ASUS Working on MARS II Dual GTX 480 Graphics Accelerator

[cainer]

So what makes it different to two separate cards that allows it to use all 3gb then?

2 480's can use 2x 1.5gb as 3gb?
my cf 1gb 5870's dont = 2gb of usable vram, its still only 1gb of usable vram

 

[f12f12]

2 480's can use 2x 1.5gb as 3gb?
my cf 1gb 5870's dont = 2gb of usable vram, its still only 1gb of usable vram

1GB per card. same as the dual cards.

 

[guadizba]

this is a pointless exercise
by the time this is released the ati 6000 series dual gpu would be close to coming out.
anyway got the best of the 5 series (and no not the ares) that would do me till the 7000 series or futher on.

 

[Shayper]

water, or a damn good air cooler

How good an air cooler? it would have to be on the same level as a dietic (godly, not weight loss-esque) aircon unit... Huge. I would love to see how many actually sell, especially when you can get those INSANE quaddro cards for not that much more. Infact, if you are gonna spend this much on gfx, go tesla imho.

 

[Shayper]

you've lost me? it all depends on what game/application is using it.

i never head of them using the ram more then normal sli?

remember in chats that it may be using 3GB where as a single one may use 1.5GB in sli but there's still another one using another 1.5GB

1.5 + 1.5 = 3GB

Remember you have to take into accounts memory mapping (on my 9600 1.5gb aaaargh), so using such a stupid (read:not as much as those toxic 5970 trollolololol cards) may actualy tone down the performance of your pc as a whole. Unless you are using Windows 7. In which case ignore this =P

 

[EdGey]

Nothing really new to whats already been posted, but:

He will keep you updated on it and will probably be the first to get hold of it when its done, so might be worth a look for some of you.

 

[wolvers]

no it is literally taking two gtx480's and putting them on once pcb. the only addition is a pcie bridge.

overall the card has 3GB but its 1.5GB to each gpu. the memory is not able to be shared.

Right. So it can't utilise all the vram then, just like a dual card set up?

I was always under the impression that these dual cards had the benefit of being able use all the vram.

 

[HW91]

^ nope, only plus points are that they have 48 PCIe lanes between them instead of a crossfire connector, and they're on one PCB which lowers power usage

 

[wolvers]

Cheers. I wonder why they have to put all of the 3gb on the card then if only half of it is used? Seems odd.

 

[f12f12]

each gpu still need ram. think of it as set up so that one does bottom half of screen and one does top half.

both gpu's will need the textures and other things, thus why they must have vram. then the main gpu adds the bottom half of the frame from the secondary gpu on to the top half from its self.

its just allot of textures will be duplicated in the ram. if there was a way to share the ram between the gpu's it would be more efficient.

 

[wolvers]

Nice explanation, thanks.

 

[bee]