by Anton Shilov
03/12/2005 | 05:50 AM
ATI is not announcing its multi visual processing unit (VPU) technology at CeBIT, but it seems that the company has proceeded significantly with its technology that is going to compete with NVIDIA’s Multi-GPU Scalable Link Interface (SLI).
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Particularly ASUSTeK shows off a mainboard based on ATI’s RADEON XPRESS 200-series chipset with two PCI Express x16 slots on it. Some unofficial sources said the design of the platform is co-developed by ASUS and ATI. The latter is reportedly promoting the idea among other mainboard makers, thus, we should consider this type of ATI Multi-Rendering (AMR) platform as a reference design. Still, the AMR is projected to operate pretty fine on mainboards featuring NVIDIA’s nForce 4 SLI, VIA’s or Intel’s chipsets.
Not much information is available about the product though, despite of its demonstration. It is unknown how the dual PCI Express x16 slots are implemented, but there is a rumour that the firm has two physical and electrical PCI Express x16 slots.
ATI does not reveal the Multi-VPU concepts to the general public, but for its add-in card partners it has posted a brief overview of its technology in its roadmap update. At least for now there is one important update from what was previously reported – ATI wants two identical graphics cards to be installed, not two different boards as said before based on information from unofficial sources. Here is what ATI says to its partners:
AMD is showing off a system powered by its dual-core processor as well as revealing the Turion 64 chip at the show.
An Alienware box running AMD’s Athlon 64 dual-core chip is not allowed to be benchmarked or explored, thus, it is unknown what the core-speed of the central processing unit is. The computer itself is a noisy one, but that, according to AMD is a problem of particular design, as generally the dual-core Athlon 64 is designed for the same type of infrastructure as the company’s 90nm desktop chips. While the dual-core products have 110W TDP compared to 105W TDP of modern single-core chips, AMD says the dual-core desktop AMD64 products will be able to operate on current mainboards fine.
AMD has just introduced its Athlon 64 chip for mobiles with 35W and 25W thermal envelope code-named Ivanhoe and generally known as Turion 64. Unfortunately, not a lot of notebook makers actually showcase the Turion 64 notebooks on the show, but this should improve as time goes by, says AMD.
ASUS has decided to make and now show off the world’s fastest graphics card that will remain the fastest even after the launch of next-generation products, such as ATI’s R520. The board features two GeForce 6800 Ultra graphics processors, which work in the Multi-GPU SLI mode and give users the power of 32 pixel and 12 vertex processors, totally unbelievable number even a year ago.
The graphics card that is yet to receive its brand-name is equipped with total 256MB of memory with 256-bit interface as well as two DVI-I connectors. It is unclear whether the board allows output to 4 displays.
While the design of the graphics card looks simplistic, the dual GeForce 6800 Ultra is expected to put tremendous requirements on the PSU of the system as well as its other components, such as mainboard, which will indisputably make systems with the product very expensive. However, ASUS thinks there is a market for this type of products.
The company insists that the dual GeForce 6800 Ultra will be faster compared to the forthcoming chips, namely R520, which will allow users to remain on the leading edge of technology without upgrading the graphics card. But what if the company equips its next-gen graphics card with two R520 visual processing units? :)