One of key issues with multi-GPU configurations is the lack of dual-monitor capability. Now, this is not a new issue – ever since SLI and CrossFire came out in 2004/5, we were promised earth-shaking gaming experience omitting the fact that more users have two monitors than they have two graphics cards. So, if you were a high-end user and had for instance, GeForce 6800 Ultra or GTX 280 in SLI, result was unchanged – second monitor would remain blank. Same thing was the case with ATI’s CrossFire. All in all, “user-unfriendly” solutions. A while ago, I reported about Nvidia making Big Bang II drivers, drivers
nForce is dead: Zotac releases its GeForce 9300 motherboard
I saw first motherboards based on MCP7-series chipset back on Computex 2007. Yup, after a year and half nVIDIA is finally releasing MCP7 series to market, featuring GeForce 8-class GPU for Intel processors. It is hard to understand what kind of problems delayed this part for over a year, but one of theories could be that nVIDIA didn’t want to cannibalize the sales of GeForce 8400 and 8500 series, which is give-or-take the performance that you’re going to get with GeForce 9300/9400 chipset. Zotac is well known manufacturer of nVIDIA graphics cards, and also known as the company that produced highest clocked 8800Ultra, 8800GT and
EVGA completely moving to custom board design
One of largest Nvidia partners out there decided the time has come to turn the screw back on engineering, and reduce its dependency on current parts that are mostly built by Flextronics and similar ODM giants. The company acquired engineers from now-defunct EPoX and started working hard on creating products that are not of now typical “sticker stamper” kind. After introducing the 790i Ultra SLI FTW motherboard with own layout and features (digital power regulation, to name a few), EVGA is now coming to market with a series of own-designed graphics cards. Under a current plan, every product is slowly being upgraded to an own
Atom helps Intel to score a big one, beats expectations
In a stark contrast to conservative projections by analysts, Intel (stock: INTC) announced that the company achieved a revenue of $10.22 billion, beating the estimates. Chipzilla achieved clear two billion dollar profit in Q3’08, or 35 cents per share. The reason for this 12% jump in profits is no other than Intel Atom, chip that reportedly costs only $8 to make, giving Intel additional $200 million in its Q3 revenue. Without Atom and associated chipsets, their revenue would dip below 10 billion. This only goes to show that Intel executed properly and went for the segment of market that has just started to expand. Cheap
Sparkle’s excellent idea: Cheap PCI Express x1 cards
One of more interesting niche markets is the one named “how to fix the computer crippled with integrated graphics?”, and the solutions that are being sold in that area. We saw interesting products coming from Albatron, Sparkle, MSI and others, but it is a rare occasion to see a card in sub-$50 range that offers DX10 support. The company released a series of PCIe x1 cards for those unlucky owners of motherboards without PCI Express x16 slot. Sparkle released no less than eight models based on GeForce 8400GS graphics chip. Sadly, memory controller is limited to 64-bit, but this was Nvidia’s doing. Memory is either
