Matrix multichip?!

[mabraham]

I was reading up on the NV30 at anandtech at http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1678 and found this interesting little quote:

"In fact, you'd be more likely to find 3DLabs, Matrox or S3 produce a multichip solution in order to compete with the performance of the flagship ATI/NVIDIA products"

Could there be any truth to this at all? Anand usually isn't totally clueless...

[Greebe]

Anand isn't per se clueless, but he most certainly does not like Matrox products. Not to mention he's a fanboy of ATi. So with that said does it really suprise you that he's doing his best to dig his nails into whoever to boost the product he does?

[az]

I think he is this time... but so am I, so I don't know

I just know that Multichip is VERY expensive, and has diminishing returns. Just imagine the cost of a card with TWO parhelia-512 chips, two 256 bit memory buses (how many layers would that take?), and 512 MB of graphics RAM (which would be 256 MB essentially)? Add to this the need for new drivers, which don't seem too easy to make (look at ATI's MAXX), a smaller performance gain than you might think, and that the chip likely wasn't designed with multichip in mind, and you'll see this isn't likely to happen. Parhelia is no VSA-100

AZ

[GT98]

Boy these previews/reviews of up coming products are making me sick with the blanent favoratism that comes with them. Since the introduction of the Parheila and the insuing "bad" reviews it has gotten from the online "Press", it seems like all they are worried about are plugging their favorate Manufacture so they can keep the money rolling in to keep their sites open. I guess subjective news reporting is something we can't count on these days when it comes down to the almightly dollar....

In reguards to the Parhelia going multichip....that is so full of shit its not even funny. The Current Parhelia design is pretty solid and should last Matrox the next two years or so with improvements to it. Sorta like the the G200 to G400 evloution..

[MadScot]

I think the next Matrix movie will indeed be multichip...

MadScot

[SpiralDragon]

hum... maybe not multichip... but what about multithreading... if that aplies in the graphix world (no idea about this)

[Chrono_Wanderer]

lol Parhelia goes multichip... meaning 6 monitors support (three monitors on front and three monitors on back) for those NERDS who have 8 eyes (2 eyes on front and two eyes on back w/glasses). nice... 300 degrees of FOV... now that's what i call cheating in Q3/UT2K3 (and IMAX experience).

Now if Matrox goes the 3dfx route, the voodoo 5 6k... How about Quad-chip? u will get 600 degrees of FOV (think think )

[The_King]

Re: Matrox multichip?!

Originally posted by mabraham
I was reading up on the NV30 at anandtech at http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1678 and found this interesting little quote:

"In fact, you'd be more likely to find 3DLabs, Matrox or S3 produce a multichip solution in order to compete with the performance of the flagship ATI/NVIDIA products"

Could there be any truth to this at all? Anand usually isn't totally clueless...

He's not saying they are going to make multi-chip. He's saying the parhelia is too slow compared to nVidia and ATI's offerings.

[Greebe]

and as an editor he should have put it in better terms... he didn't and thus deserves the flaming he's getting here because of it. Besides he's still just a young punk doing all that he can to ensure that he makes that +$8mil annually

[az]

I'd make statements like that for the money, too

AZ

[lecter]

It's sad that you can't get any real reviews anymore from the biggest sites in the biz...I can only really be sure of things I read on the enthusiast sites, I know Ati/Nvidia doesn't really care enough to pay them!

[GT98]

Originally posted by az
I'd make statements like that for the money, too

AZ

Got that right!

[CaineTanathos]

Anandtech , cough...BULL...cough...Shit

[Ali]

I thought it was pretty obvious that he was saying that Matrox, 3dLabs etc didnt have a single chip solution fast enough to compete with ATI, nVidia in a fps race. Therefore they only option they had was to go dual chip.

I dont think he meant that they WERE going to go multi chip, just that they would need to to get their current cards up to speed.

You dont have to read into every thing said by every person on the net (eg John Carmack).

Ali

[az]

Well, a respected hardware reviewer should know there is much more to a dual chip design than just slapping two chips onto a PCB instead of one, and soldering it all together. When was the last time someone made a performing multi-chip graphics card at a reasonable price with working drivers with chips that weren't built with multi-chip in mind from the ground up?

AZ