Sunday, July 13th 2008

R700 Supports 4-way Crossfire X?

Yes, you read that right. You can use upto four HD4870 X2 accelerators in tandem for an 8-GPU, 9.6 TFLOP, 8 GB graphics crunching monster. You need a 4-slot motherboard though. There are 4-slot solutions available on the AMD 790FX platform, for Intel though X48 did support 4 slots and images of prototype X48 boards with 4 slots did surface months back, there isn't such a board out yet. You do have the Skulltrail platform and upcoming X58 Bloomfield-supportive boards do promise to come in 4 slot flavours.

In a press-conference, Raja Koduri, worldwide CTO (Products Group), AMD talked to Indian website TechTree, among minor revelations such as "Fusion in 2009", here's a shocker:

"AMD has already built a computer that has four 4870X2s in it. So it has eight GPUs; drivers will not be supporting eight GPUs at this point of time."

-Implies that AMD is fully geared up to go head on against GT200b whenever it comes up. It's all a matter of them releasing a supportive driver. Again, unreliable sources point towards the possibility that also in the pipeline could be a R700+ which could be based on 'Super-RV770XT' processors. If you thought you're witnessing the peak of the GPU battle for supremacy, hold on, you're only getting appetised.
Source: TechTree
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89 Comments on R700 Supports 4-way Crossfire X?

#76
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
"drivers will not be supporting eight GPUs at this point of time" are his words, if the driver never supports 8 GPUs, he wouldn't have used "at this point of time" ? Maybe Chris PR-owned us.
Posted on Reply
#77
HTC
W1zzardwow wtf is going on ..

"So it has eight GPUs; drivers will not be supporting eight GPUs at this point of time"

stop dreaming .. there is no promise that the driver will ever support 8 gpus. everything in the driver is engineered to support a maximum of four active gpus.

"drivers will not be supporting 4597498547 GPUs at this point of time"
omg ?! ati working on 4597498547-gpu computer?

all raja said is that they inserted 4 r700 cards into a motherboard, not that they powered it, not that it worked, not that it had been used for anything... NOTHING. you people just got so PR-owned by techtree
You're right there :o
TT: How soon can we see the 4800 X2s?

Chris: The HD 4870 X2 is going to be available in August. There will be two different flavors for that, available at different price points.

As an aside, AMD has already built a computer that has four 4870X2s in it. So it has eight GPUs; drivers will not be supporting eight GPUs at this point of time.
I was so caught up with the "WOW: 8 GPUs!" that i didn't even notice they didn't say anything about it being running.

@ btarunr: i should have read it more closely :(
Posted on Reply
#78
Dia01
btarunr"drivers will not be supporting eight GPUs at this point of time" are his words, if the driver never supports 8 GPUs, he wouldn't have used "at this point of time" ? Maybe Chris PR-owned us.
That would be ashame, I was hoping to replace my 4 slot toaster so I can eat and render the blue screen of death at 1,000,000 FPS. Maybe 8 GPU's didn't meet the Kyoto Protocol?
Posted on Reply
#79
Megasty
HTCYou're right there :o



I was so caught up with the "WOW: 8 GPUs!" that i didn't even notice they didn't say anything about it being running.

@ btarunr: i should have read it more closely :(
That's all it really means. Just like you can go & get a msi k9a2 & plug 4 3870x2s on it. Power all the cards & set 2 CF bridges on each set of them. Will the rig turn on, yeah, but that's it. 2 of the cards would work while the other 2 suck juice :p
Posted on Reply
#80
W1zzard
btarunr"drivers will not be supporting eight GPUs at this point of time" are his words, if the driver never supports 8 GPUs, he wouldn't have used "at this point of time" ? Maybe Chris PR-owned us.
"never" is such a permanent word. what about gpu drivers in 10 years?

what raja did confirm though is that 8-gpu configurations DO NOT work (at this time). even though the ati fanboys will not be happy it is still some valid input.
Posted on Reply
#81
Wile E
Power User
WaldoinscStart pulling that much electricity out of one socket and it can trip the circuit breaker.

Most US houses have a 20Amp 120VAC trip. I read an article several months ago about the upper limit for most PSU's will be about 1800W for US households. (if the PSU's are more efficient, they can go to higher ratings)
That's only a problem if you pull around 2200-2400W from the wall. Seeing as psu's only use what they need, even with 2000W of psu in his rig and 4 4870x2's, I doubt power draw will ever come close to that. It's 1600-1800W on a 15A circuit.
Posted on Reply
#82
Waldoinsc
Wile EThat's only a problem if you pull around 2200-2400W from the wall. Seeing as psu's only use what they need, even with 2000W of psu in his rig and 4 4870x2's, I doubt power draw will ever come close to that. It's 1600-1800W on a 15A circuit.
What, don't you think Crysis would trip breakers in your house if it could?:laugh:
Posted on Reply
#83
zithe
I think I'm gunna go emo.

I wanna see this for real. XD!
Posted on Reply
#84
yogurt_21
Wile EMeh, 2 GTX480 rads would be plenty. lol.
one might do it actually those things are crazy

but yeah you'd have to go to a higher cooling to run it 24/7
Posted on Reply
#85
Wile E
Power User
yogurt_21one might do it actually those things are crazy

but yeah you'd have to go to a higher cooling to run it 24/7
I know. I would just like an excuse to run 2. lol.
Posted on Reply
#86
LiveOrDie
btarunrHad 9800 GX2 supported 3-way SLI, I seriously doubt you would've come up with that argument.
i had one 9800GX2 and that was bad enough :laugh: the performance in games was bad up and down it went, games don't all ways like muitGPU card, like i said a signle GPU card that would max any game out, is good enough for me, + anyways i upgrade every 6-12 months so when intels new chip comes out theres goin to be some think better out then.
Posted on Reply
#87
Siman0
it is possible a few collage students did it with the 9800GX2 in the FASTRA Supercomputer. fastra.ua.ac.be/en/index.html its possible to get it to work so i wouldn't be going around yelling it cant be done. Note they also did it with an AMD processor for the FSB. (going to be flamed by Intel fans every 3.4 sec after i make this edit i know it) But it wasn't designed to play games so i couldn't think it got the best FPS
Posted on Reply
#88
zithe
They wrote drivers to have video cards perform CPU tasks. I don't think that counts. It is, however, interesting that they managed what they did.

Edit: They should do the same thing with 4 4870x2!
Posted on Reply
#89
WarEagleAU
Bird of Prey
Holy hell, talk about super graphics. You could run a 500' hd projector with all that muscle.
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