I wouldn't assume you'll be able to buy a quad with a relatively low clock rate. Also don't assume you'll be able to upgrade a dual to a quad later. The current G5 models have soldered in CPU(s), so you can't upgrade a dual core (single chip) to a dual chip (quad cores). The chips don't have pins like in the old days. So no pins, no socket, so no upgrade, unless the go back to the CPU daughterboard scheme. That takes up space, leaving less for the heat sink. And while I'm on that subject, why doesn't Apple use more efficient copper heat sinks? They can't be that more expensive.
Not true. The AMD Pro boards never did that. Only the intel ones were not true 16X Dual lanes. Nvidia's Nforce4 boards do not do that either. They are true dual full speed 16x PCI-E lanes.
He may be confused over that because the first SLI and Crossfire mobo's used two 8 lane slots.
I'm not hoping for crossfire. ATI sucks, and their so called crossfire idea doesn't even compete with SLI.
I have faith. If Apple does not provide (I think they will) I'll probably attempt to HW mod a PC version.
You know, while some people have said that, testing hasn't shown that to be true. Besides, just as SLI has improved, Crossfire has as well. The old limitations are no longer there. The original scheme had limitations imposed by the chip on the Master card that processed the combined data - not enough bandwidth, though, even that didn't show up on real world usage.
Advantages are that you don't have to use two of the same boards.
I forget how many Pro towers Apple has typically sold, but if they are making several tens of thousands of them in each price bracket, there is a chance that it is more economical to have two distinct boards.
While Apple makes a big deal about its mobo's, it really isn't a big deal. There are several mobo makers who have at least a half dozen boards apiece on the market. They come out with boards every 3 months. These boards go retail for an average price of $150. They include the latest tech on the better boards, and some can overclock like crazy!
Apple really needs to wake up here. Now that they are competing more directly with the PC market, they are going to have to compete on mobo features as well. While they may have to be dragged kicking and screaming into this new world they joined, eventually, they won't have much choice.
Apple has been selling 100 thousand towers per quarter the last 18 months or so. Likely the sales have dropped even further the past few months.
He may be confused over that because the first SLI and Crossfire mobo's used two 8 lane slots.
I'm not confused, I recognize that dual 16-lane solutions exist, but those solutions have almost no other PCIe lanes, whereas the Mac Pro needs at least another 8-lane slot, and probably a 4-lane slot. The 8-lane slot would be for Fibre Channel or eSATA cards, and I assume the other 4 or 1 lane slot would be for whatever else the pro uses. That runs to 44 or 41 lanes, without counting in Firewire and Bluetooth. The most lanes I've heard of was on a dual-16-lane board that had 43, and it was a gamer board.
Because the Mac Pro isn't entirely (or even mostly) a gaming machine, it can't spare the lanes to give 32 to SLI graphics, but it might be able to spare 24 (16-lane & 8-lane), with another 8 lane and a 1 or 4 lane slot. That's still 36 lanes, which is a lot for a dual-socket board under $400-500. But it's the only way Apple could do SLI (if they choose to) while still allowing enough other card slots for people who would never use dual graphics solution.
I'm not confused, I recognize that dual 16-lane solutions exist, but those solutions have almost no other PCIe lanes, whereas the Mac Pro needs at least another 8-lane slot, and probably a 4-lane slot. The 8-lane slot would be for Fibre Channel or eSATA cards, and I assume the other 4 or 1 lane slot would be for whatever else the pro uses. That runs to 44 or 41 lanes, without counting in Firewire and Bluetooth. The most lanes I've heard of was on a dual-16-lane board that had 43, and it was a gamer board.
Because the Mac Pro isn't entirely (or even mostly) a gaming machine, it can't spare the lanes to give 32 to SLI graphics, but it might be able to spare 24 (16-lane & 8-lane), with another 8 lane and a 1 or 4 lane slot. That's still 36 lanes, which is a lot for a dual-socket board under $400-500. But it's the only way Apple could do SLI (if they choose to) while still allowing enough other card slots for people who would never use dual graphics solution.
You are confused, because I said that the early solution used two 8 lane slots.
