top of eachother and interconnect them just like cabinets!

No doubt. Nvidia octo-SLI. Sucks enough power to cause local brownouts no doubt.