X-bit labs

MSI Shows Off Upgradeable Graphics Card.

Category: Video

by Anton Shilov

[ 01/06/2006 | 11:53 PM ]

For years adorers of powerful graphics boards wished that they could only replace graphics chip and memory on their adapters without dumping the whole product. MicroStar International (MSI), a leading maker of computer components, showcased at Consumer Electronics Show a graphics card that may make dreams of some enthusiasts come true.

Microstar shows off its Geminium-Go! graphics card featuring two Mobile PCI Express Module (MXM) modules that employ a pair of Nvidia GeForce Go 6600 processors along with 512MB of memory in total. The graphics processing units (GPUs) work in multi-GPU SLI mode, thus, the graphics board achieves performance similar to the GeForce 6800 graphics cards. In case a proper power supply circuitries are employed, even two MXM modules with products like GeForce Go 7800 GTX may be installed for ultimate performance.

MSI Geminium-Go, picture by PC Watch web-site. Click to enlarge

The graphics card was demonstrated as a conceptual model and the manufacturer did not demonstrate it in work. MSI is known for showcasing products that would never be sold for money. During the Computex Taipei 2005 show the company revealed its graphics card with both AGP 8x and PCI Express x16 interfaces, the board that the company later admitted was just a concept product and was not intended to be sold commercially.

Nvidia MXMs are designed for usage in notebooks and are supposed to allow customers to upgrade graphics sub-systems in their laptops. In reality, it is practically impossible for end-users to acquire MXM graphics cards themselves. There are a number of MXM implementations – MXM-I, MXM-II, MXM-III and MXM-HE – for various needs that are different by footprints (MXM-I is the smallest, MXM-HE is the largest) and by thermal compatibility. While the MXM products are backwards compatible (MXM-HE slot can support all the rest form-factors), different notebooks employ different MXM flavours and utilise specific cooling systems.