Head of Nvidia Criticizes Dual-GPU Approach as Dual-GPU GeForce 9800 G

[Maziar]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20080213225346_Head_of_Nvidia_Criticizes_Dual_GPU_Approach_as_Dual_GPU_GeForce_9800_GX2_Looms.html

 

[sincraft]

Hmm, these statements make me wonder about NVIDIA. I know it's all flash and show his statements, but it sounds like a company I worked for whereas you fight with management to get them to agree to what needs to be done and the resultign product is half management decision and half what the engineers hoped for. Which is usually half of what the customer's wanted.

"...the enthusiast that uses that particular PC will certainly tolerate the fact that it’s a much larger solution. But if it’s not the highest performance solution in the world, as in the case of the X2, then it’s just really problematic.."

UM Excuse me. What about your monster GTS cards? Yea...thanks you lost credibility there. Or, I guess I should say - WHICH Gts cards right? The older g80 or the newer g92 cores.
Oh and btw while you at it, can you please put the correct fan on your references, that would be great.

God, talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

 

[LukeBird]

What a pratt....
Telling everyone that AMD went the wrong way with the 3870X2 and then saying how great they're 9800GX2 will be... This guy needs lessons on how to not sound like a coffee boy...
It's this sort of attitude that puts me off Nvidia, hence I'm considering binning my SLi board & GTX and going crossfire on an AM2+ board with dual 3870X2's....
The 3870X2 is a far neater solution than the seemingly not so technically impressive 9800GX2...
No thanks Nvidia, when you're boss can understand what he's saying I might consider buying stuff from you again!

 

[leo2kp]

I don't think he was saying that. What he's saying is if the X2 cannot outperform everything else, don't do it. In other words, he's expecting the 9800GX2 to whomp everything else. If ATI's X2 was faster than everything else then it's worth the extra silicon, but it's not since there is a better single-card solution out there (the GTX, which IMO is slower).

What he's saying about a single-GPU setup is that it currently offers the best performance/amount of resources offered (silicon used, etc). In other words, he's saying that current dual-GPU setups will not offer that much more in performance and is therefore pointless unless it can trounce the best single-card configuration, unlike the ATI X2 (according to him, mind you).

I'm going to wait for the 9800GX2 before being too harsh on him. These are some strong words for a company who has yet to release its latest card, but then again how is AMD any better right now? (Phenom) :-/

 

[Waspy]

Leo2kp, I agree with you. I do find that it could have been worded a lot better by Huang but oh well. Maybe the author took some things out of context. Of course this is coming from basically a nVidia fan boy, hehe...of course, fan boy for a good reason! nVidia GPUs have kicked ATI's ass in power for a while now (read: 8800s baby).

 

[jnava121]

8800 ultra 700 dollars


3870x2 450 dollars


Hmm... lets talk about price premiums....

 

[leo2kp]

I personally have no problem with an X2 card even if it's not the fastest. If that's the best ATI can do, well then I guess that's what they should do. Weather or not cost/performance is an issue is another story. I'm not saying I agree with NVidia's statement, but I don't think he's being overly hypocritical either. I think it's just a major viewpoint difference.

ATI doesn't seem to care if an X2 card is the fastest ever and that's fine. He would be more of an a$$ if the 9800GX2 was not the fastest card ever, and I'm expecting it to be!

 

[bydesign]

He's right about multi GPU's they are hack jobs and that includes SLI and crossfire setups.

 

[Lord Gornak]

I for one would be so much happier if GPUs started going the way of CPUs, smaller and much more powerful every generation rather than larger and slightly more powerful. Nvidia had the crown for quite a while with the 8000 series, I wish they would have spent 6 months or so of research into better microarchitecture instead of milking the current architecture for all it's worth (Still don't think G80 to G92 was that huge of a jump). BUT, the mainstream end-users put more coin into their coffers than all of us enthusiast users, so I do understand the need to constantly pump out new and slightly better products for mass consumption. I guess I'm just wishing for a jump in the order of magnitude of the P4 to Core2 in the GPU realm, probably way too much to wish for.

 

[homerdog]

“We would do an [ATI Radeon HD 3870] X2-like product only if it delivers performance that is simply not possible anywhere with a single GPU. But there’s no question that a single GPU is a better approach. […] So you know my preference and you know we have a lot of evidence and certainly know for sure that a single GPU is the best approach, but if a double GPU can deliver the highest performance on the planet, it would be accepted,” Mr. Huang explained.