If you think that one 16 and one 8 lane slot can be used together for SLI, that is wrong. Both slots must be the same.
I couldn't care less if Apple gets SLI, Crossfire, or any other two card solution.
I think your both confused about what the other just said the last time.
And Zach is using the term "slot" where he should be using the term "lane" if I understand him correctly.
40 lanes is going to be the standard for a fully capable board because Nvidia's Nforce4 SLI 16X board is really the one who set the standard, and theirs is the only current board that is firing on all cylinders IMO.
And also. What makers a motherboard a Gamer board? I don't see any difference between a Gamer board, and highend 3D graphics workstation board component wise. The board isn't what makes a machine a gaming machine. It's the user.
"Nvidia's Nforce4 boards do not do that either. They are true dual full speed 16x PCI-E lanes."
My Asus A8N-SLI [normal, not "Premium" or "Deluxe"] has 2 PCIExpress slots. Nforce4 chipset. AFAIK when running SLI it is only overall PCIExpress x16 communicating with the 2 GPUs.
Dual x16 requires something like a Asus A8N32-SLI :
These Dual x16 for Intel and AMD setups came after the initial SLI mobos made it to the market.
Yeah, Quote like a normal human you alien freak. Just kidding.
The first boards were no ones fault but the manufacturers. Tyan was AFAIAC the only one to get it right almost right away. Once people started to note that you needed 2 full speed 16X lanes Tyan came out with the Thunder K8WE (S2895) board which is what I have in my Alienware MJ-12 workstation. Freaking awesome board, and a wicked awsome 3D machine if I do say so myself. This I believe was also the same board that BOXX opted for in their AMD workstations.
I think your both confused about what the other just said the last time.
And Zach is using the term "slot" where he should be using the term "lane" if I understand him correctly.
40 lanes is going to be the standard for a fully capable board because Nvidia's Nforce4 SLI 16X board is really the one who set the standard, and theirs is the only current board that is firing on all cylinders IMO.
And also. What makers a motherboard a Gamer board? I don't see any difference between a Gamer board, and highend 3D graphics workstation board component wise. The board isn't what makes a machine a gaming machine. It's the user.
It does get complex. There are slots that are mechanically able to accept 16 lane boards, that is, boards that will transfer data over 16 lanes if the ability of the slot to do so is there. But, one of the confusing aspects of Express is that the slots can be mechanically able to accept a 16 lane board, while be electrically able to only function as an 8 or even 4 lane slot (or 2, or even 1). Apple does this with its current Express machines. Only the slot designated as the "normal" graphics slot is both mechanically AND electrically functionable as a 16 lane slot. The others will accept 16 lane boards, but will only function as an 8 or 4 lane slot.
Cheaper mobo's have slots that aren't mechanically able to accept a 16, 8, 4,or even 2 lane board. they, therefore, can't accept graphics cards, as Apple's other slots will, though with less performance.
The original concept for SLI and Crossfire was that there wasn't enough bandwidth and lanes available for two 16 lane slots in addition to what was needed for the rest of the board. Therefore, the first SLI and Crossfire solutions only were able to have 8 lanes per graphics slot working. Two slots, therefore, had only a total of 16 electrical lanes. There was a lot of unhappiness about that in the gaming community, and the latest boards have two 16 electrically active lanes per slot.
1) PowerMacs have all the PCIe slots at size x16, but wired differently.
2) You can use dual-x8 or dual-x16 to run SLI.
3) 40 PCIe lanes is the maximum limit we're expecting here, since that's a high number already, and dual-socket boards tend to have fewer lanes (or so it seems).
My idea was for Apple to create a way to have a lane that can run as either x16 or x8, through some method that disables half the lanes when it's in SLI mode. This way, you can have an SLI-mode that's dual x8, or a single card mode that's x16 and an adjacent x8. That'd be a new feature for motherboards (AFAIK), but pretty sweet if it happened.
At one point, Apple was advertising having like 8 monitors on the Powermac, by pointing 6600GTs in the x4 slots and the x8 slot. Which leads me to believe that a dual-x8 solution wouldn't be horrible for a 7x00 series SLI. This is because I've heard that most graphics cards don't use all the bandwidth of a x16 slot wired to 16 lanes.
