4870x2 XSP Sideport feature poised to counter rumored 280gx2

BigCactus said:
Yah, that is their reason, ati's official response is that applications currently don't require the extra bandwidth, which is why it's currently disabled.
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Hence the fact that it wouldn't "counter" a possible GTX280 GX2 variant since at the moment it doesn't actually make anything run faster.
 
Yes, because xsp isn't activated since current applications don't need the extra bandwidth according ATI.
 
i have no idea, but i updated to 8.8beta drivers and got nearly 1000 increase in 3dmark 06 (167xx -> 176xx) anythings possible >_<
 
Mangaroo said:
i have no idea, but i updated to 8.8beta drivers and got nearly 1000 increase in 3dmark 06 (167xx -> 176xx) anythings possible >_<
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3Dmarks only mean something for 3Dmark...it has no relavance what-so-ever to games.
 
The counter is the 280gx2 would probably be twice the price of the 4870x2.....when or should I say IF it comes.

280gx2 vs 2x48070x2?!!
 
Atech said:
What part of "3Dmarks is a useless number" didn't you get?
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well, i got a 3-6 fps average boost in Crysis, so it seems to be a pretty fair representation in my case, i am worried about all the other reviewers getting much higher 3d mark results then me (as well as 9+ extra fps in crysis) i think its time to overclock the cpu >_<
 
Wasn't the point of this link to allow the GPUs to see into each other's memory? What happened to the rumored "shared memory" of the R700? Pardon if this was already raised [I only read through 2 of 7 pages].

...not that 5GB/s is any useful fraction of the +150GB/s available to the local memory of each GPU :rolleyes:
 
Living Weapon said:
Wasn't the point of this link to allow the GPUs to see into each other's memory? What happened to the rumored "shared memory" of the R700? Pardon if this was already raised [I only read through 2 of 7 pages].

...not that 5GB/s is any useful fraction of the +150GB/s available to the local memory of each GPU :rolleyes:
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Why would they need to see into the other GPU's memory - don't they both have the same data? Or did I misunderstand something about the way the x2 works.
 
Forceman said:
Why would they need to see into the other GPU's memory - don't they both have the same data? Or did I misunderstand something about the way the x2 works.
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If the two GPUs were able to share memory instead of duplicating it, that would allow ATI to use half the amount of RAM on the card and save quite a bit of money. However, that rumour turned out to be incorrect and the X2 uses individual framebuffers for each GPU.
 
Zero82z said:
If the two GPUs were able to share memory instead of duplicating it, that would allow ATI to use half the amount of RAM on the card and save quite a bit of money. However, that rumour turned out to be incorrect and the X2 uses individual framebuffers for each GPU.
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I misunderstood I guess - he was talking hypothetically, I thought he was talking about what actually happens.
 
I dont think the sideport will do anything for the 4870X2. As it stand now, ATI engineers have enabled it in there lab and have found no performance increase at all. A interview with AMD's Eric Demers can be found here. He talks about sideport in a few of the questions in the interview.
 
jasonelmore said:
I dont think the sideport will do anything for the 4870X2. As it stand now, ATI engineers have enabled it in there lab and have found no performance increase at all. A interview with AMD's Eric Demers can be found here. He talks about sideport in a few of the questions in the interview.
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Nice find! I read it earlier, but couldn't find it again being curious about sideport and all. :D

Here's what he says:

Eric: The sideport interconnect is fully functional in the reference design. Though we've found that with the current AFR mode of multi-GPU support, the additional bandwidth brought by the interconnect does not translate to a significant improvement in performance. However, we are continuously working on optimizing how our ATI CrossFireX&#8482; technology scales and trying different methods, and could decide to enable the sideport if a method is found which gives better results and benefits from it.
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So, they are working on methods to take advantage of sideport on multi-GPU? At least its not put dead. :)
 
So what Eric is saying is that every 4870X2 has sideport interconnect on the card? It's just a matter of when the drivers enable it?
 
It was mentioned during the 8.12 performance increases that some will wait for 9.1. So it is entirely possible that it will be enabled to steal some of GTX295's thunder.

We don't really know how much it adds. But if they manage to squeeze anything like 10% across the board it would be enough to ruin NV's big day. Fingers crossed.
 
The best way to get a performance increase from a driver is by not expecting any increase at all.
 
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