Nvidia experimenting with Multi-Chip Solutions

I would be surprised because of the power draw. They can do that on 2 down-clocked NV17s due to low power usage (note the passive cooling), but not with a full GF3 or GF4. That multi-monitor Quadro is aimed at a particular market and nothing special was done to tie rendering (3D) between the 2 chips.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: pxc on 2002-02-20 04:09 ]</font>
 
nothing special was done to tie rendering (3D) between the 2 chips.
Does this imply one of the chips get disabled for 3D apps?

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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: KnightBreed on 2002-02-20 04:24 ]</font>
 
They're probably using each chip to drive two monitors and they don't work together to render the same screen. This is just an assumption based on how Matrox's MMS series works. The MMS series has four G200 chips to drive four monitors.
 
well , more competition for matrox ..

matrox was the first to bring the dualhead technology , now everyone has it ( or tries to )

I wasn't that suprised that matrox still owns most of the workstation market

i guess they need to get their act together if they want to stay alive ... nvidia is pretty much trying to start a monopoly here.. and i'd hate to see only 1 or 2 players in this game

one of the problem with nvidia is they have a bunch of low budget manufacturers ,trying to save money on every components , but with matrox every component is the best money can buy , since they make their own products
 
pxc, I don't think that power draw would be that much of a problem. I remember one of GF2's with internal power connector (much like V5).
 
The 3DLabs Wildcats draw an enormous amount of power to. System requirement includes an APG Pro 50 slot and 50W available power, wich could cause a whole lot of trouble. They solve this by not offering them as stand alone cards, but only in certified workstations. Maby nvidia could do something similar. Also, I think I read somewhere that Evans &amp; Sutherland was going to make some kind of (supposedly multi-chip) visualization system with nvidia chips. Anyone got any info on that?

Regards / ushac
 
On 2002-02-20 22:10, DaveBaumann wrote:
IIRC E&amp;S has a deal with ATi for Multi-chip Radeon 8500 boards.

Now that is something I had all but written off the possibility of this. Link or something would be very cool. Crap the E&amp;S threw me off for a sec yeah, that is interesting I all but forget about that. http://www.ati.com/na/pages/corporate/press/2001/4434.html

Sabastian

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Sabastian on 2002-02-20 22:23 ]</font>
 
On 2002-02-20 07:06, muted wrote:
well , more competition for matrox ..

matrox was the first to bring the dualhead technology , now everyone has it ( or tries to )

Not so sure about this... SGI had multi-head solutions a long time ago.

... but with matrox every component is the best money can buy ...

Except they use the G450 ;)
 
well Matrox first implemented dualhead on the g400 in 99 , and their g200 multi-monitor series in 99 too ..


like haig posted on matrox's forums , nvidia is in competition with a 3 year old product
 
On 2002-02-21 00:42, OpenGL guy wrote:

Not so sure about this... SGI had multi-head solutions a long time ago.

Perhaps more directly relevant, both ATI and S3 had several generations of mobile graphic chips with multi-display capabilities prior to the release of Matrox products with DualHead support. Some of the later ViRGE boards even incorporated it in desktop-oriented parts, although perhaps only to the extend of allowing independent control of the TV-output... I'm no longer certain.

Perhaps Matrox does deserve credit for popularizing the support of multiple analog displays from a single chip, though.
 
they were the first to offer 2 or more displays on a single card

and their g550 is the first and only card capable of outputting to two dvi flat panels ( taken from their site )

matrox brings a lot to the market , just not often :cry:
 
On 2002-02-21 01:24, muted wrote:
they were the first to offer 2 or more displays on a single card

and their g550 is the first and only card capable of outputting to two dvi flat panels ( taken from their site )

matrox brings a lot to the market , just not often :cry:

Actually Matrox was the first to support dual monitors with a single chip. Appian who later licensed their Hydravision software to ATI has used 3dlabs chips to drive dual monitors from one card for a few years. At least I think they used a single card.

It's kind of the same situation Nvidia has with T&amp;L. Others had hardware T&amp;L first, but Nvidia was the first to integrate it with the rasterizer.
 
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