However, Quadros and 8x00 series cards will absolutely need 16 lanes, and people who go the single graphics route will want a fully 16-lane-wired slot.
Apple can't afford dual-x16, because they then couldn't have more than an additional 4-lane slot (which might be x16 sized), since they need 2-3 lanes for FW and BT.
I was trying to create a theoretical way for Apple to be able to include SLI on it's mobos.
My idea was for Apple to create a way to have a lane that can run as either x16 or x8, through some method that disables half the lanes when it's in SLI mode. This way, you can have an SLI-mode that's dual x8, or a single card mode that's x16 and an adjacent x8. That'd be a new feature for motherboards (AFAIK), but pretty sweet if it happened.
I was trying to create a theoretical way for Apple to be able to include SLI on it's mobos.
My idea was for Apple to create a way to have a lane that can run as either x16 or x8, through some method that disables half the lanes when it's in SLI mode. This way, you can have an SLI-mode that's dual x8, or a single card mode that's x16 and an adjacent x8. That'd be a new feature for motherboards (AFAIK), but pretty sweet if it happened.
Apple can't afford dual-x16, because they then couldn't have more than an additional 4-lane slot (which might be x16 sized), since they need 2-3 lanes for FW and BT.
But that's the past which was the original problem with SLI motherboards. Apples current G5 has a single 16X PCI-E slot, and I think it also has an 8X slot so you could already do what it is your suggesting.
To have dual 8x slots is no better than to have one single 16x slot, and I'm not sure that your seeing that.
The future of high-speed, and high-end graphics is to have two Full speed 16X PCI-E slots if you want them. There is no better solution. SLI-2X cards in one single slot are a substitute, but they don't compare to the dual slots because you can use two SLI-2x cards into a true SLI configuration and simulate a Quad SLI configuration if your graphics needs are that demanding.
The future of high-speed, and high-end graphics is to have two Full speed 16X PCI-E slots if you want them. There is no better solution.
I 100% agree. But that's too much to ask of a dual-processor motherboard in a computer line not targeted to gamers. In a gamer targeted line (like an XPS or an Alienware) you can get away with 2 x16 slots and nothing else, but you can't do that in a workstation, because people have need of 2-3 non-graphics slots, and they can't all be 1x.
I suppose a riser is possible, like what Dell and Alienware do for Quad SLI, but only in one x16 slot. That'd provide SLI reasonably, and is an option I somehow forgot.
I 100% agree. But that's too much to ask of a dual-processor motherboard in a computer line not targeted to gamers. In a gamer targeted line (like an XPS or an Alienware) you can get away with 2 x16 slots and nothing else, but you can't do that in a workstation, because people have need of 2-3 non-graphics slots, and they can't all be 1x.
I suppose a riser is possible, like what Dell and Alienware do for Quad SLI, but only in one x16 slot. That'd provide SLI reasonably, and is an option I somehow forgot.
Interestingly I think they just need to improve the technology so they are all 16X slots. But until then what about setting them manually in system preferences. What if you could jump into SP, and regulate the speed of your PCI-E slots? That could be an immediate solution. You could possibly even reduce your main graphics slot to 8, 4 even 2X if you needed speed elsewhere for some reason or another. Maybe a power hungry PCI-E card running to an Expansion Chassis that was needed for PCI, and PCI-X ports for musicians hardware that was not yet updated to PCI-E. - Bullseye. An often mentioned concern of many friends of mine.
Comments
Originally posted by aegisdesign
IMO better to buy a console. For the price of one of the cards alone you get a whole system that you can use from the comfort of your sofa on your TV.
That's a completely different discussion, another argument that really doesn't have a place here.
Originally posted by JeffDM
That's a completely different discussion, another argument that really doesn't have a place here.
Here being outside the realms of common sense.
Originally posted by onlooker
Not true. The AMD Pro boards never did that. Only the intel ones were not true 16X Dual lanes. Nvidia's Nforce4 boards do not do that either. They are true dual full speed 16x PCI-E lanes.
He may be confused over that because the first SLI and Crossfire mobo's used two 8 lane slots.
