Alienware X2: SLi for all

C

coz

[H]ard|Gawd
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Ok, we all know about the Alienware Video Array technology. It does the same thing as NVIDIA's SLi but uses a software instead of hardware solution. Alienware seem to have dumped their own technology in favour of NV's so WTF are they going to do with AVA having spent a ton of cash developing? The answer is X2.....

Click me baby

So they're going to license their AVA technology for anyone to use. They've already signed a license agreement with the motherboard manufacurer IWILL to use X2 so expect it as a feature on their dual x16 PCIe boards in the near future.

So all you ATi owners, put down that bottle of whiskey in the brown paper bag and dry your eyes - X800XT-PE SLi could be a reality! In fact, you could use any PCIe card you wanted with X2.

Well, sounds good so far but I have some doubts about X2. Firstly, being Alienware it'll probably be expensive, maybe not kidney-selling expensive but pricey nonetheless. How much of a price premium it adds to the motherboard price remains to be seen, hopefully it won't be too bad. The next doubt is performance - NV's hardware approach sounds like it'll do a better job than the software approach will. I'm also unsure how much of a market this technology will have given that NV's SLi solution is well on the way. Also, for X800XT-PE SLi I'd hate to have to find two cards to begin with. :eek:

But for my all doubts I'm happy to see this extra 'SLi' solution appear. The competition always helps us all in the end and hopefully NV won't become complacent about being the only SLi game in town. Plus it'd be pretty cool to see some monster-modded X800XT-PE SLi in action against the best the green machine has the offer. ;)
 
"Video Array Technology divides the screen in multiple parts, in contrast to 3dfx’s SLI that required every single line to be rendered by different graphics card. In the case of using two video cards, the screen is divided, vertically, in two parts: one video card renders the upper section, and the second video card renders the lower section."

UGH ... if you thought vsync tearing was bad, imagine this solution.
 
Bigjohns97 said:
UGH ... if you thought vsync tearing was bad, imagine this solution.
Click to expand...
It's exactly the same method NV use. I assume they've made sure the top and bottom parts of the image match up properly. :)
 
If you'll remember, Alienware was working on a multiple graphics card solution that, to this point, resembles what NVIDIA is doing. But rather than scan out and use pass through connections or some sort of signal combiner (as is the impression that we currently have of the Alienware solution), NVIDIA is able to send the rendered data digitally over the SLI (Scalable Link Interface) from the slave GPU to the master for compositing and final scan out
Click to expand...
.

slightly different
 
Great!!! Now all I have to do is sell my XT PE AGP version, upgrade my mother board and buy two XT PE Pci-E's, that is if I can find them. :( Maybe next year.
 
coz said:
Ok, we all know about the Alienware Video Array technology. It does the same thing as NVIDIA's SLi but uses a software instead of hardware solution. Alienware seem to have dumped their own technology in favour of NV's so WTF are they going to do with AVA having spent a ton of cash developing? The answer is X2.....

But for my all doubts I'm happy to see this extra 'SLi' solution appear. The competition always helps us all in the end and hopefully NV won't become complacent about being the only SLi game in town. Plus it'd be pretty cool to see some monster-modded X800XT-PE SLi in action against the best the green machine has the offer. ;)
Click to expand...

The X2 was built thinking Alienware would be the only company to sell a dual video card setup. When Alienware went to E3 there was only 1 board with 2 PCI-express slots, and no one had a plan to release a dual card solution.
Nelson said on the Alienware forums that they weren't going to sell the X2 solution untill the first wave of orders of the X2 were processed. Nvidia sure threw a kink in that idea.

The X2 doesn't use a purely software solution. Both video cards connect to a hub inside the computer that combines the images. Nvidia's solution has 2 main points over AW. SLI spilts the image load evenly, AW however only splits the screen 50/50. The SLI solution is also cheaper. AW had to custom make the X2 motherboard, based off Intel's insanely overpriced server board, planning to use it for their own solution, but since SLI is going to cut into that profit, they figured they needed to use the board here as well, to get rid of them.
 
MeanieMan said:
The X2 doesn't use a purely software solution. Both video cards connect to a hub inside the computer that combines the images. Nvidia's solution has 2 main points over AW. SLI spilts the image load evenly, AW however only splits the screen 50/50.
Click to expand...
I thought AVA used 'Predictive Load Balancing’ to dynamically alter the split ratio according to screen content......

Video Array uses a ‘Predictive Load Balancing’ technology that evaluates on each frame the processing load for each GPU. Based on this, it ‘predicts’ the load distribution for the next frames, and adjusts the ‘Split Ratio’ accordingly. While the system always starts at a 50% split, as the content of the screen changes, the ratio changes accordingly (75%/25%, 85%/15%, 80%/20%, etc., etc). This logic enables Video Array to maximize the use of the graphics processing power from each card.
Click to expand...
 
At E3 and the videos that Alienware are using to advertise the video array the screen was always 50/50. They may be changing it now but it used to be spilt even. The problem with this was mentioned several times on their forums. This may explain why Alienware is taking so long to get their solution to market.
 
Elios said:
thats old
heres the new one it uses Load balancing like in a dual CPU set up
Click to expand...
The old article also mentions load balancing.......

First, software (presumably in the driver) analyses what's going on in the scene currently being rendered and divides for the GPUs.
Click to expand...

I think any SLi technology that divides the screen in half would have load balancing as a prerequisite. Otherwise you'd get a lot of FPS games where one GPU renders nothing but sky! :)
 
coz said:
The old article also mentions load balancing.......



I think any SLi technology that divides the screen in half would have load balancing as a prerequisite. Otherwise you'd get a lot of FPS games where one GPU renders nothing but sky! :)
Click to expand...

Alienware first defended the 50/50 split using something similiar to the following:

To have load balancing on off the shelf retail cards would mean a CPU intensive solution. Since dual video cards would already be shifting the PC bottleneck back to the CPU, having a program that watches every screen render would only add to the bottleneck problem by taking CPU cycles away.


The 50/50 solution worked two ways, from left to right, or from top to bottom. That way FPS games wouldn't be stuck with one card rendering just the sky.
 
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