Posted 08/18/09 at 09:44:18 AM by Paul Lilly

Three years from now, two-thirds of all new desktop systems will be mutli-GPU capable and of those, 30 percent will be rocking multiple graphics chips. Or at least that's the not-too-distant future Jon Peddie Research Group (JPR) laid out last week in a report on the history, technology, and future of multi-GPU computing. But are we really on the verge of widespread multi-GPU computing?

Not so fast, says Arstechnica. The JPR report points to the desire for high performance computing as the driving force for multi-GPU setups, noting high performance workloads are highly parallel and unsuited for CPU applications. But according to Arstechnica, JPR hasn't thought through the manufacturing angle.

"GPUs are composed of many parallel processing units, so any multi-GPU system involves simply ganging together still more of such small, simple processor cores," Arstechnica writes. "Because the cores are small and the workload is parallel, there is no limit on core count analogous to the limit on the number of processors that can profitably be used in a single x86 CPU. The limits on single-die GPU horsepower are manufacturing limits."

But it's not just about manufacturing. As Ars points out, only two percent of all desktop PCs sold last year came with multiple GPUs, and in Q4 of last year, only 15.2 million out of 38.5 million PCs sold came with even a single discrete graphics card. It's hard to imagine such a dramatic shift towards multiple GPUs in just three short years from now.

There's more to Ars' argument, which you can read here.

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Posted 12/31/08 at 11:15:00 AM by Gordon Mah Ung

 Its official name is Core 2 CrossFire DDR3 Gaming System, but you can just call it the Quad Meister or Quaderino, if you’re into the brevity thing. What else could you possibly call a PC equipped with two ATI Radeon 4870 X2 cards (quad GPU cores), four Velociraptors (quad hard drives) and an overclocked Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 (uhh, quad cores)? Maybe we’re stretching here, but our nickname is certainly sexier than the PC’s official moniker.

Read on for the rest of the review!

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Posted 12/19/08 at 12:00:00 PM by David Murphy

Remember Myst Online? You shouldn't. GameTap shut the servers for the fumbling MMO in the beginning of this year, leaving plenty of fans of massively multiplayer online puzzle-solving out in the cold. Until the rights were returned to Cyan Worlds, which promptly promised to resurrect the MMO under the clever acronym of MORE -- the Myst Online Resurrection Experiment. Which was all fine, until funding difficulties killed the project once again. Which has since been resurrected again (surpassing Jean Gray's record), this time as a result of Cyan Worlds turning the entire Myst Online platform over to the open source community.

Strangely, this is the first big announcement from any of the "larger" MMOs that involves open source in any fashion. When an MMO dies, it usually dies for good, regardless of how persistent the fan base is toward resurrecting the fallen title into a working project.

Click the link and come into the strange, shifting world of open-source MMOs!

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Posted 09/01/08 at 09:00:30 PM by Mark Edward Soper

Tom's Hardware reports that AMD is set to launch the new ATI HD 4600 series of video cards on September 10. The HD 4600 is designed to compete with the GeForce 9500 series of video cards, and is expected to replace the ATI HD 3800 series.

HD 4670 versus HD 4650

The HD 4600 series, like the GT 9500 GT, provides best performance when used with GDDR3 memory, but will also be available with DDR3 and DDR2 memory. Cards based on the RV730XT GPU will be known as the HD 4670 (available in 1GB and 512MB RAM versions), while cards based on the slower RV730 Pro GPU will be known as the HD 4650 (available with 512MB of RAM).

Both GPUs will offer PCI Express 2.0 support, DirectX 10.1 support, physics and dynamic geometry acceleration, 24x CFAA technology, 128-bit memory bandwidth, HDCP support for full-quality HD playback, and CrossFire support. The HD 4670 has a power requirement of only 70 to 80 watts, while the HD 4650 requires only 50 to 55 watts, making them ideal for home theater systems.

Want to see more pictures of actual HD 4670 hardware? Join us after the jump for links.

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Posted 05/28/08 at 01:26:15 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

This month, the Doctor tackles mysterious unrecognized devices, HDCP's colossal headaches, and trying to back up content from your DVR.

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Posted 04/29/08 at 03:35:28 PM by Gordon Mah Ung

I’ve been skeptical of multi multi-GPU support since the days of Nvidia’s original Quad SLI. Back then, bad drivers, a lack of game support, and 30-inch panels that cost a month’s pay made the prospect unpalatable.

Click Read More for more. 

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Posted 03/03/08 at 06:54:01 PM by Michael Brown

AMD’s Radeon HD 3870 is a fine GPU for the money. It doesn’t outperform Nvidia’s GeForce 8800 GTX, and it lags far behind the extravagant 8800 Ultra, but it does deliver a phenom— er, make that a tremendous price/performance ratio.

Click Read More for more. 

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Posted 01/28/08 at 07:48:46 PM by Michael Brown

Which company delivers the best visual experience: AMD or Nvidia?

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