Well at least he's being honest and saying that dual GPU cards are far from ideal. It sounds to me like he doesn't really like the 9800GX2, but as the CEO he has to bite his tongue and justify its place in the market.

 

[yipsl]

I personally have no problem with an X2 card even if it's not the fastest. If that's the best ATI can do, well then I guess that's what they should do. Weather or not cost/performance is an issue is another story. I'm not saying I agree with NVidia's statement, but I don't think he's being overly hypocritical either. I think it's just a major viewpoint difference.

ATI doesn't seem to care if an X2 card is the fastest ever and that's fine. He would be more of an a$$ if the 9800GX2 was not the fastest card ever, and I'm expecting it to be!

"Fastest card ever" is relative. I expect the 9800gx2 to be the fastest in absolute fps in some games, but to lag in others, just as the 3870x2 does. It all depends on SLI and Crossfire support. The value of these cards is that they offer internal SLI or Crossfire for those of us who do not have SLI or Crossfire boards.

Plus, Triple SLI and CrossfireX allow people with single PCIe x16 boards to get the dual GPU cards now and then when they upgrade, match those cards with a similar newer card for better performance. I'm thinking that the upcoming 4850, also clocked at 850, would do well alongside the 3870x2.

http://www.nordichardware.com/news,7356.html

I keep saying this, but I can't wait for the Phenom 9750. Actually, I can't wait for a 3.2 gigahertz Deneb, but I'll settle for the 9750 this year. With a CrossfireX setup and a new LCD monitor, I should have a good gaming system. Not as good as those Wolfies overclocked to 4 gigahertz that will only last for a year, but still good enough for anything I throw at it between May 2008 and December 2009.

%u201CWe would do an [ATI Radeon HD 3870] X2-like product only if it delivers performance that is simply not possible anywhere with a single GPU. But there%u2019s no question that a single GPU is a better approach. [%u2026] So you know my preference and you know we have a lot of evidence and certainly know for sure that a single GPU is the best approach, but if a double GPU can deliver the highest performance on the planet, it would be accepted,%u201D Mr. Huang explained.

Well at least he's being honest and saying that dual GPU cards are far from ideal. It sounds to me like he doesn't really like the 9800GX2, but as the CEO he has to bite his tongue and justify its place in the market.

Sounds to me he's just bitter. Considering that AMD almost merged with Nvidia instead of ATI, but Huang wanted to be the CEO of the new company and Ruiz wouldn't go for it, plus the rumor that Nvidia still wants to buy AMD but Nvidia's partners won't go for it, I can see him having problems with anything ATI does to compete against Nvidia.

Looks to me that the 9800gx2, no matter how fast it is, was a quick solution to the elegance of the 3870x2. What he doesn't want to see is another 7950, and he might be seeing that. Edited to add, I just found a different report, not done by a professional site, but a good CPU was used for the benchmark; 14180 in default:

http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=229048


In all honesty, I'm CPU limited here and only get 9547 with my card, but I'll give it another go when I get a quad core. I believe that 9800gx2 benchmark was done with an Intel extreme edition CPU, so the 9800gx2 should have gotten closer to 15000 than 10000.

 

[frozenlead]

All I heard him saying is:

"nvidia currently sucks at making Dual-GPU cards, so we will continue to produce single-chip cards because we're good at those. When we learn how to implement Dual-GPU's and can do it with an incredible performance difference, we'll try."

In other words:
"we'll keep regular products floating on the market till our labs can catch up. We'll innovate when we can be king doing it."

I think the 9800x2 will be on par/lag behind the 3870x2. Even if it does exceed the 3870x2, it's dual-pcb. Not a great design for something that gets so hot.

 

[mpavao81]

It does seem like they are going the same way as cpu makers like intel/amd making dual core cards. I wonder if this means we can look forward to seeing a quad core GPU in the future...hmmm

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

If that ******* really believes that then why make the 9800 GTX suck so much? They could have gone back to the 384 bus, given us the old rop number and clocked it all at 800/2000/2200. Now that card would be just as fast if not faster than the 9800 X2, only without all the software issues. I mean if they recognize how retarded their approach is then why even take that approach in the first place?

 

[yipsl]

If that ******* really believes that then why make the 9800 GTX suck so much? They could have gone back to the 384 bus, given us the old rop number and clocked it all at 800/2000/2200. Now that card would be just as fast if not faster than the 9800 X2, only without all the software issues. I mean if they recognize how retarded their approach is then why even take that approach in the first place?