Originally posted by onlooker
I'm not hoping for crossfire. ATI sucks, and their so called crossfire idea doesn't even compete with SLI.
I have faith. If Apple does not provide (I think they will) I'll probably attempt to HW mod a PC version.
You know, while some people have said that, testing hasn't shown that to be true. Besides, just as SLI has improved, Crossfire has as well. The old limitations are no longer there. The original scheme had limitations imposed by the chip on the Master card that processed the combined data - not enough bandwidth, though, even that didn't show up on real world usage.
Advantages are that you don't have to use two of the same boards.
Originally posted by JeffDM
I forget how many Pro towers Apple has typically sold, but if they are making several tens of thousands of them in each price bracket, there is a chance that it is more economical to have two distinct boards.
While Apple makes a big deal about its mobo's, it really isn't a big deal. There are several mobo makers who have at least a half dozen boards apiece on the market. They come out with boards every 3 months. These boards go retail for an average price of $150. They include the latest tech on the better boards, and some can overclock like crazy!
Apple really needs to wake up here. Now that they are competing more directly with the PC market, they are going to have to compete on mobo features as well. While they may have to be dragged kicking and screaming into this new world they joined, eventually, they won't have much choice.
Apple has been selling 100 thousand towers per quarter the last 18 months or so. Likely the sales have dropped even further the past few months.
Originally posted by aegisdesign
By the way, I'm saddened to see the gamers have taken over the thread again. WTF cares if you can run dual gamer cards in a Pro mac?
Amen.
Originally posted by melgross
He may be confused over that because the first SLI and Crossfire mobo's used two 8 lane slots.
I'm not confused, I recognize that dual 16-lane solutions exist, but those solutions have almost no other PCIe lanes, whereas the Mac Pro needs at least another 8-lane slot, and probably a 4-lane slot. The 8-lane slot would be for Fibre Channel or eSATA cards, and I assume the other 4 or 1 lane slot would be for whatever else the pro uses. That runs to 44 or 41 lanes, without counting in Firewire and Bluetooth. The most lanes I've heard of was on a dual-16-lane board that had 43, and it was a gamer board.
Because the Mac Pro isn't entirely (or even mostly) a gaming machine, it can't spare the lanes to give 32 to SLI graphics, but it might be able to spare 24 (16-lane & 8-lane), with another 8 lane and a 1 or 4 lane slot. That's still 36 lanes, which is a lot for a dual-socket board under $400-500. But it's the only way Apple could do SLI (if they choose to) while still allowing enough other card slots for people who would never use dual graphics solution.
Originally posted by ZachPruckowski
I'm not confused, I recognize that dual 16-lane solutions exist, but those solutions have almost no other PCIe lanes, whereas the Mac Pro needs at least another 8-lane slot, and probably a 4-lane slot. The 8-lane slot would be for Fibre Channel or eSATA cards, and I assume the other 4 or 1 lane slot would be for whatever else the pro uses. That runs to 44 or 41 lanes, without counting in Firewire and Bluetooth. The most lanes I've heard of was on a dual-16-lane board that had 43, and it was a gamer board.
Because the Mac Pro isn't entirely (or even mostly) a gaming machine, it can't spare the lanes to give 32 to SLI graphics, but it might be able to spare 24 (16-lane & 8-lane), with another 8 lane and a 1 or 4 lane slot. That's still 36 lanes, which is a lot for a dual-socket board under $400-500. But it's the only way Apple could do SLI (if they choose to) while still allowing enough other card slots for people who would never use dual graphics solution.
You are confused, because I said that the early solution used two 8 lane slots.
If you think that one 16 and one 8 lane slot can be used together for SLI, that is wrong. Both slots must be the same.
I couldn't care less if Apple gets SLI, Crossfire, or any other two card solution.
That requires a chip that supports it as well.
And Zach is using the term "slot" where he should be using the term "lane" if I understand him correctly.
40 lanes is going to be the standard for a fully capable board because Nvidia's Nforce4 SLI 16X board is really the one who set the standard, and theirs is the only current board that is firing on all cylinders IMO.
