Is the dual GPU concept history?

[cst1992]

It's been a while since the 690's success, and everyone knows the Titan Z was a huge flop. Even AMD haven't introduced any dual GPUs after the 295x2.

Given that now gamers also demand low noise and temperatures apart from high performance, is the concept of two GPUs on one PCB no more? We've waited for a dual Titan X or dual 980Ti or dual Fury X to surface eagerly, but I guess that didn't happen. And now I'm starting to think NVIDIA/AMD have dropped the concept altogether, with good GPU scaling in SLI.

What do others think?

 

[13thmonkey]

http://hexus.net/tech/news/graphics/91253-amd-radeon-pro-duo-introduced-gdc-2016/

AMD have just announced.

 

[jerdle]

I love how he makes this thread the day after AMD announces the Fury X2

 

[migronesien]

Maybe you should look for the "AMD Radeon Pro Duo". 😛

 

[king3pj]

I guess I'm not sure what benefit something like a 690 or 295x2 has over two 680's in SLI or two 290's in Crossfire. Games still have to support SLI or Crossfire to take advantage of the second GPU in these dual gpu packages.

If you have been waiting for a dual Titan X why not just buy two Titan X.

 

[Rookie_MIB]

Well it's a legit question for ---gamers---. With the Maxwell series, Nvidia has done a very nice job showing how power can be paired with efficiency and low noise to make a single powerful graphics card.

However, for the professional users there is a definite market for a dual-GPU system. Many times for rendering you need more GPU power in a system because it can accelerate rendering speeds a LOT. And face it, time is money. If you have a quad-SLI/quad-Crossfire capable motherboard, and a PSU to match, it boils down to how many GPUs can you fit into a system. If you can fit quad cards with dual GPUs into a system, and that system can get a job done half the time that a quad card single GPU setup can do - well, it will pay for itself when you're paying animators by the hour for a job.

In fact, that's why they're marketing that very dual Fiji Radeon Pro at, well, professionals, and NOT gamers. Paying someone $50-100/hour to sit around and wait for a rendering job to finish can get expensive quickly. Spending $6k to cut that time in half? Worth it.

 

[pauls3743]

It's also worth noting you can fit a dual gpu card into a smaller case where you don't have the space for SLi or crossfire. Just imagine an ITX system with a dual gpu card, I'd probably do it if my case was a few inches longer.

 

[Rookie_MIB]

It's also worth noting you can fit a dual gpu card into a smaller case where you don't have the space for SLi or crossfire. Just imagine an ITX system with a dual gpu card, I'd probably do it if my case was a few inches longer.

Ha - no kidding. Imagine a Fury Pro dual in an ITX case? You'd have the equivalent (in both size and thermal output) of a small space heater. ROFL.

 

[pauls3743]

I'm currently doing a reference GTX 980Ti, and it's slightly bigger than the Fury Pro dual, in a Silverstone SG05. The rear end of the card does get a bit toasty. 😛

 

[Rookie_MIB]

If the reference 980ti is making things warm, imagine the Fury Pro? It's rated for somewhere around 500+ watts. It literally WOULD be a space heater, just one that you can render and/or seriously game on.

 

[13thmonkey]

I'm currently doing a reference GTX 980Ti, and it's slightly bigger than the Fury Pro dual, in a Silverstone SG05. The rear end of the card does get a bit toasty. 😛

The rear is where the heat is exhausted so i'd be worried if it wasn't tbh, and imagine a non blower style, all that heat being dumped into the case, making the CPU HSF work even harder.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Dual GPU cards are the spawn of Beelzebub's loins and every time one is purchased a kitten explodes.

 

[cst1992]

I won't even want to know what that means.

 

[renz496]

Personally i see there is not much attraction to dual gpu (in one package). not saying there is none but the more fitting description will be niche. They were expensive from the get go. And sometimes even more expensive than two individual card paired together for the same performance. Abd the final blow is? Developer are not really that interested with multi gpu in general. True some triple A dev might have the interest with it but at large it is not something that attracts the interest of most developer. espcially with dx12 where developer have to implement it themselves instead of amd/nvidia make the 'hack' to make it work in games. Nvidia for example have not shown much interest in dual gpu ever since their successful 690. Titan Z at 3k? Hmm that 's like telling us nvidia want to put most of those GK110 on tesla board instead of wasting them on geforce class gpu.