With Huang, it doesn't seem to be about performance for Nvidia customers, but about marketing and benchmarks. Nvidia's had drivers that fudged image quality for benchmarks in games that weren't even out yet (Crysis demo's water issues). They also had a boosted PCIe x16 bus on Nvidia motherboards, but only for the Nvidia cards, so two lowly 9600gts in SLI could beat a single 3870x2 in two FPS's (but still lose in 3DMark06).

So, if the 9800gx2 beats the 3870x2 in Crysis by a few fps, then it will be all over message boards and Nvidia fans will "know" their company beats ATI all the time. They will tell their friends to buy Nvidia. There really needs to be a circle in Dante's Inferno for marketing departments. :lol:

At any rate, the only ethical reason for both the 9800gx2 and the 3870x2 is for SLI and Crossfire performance for those of us with single PCIe slot motherboards. That's why we'll only see high end dual GPU cards. It should be different when genuine dual core GPU cards arrive, then we'll see dual core GPU at the mainstream too; probably with quad core at the high end.

It's also good for those of us who want to upgrade from those motherboards to dual PCIe x16 boards so we can do Triple SLI or CrossfireX (which Anandtech had some issues with on their Skulltrail in the first review, but Triple SLI has issues too; both are quite new ways to boost performance at the high end).

 

[pchoi04]

I'm pretty sure that was already posted here.

 

[tjoepie]

I think the 9000 series is here to keep market share untill ATI launches a new tech. It seems Nvidia's next chip is almost ready but they don't need it now since they can still compete with there cheaper older tech.

http://www.nordichardware.com/news,7472.html

I need a whole new rig and I was thinking of getting the 790i with 9800GTX SLI. But after reading this I might just get a cheaper ddr2 & Ati solution since new tech is around the corner (this summer according to some sites) Both in new sockets for intel cpu's and new GPU's.

This seems logical seeing that ATI, Nvidia and Intel just upgraded there current designs, no next generation stuff.

 

[darthvaderkenneth]

Would they release a 768 or 1gb version of the gf 9800gtx cuz having only 512mb really suks, thats wat made the 8800gts slower than the 8800gtx

 

[homerdog]

Would they release a 768 or 1gb version of the gf 9800gtx cuz having only 512mb really suks, thats wat made the 8800gts slower than the 8800gtx

Not necessarily.

In any case I suspect that we'll see quite a few 1GB 9800GTXs released in the next couple of months. Usually I would say that's too much VRAM to be useful, but if you like to run those Oblivion texture mods the extra 512MB could come in handy.

 

[mactronix]

I think we are fast getting to a position where you will need 512 just to run most games, i dont think the 256 cards will cut it for much longer.
mactronix

 

[grieve]

I think the 9800x2 will be on par/lag behind the 3870x2. Even if it does exceed the 3870x2, it's dual-pcb. Not a great design for something that gets so hot.

I completely disagree, the 3870x2 doesn’t stomp one ultra now… In fact a SLI machine with two ultras is faster then a 3870x2, which makes me believe two ultras on one card SHOULD be faster then a 3870x2….

I think he is saying that they would rather have new technology instead of slapping two already existing chips on a single card and bridging them… (After all SLI/Crossfire already does this, sorta)

At the end of the day ATI’s 3870x2 is a sad way to reclaim the speed crown, however I will give them credit, if I were buying today I would snag there $450 card over two $700 ultras. There really is a single clear choice as to what card to purchase today, 3870x2. If Nvidia prices there new cards at an appropriate value 3870x2 could become a POS very quickly.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

So... the 9800x2 is a sad card eh? "At the end of the day ATI’s 3870x2 is a sad way to reclaim the speed crown"

 

[mactronix]

I agree that things at the top are too tight to call one solution the outright winner. We need to remember that the X2 is just a transitional product, very probably in my view only in existance to try and take back top spot and keep ATI in the frame while they finish developing the new cards. From that view point it has been a roaring success.
mactronix

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

True. And in response nVidia launches its won x2, to do the same thing, EXCEPT, nVidias been sitting on their products for 2 years now, and whats come from it? A die shrink with a lil innovation on an old arch. Im wondering, what the hell? Are they trying to pull a AMD K8?

 

[Rusmurf]

A great example of reading what you want to read, statement if taken at face value says if your going this route then the product better perform.

The only way AMD could equal Nvidia 8800 performance was 2 GPUs slapped together.

Now we wait too see if Nvidia's own dual GPU card offers a justifiable performance increase. If it doesn't, then he will look like a moron for what he said. If they cite performance increases in games that love SLI, and skip everything else, to spin it in their favor. That means they(Nvidia) didn't deliver.