jcorqian :
that does not mean we could possibly know more about Nvidia's products than they do. We simply do not have enough firsthand knowledge. We can get information from various sources, we can speculate all we want, but that certainly does not qualify us as "knowing enough" to be able to dictate what Nvidia should or should not do better than Nvidia themselves. Both Nvidia and ATI are great and clever companies, they have to be to last in their cutthroat industry.
First-hand knowledge is over-rated; it's mostly an excuse given out. If nVidia knew what they were doing, then how come they didn't see that GT200 was going to be a lemon anywhere near as far out as most enthusiasts seemed to realize? nVidia and ATi are not all-knowing; what is truly misguided is to believe that they know everything about GPU design and creation, because they do not. They only know enough to keep up the pace of producing new designs at a constant rate; you can look at their successes and failures and tell that it's VERY much a constant learning experience for them.
And yes, if you're learning something, that means that chances are that there's someone else out there that already knows what you're learning.
Since I believe that was directed at me, I'll shoot back with some elementary computer construction knowledge, to have you know that my comment on the maximum power you can ram into a video card has NOTHING to do with what a household circuit can handle. Rather, it's that those individual yellow cords coming from a PC's PSU can only handle roughly 2.1 amps of +12v current apiece, (75w for a 6-pin PCIe connector, 100w for an 8-pin, with half the pins as grounds) because they are FAR thinner cords than what run in a house. The electrical bottleneck lies not within what the building can supply, but rather, just how many cables you can run from the PSU.
Given that modern graphics cards are designed to be allowable to be used in tandem with each other, you're going to need a multiple of cables to power all your cards. Already, if you use a pair of GTX 280s in SLi, that means you need 2 6-pin and 2 8-pin connectors. To the best of my knowledge, no existing power supply features more than 2 8-pin connectors, so right out by using one, tri-SLi is out of the question unless you have two PSUs... And cases that could accomidate two PSUs are very, very rare when you can find them at all, and that's ignoring the extra price you'd have to pay for 'em. (since we're continuing on the line of thought that money is the only limitor on computer design, period) If you go any higher, then you lose the ability to have SLi, because you only have enough 8-pin plugs for a single card. It's an open question if it could be possible to even try to cram three power plugs onto a single card.
(I'd note that a number of engineers are among the enthusiasts; while not working as an engineer, I have a bit of education as one)
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram