Sweet Card,that will be Cool, i Guess?

Interesting...
Anything that would make Graphics Cards cheaper gets an A+ in my book.
We will have to wait and see if this product takes off or not.
I like that is is small, I have 2x 8800GTX cards and they take up so much room. My wife has a 8800GTS 512 and it takes up even more room.

I think this should have already existed in a commercial basis for a very long time... a graphic card is almost a small computer... so why havent we been able to buy just a new GPU or memory, i know getting everything to work will be hard, but we can just imagine how it was to make the first motherboard with removable slots for everything...

If it actually works out like they want, I'm all for it. It sucks spending 3-500 on new video cards every couple years or so.

OK I see "The Asus Trinity card has three MXM slots. The company is currently selling the card with three modules based on the Radeon HD 3850. " in the article. Please tell me where one could buy such a card.

That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. An MXM module IS a complete card! THIS WILL NOT SAVE THE END USER MONEY!

I read a review on this on techreport turns out it sucks because drivers. What the hell is up with people now days they advertise and want you to buy 3 way sli and three of this and four of that and the drivers aren't ready yet or no software can take advantage...if I pay $ I want scalability

I agree that it might and probably will have some point of view where less money is spent on an upgrade (that's just the idea behind this, isn't it?), but sure it will prevent better products in the long run, as the already limited budget of ATI for example (but even if it was Intel) would be diverted to compatibility with sockets and previous designs and buss and stuff and more money for the same performance for the rest of us.

You won't be able to. According to news reports ATI will make ~10 units. It's like asking when you can buy a Ferrari Enzo FXX, never going to happen, unless you have 'connections', or are on a very short hand-picked list.

ASUS FTW, you just can't go wrong with ASUS's board.

15+ years of usage, my first ASUS board is still in working condition.

ever since then, every mobo and graphic cards that i bought is from ASUS, almost 0 problem. almost.

still, ASUS is an A+ brand. strong brand which i will recommend without embarrassment to myself.

This idea is not new!!! But why not make a socket and upgrade just a GPU exactly like we do CPU on MB.

And ditto for the GPU memory.
The gamer wants mass processing power. The artist wants lots of memory. The game developer wants both. so we dont need 3 cards, we need 1 card with options.
Id love to see this take off, although the initial outlay for the upgradable card will probably run quite a bit.

Back in the middle of Feb I made this post
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] fire-build

It basicaly addressed what ASUS is doing now, and was wondering why it wasn't being done

MXM is just PCIe x16 for laptops

laptop graphics are usualy several months behind and more expensive

to mf_fm. I loved asus as well... but their recent socket am2 board in my price range had a very low rating, mostly due to shipping doa's. I'd think they'd have fixed that by this time in it's life... but alas, no. SO for a 100 dollar or less am2 board... i ordered gigabyte. because the best one from asus in that price was just too junky. I also ordered a gigabyte video card... just because it was super cheap at the time compared to all the others and it had a great feature list, and with a game... I'm happy with it to say the least. "rock solid" would be what i'd say, but that term is coined by asus... I would still go for an asus board in the next generation if it fit my needs. but testing out some of this "ultra durable" tech... I think that's the way to go, super stable even at overclocked speeds... gigabyte is rocking the cradle. asus needs to re-focus on the mid-high range enthusiast again... none of their late products have really anything to impress me for the price tag they sit at... it's just too much to pay for the name when I know another name that works just as well if not better. Anyway, having said that... this 'product' is the type of reason i still look at asus as a viable company to buy from dispite their recent plunge in amd motherboard quality. Keep it up, and put this b*tch on the shelf for the right price and i'll buy one.

to virtual ban...

that's just the thing.... a gpu doesn't do anything but interface with gddr and ship information off to the motherboard to my understanding... so technically they could install something to scale power input per installed gpu/memor, and just put an inordinate amount of lanes from the memory to the gpu... (ever notice there's more memory chips the wider the memory interface for the same amount of memory?) basically making it upgradeable without worrying about buss speeds... just increase the lanes from gddr to gpu and there's no problem provided it's still on pci-e 1.0 or 2.0... as for smaller 'processes' and 'socket compatibility'... gpu's don't really have the same problems that cpu's do... they're made for one specific purpose, and they do it well... something like this will only not be seen on shelves because it would provide less instant profit, and alienate even more mainstream consumers from upgrading their graphics card... because then they'd have to know how to apply thermal paste and a heat sink OOOOOOOO omg noooo!!!! haha. :-p

and to athagulus... or whatever your name is....

why is it that i can pull out my 65w cpu and dump in a 125w cpu and have no problems? why can't that work on another board that functions more indipendantly than any other piece of the pc? oh yeah... that's cuz you don't realize that...hmmm pci-e interface can carry up to 75 watts... so if it consumes 125 watts, where do the rest come from? oh yeah, the secondary input for power on the back of your card... gpu's can scale power just as well if not better than cpu's. arg... people keep forgetting that depending on how you look at it, a gpu has a ridiculous advantage on a cpu... IF they weren't apples to oranges, i'd say gpu's win out... But what the hell do i know?

I have been wondering why they haven't done this already. I just wish they would separate the memory from the GPU module too. All the recent generations of cards are using 512MB, why keep buying the 512MB again and again.

It would be even nicer if they managed to make memory sockets so the memory could be upgraded or more could be added at a later date.

I think its all about money, the gfx card manufacturers make money on every bit of the card, the board, the memory, the connectors, the power transforming circuitry, and the GPU. Its in their interest to sell the whole enchilada over and over again.

It's because memory modules that motherboards use are 64-bit bus width, because the memory controller address each stick as a bank, instead of each memory chip individually. That would have a massive effect on 3D performance if we went back to 64-bit bus width, however, I understand your point, and I'm sure this could be implemented (with a increase in access time, because of the increase in trace lengths) with a different module design. Conversely, memory prices for DDR2 have plummeted, and are so commoditized the decrease in part price would be neglegible compared to the cost of R&D and production cost of the PCBs (number/length of traces, and additional socket[s]).

it would be cool if i could aquire some fast and extreemly scrace mxm modules this way and place one of those inside my notebook to have 3000 dollar notebook graphics for only a mere 200 dollars

That is the only good thing I see coming from "upgradeable graphics cards"...

MXM cards would become availiable to the masses, and presumably the heatsink placement would also become somewhat standardized.