Discussion Is there an alternative to SLI or CF in the works or being talked about that solves the problems of SLI and CF?

[Order 66]

I know that SLI and CF died because of a lack of dev support, high latency, and high price. not to mention, the fact that the power draw was also high.

 

[rgd1101]

no

 

[USAFRet]

I do not believe so.

The current "alternative" is simply more powerful GPUs. Which we already have.

As we've seen over the years, combinations like this often do not give the supposed benefits, and can have significant drawbacks.
SLI/CF and RAID, for instance.

 

[Order 66]

no

I suppose you are correct, but I was also thinking that AMD's chiplet stuff was kind of a successor if you could get a dual chiplet card with each chiplet being as powerful as a 7900xtx and marketed as such.

 

[rgd1101]

it was on a single card.

 

[USAFRet]

I suppose you are correct, but I was also thinking that AMD's chiplet stuff was kind of a successor if you could get a dual chiplet card with each chiplet being as powerful as a 7900xtx and marketed as such.

No, thats not what a "chiplet" is.

 

[Order 66]

No, thats not what a "chiplet" is.

Please clarify. I guess my idea is closer to Apple's chip-to-chip interconnect that was used for the M1 ultra. It is called their Ultrafusion architecture.

 

[USAFRet]

Please clarify. I guess my idea is closer to Apple's chip-to-chip interconnect that was used for the M1 ultra. It is called their Ultrafusion architecture.

What is chiplet? | Definition from TechTarget

This definition explains what a chiplet is and how it is used to build modular CPU's.

www.techtarget.com

A different way to make a processor, in the same package.

 

[Order 66]

What is chiplet? | Definition from TechTarget

This definition explains what a chiplet is and how it is used to build modular CPU's.

www.techtarget.com

A different way to make a processor, in the same package.

thanks, Is there anyway to combat the disadvantages of SLI/CF by making some kind of driver based solution that allows a game to treat a dual GPU as one GPU and move the burden of making both GPUs function correctly together to the driver?

 

[USAFRet]

thanks, Is there anyway to combat the disadvantages of SLI/CF by making some kind of driver based solution that allows a game to treat a dual GPU as one GPU and move the burden of making both GPUs function correctly together to the driver?

Thats exactly what SLI/CF was. 2 physical GPUs working together.

And as we saw over the years, game devs never really embraced it. Remember, they also have to code for low end systems (to a point). Spending extra resources to cater the top 1% is a waste of time/money.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

DX12 brings something like SLI to the table.

Explicit Multi-GPU with DirectX 12 – Control, Freedom, New

developer.nvidia.com

This requires developers to do the heavy lifting, thus why there are so few titles that support it. And, as said earlier it doesn't offer much if any improvement over a single more powerful GPU.

 

[Shadowsnakex]

Thats exactly what SLI/CF was. 2 physical GPUs working together.

And as we saw over the years, game devs never really embraced it. Remember, they also have to code for low end systems (to a point). Spending extra resources to cater the top 1% is a waste of time/money.

That was the intent, but the OS would not always scale the two cards as one. If applications were not coded, or even properly coded, SLI would add no benefit. I ran it for years and finally gave up because the cost of implementation was just too high for the minimal gains I would get.

 

[Avro Arrow]

That was the intent, but the OS would not always scale the two cards as one. If applications were not coded, or even properly coded, SLI would add no benefit. I ran it for years and finally gave up because the cost of implementation was just too high for the minimal gains I would get.

Yeah, the last cards that I ever tried to use in Crossfire were my R9 Furies. Multi-GPU has been dead since then. It's kind of a shame too because DX12 made it possible for Radeon and GeForce cards to work together for the first time (already too late to matter though).

There is something brewing at ATi though because I saw this video from Gamer Meld yesterday. It's kinda-sorta related to this. I don't know how much stock I would put in it but he's usually pretty good:

 

[Order 66]

Yeah, the last cards that I ever tried to use in Crossfire were my R9 Furies. Multi-GPU has been dead since then. It's kind of a shame too because DX12 made it possible for Radeon and GeForce cards to work together for the first time (already too late to matter though).

There is something brewing at ATi though because I saw this video from Gamer Meld yesterday. It's kinda-sorta related to this. I don't know how much stock I would put in it but he's usually pretty good:

Very interesting… that would be amazing assuming a fast enough interconnect, and I would certainly buy one. Imagine the power of 2 7900xtx’s put together (essentially)