And also. What makers a motherboard a Gamer board? I don't see any difference between a Gamer board, and highend 3D graphics workstation board component wise. The board isn't what makes a machine a gaming machine. It's the user.
Originally posted by sunilraman
Onlooker said:
"Nvidia's Nforce4 boards do not do that either. They are true dual full speed 16x PCI-E lanes."
My Asus A8N-SLI [normal, not "Premium" or "Deluxe"] has 2 PCIExpress slots. Nforce4 chipset. AFAIK when running SLI it is only overall PCIExpress x16 communicating with the 2 GPUs.
Dual x16 requires something like a Asus A8N32-SLI :
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2589&p=2
These Dual x16 for Intel and AMD setups came after the initial SLI mobos made it to the market.
Yeah, Quote like a normal human you alien freak.
The first boards were no ones fault but the manufacturers. Tyan was AFAIAC the only one to get it right almost right away. Once people started to note that you needed 2 full speed 16X lanes Tyan came out with the Thunder K8WE (S2895) board which is what I have in my Alienware MJ-12 workstation. Freaking awesome board, and a wicked awsome 3D machine if I do say so myself. This I believe was also the same board that BOXX opted for in their AMD workstations.
Originally posted by onlooker
I think your both confused about what the other just said the last time.
And Zach is using the term "slot" where he should be using the term "lane" if I understand him correctly.
40 lanes is going to be the standard for a fully capable board because Nvidia's Nforce4 SLI 16X board is really the one who set the standard, and theirs is the only current board that is firing on all cylinders IMO.
And also. What makers a motherboard a Gamer board? I don't see any difference between a Gamer board, and highend 3D graphics workstation board component wise. The board isn't what makes a machine a gaming machine. It's the user.
It does get complex. There are slots that are mechanically able to accept 16 lane boards, that is, boards that will transfer data over 16 lanes if the ability of the slot to do so is there. But, one of the confusing aspects of Express is that the slots can be mechanically able to accept a 16 lane board, while be electrically able to only function as an 8 or even 4 lane slot (or 2, or even 1). Apple does this with its current Express machines. Only the slot designated as the "normal" graphics slot is both mechanically AND electrically functionable as a 16 lane slot. The others will accept 16 lane boards, but will only function as an 8 or 4 lane slot.
Cheaper mobo's have slots that aren't mechanically able to accept a 16, 8, 4,or even 2 lane board. they, therefore, can't accept graphics cards, as Apple's other slots will, though with less performance.
The original concept for SLI and Crossfire was that there wasn't enough bandwidth and lanes available for two 16 lane slots in addition to what was needed for the rest of the board. Therefore, the first SLI and Crossfire solutions only were able to have 8 lanes per graphics slot working. Two slots, therefore, had only a total of 16 electrical lanes. There was a lot of unhappiness about that in the gaming community, and the latest boards have two 16 electrically active lanes per slot.
www.weatherman.com
www.toddgross.com
1) PowerMacs have all the PCIe slots at size x16, but wired differently.
2) You can use dual-x8 or dual-x16 to run SLI.
3) 40 PCIe lanes is the maximum limit we're expecting here, since that's a high number already, and dual-socket boards tend to have fewer lanes (or so it seems).
My idea was for Apple to create a way to have a lane that can run as either x16 or x8, through some method that disables half the lanes when it's in SLI mode. This way, you can have an SLI-mode that's dual x8, or a single card mode that's x16 and an adjacent x8. That'd be a new feature for motherboards (AFAIK), but pretty sweet if it happened.
At one point, Apple was advertising having like 8 monitors on the Powermac, by pointing 6600GTs in the x4 slots and the x8 slot. Which leads me to believe that a dual-x8 solution wouldn't be horrible for a 7x00 series SLI. This is because I've heard that most graphics cards don't use all the bandwidth of a x16 slot wired to 16 lanes.
However, Quadros and 8x00 series cards will absolutely need 16 lanes, and people who go the single graphics route will want a fully 16-lane-wired slot.
Apple can't afford dual-x16, because they then couldn't have more than an additional 4-lane slot (which might be x16 sized), since they need 2-3 lanes for FW and BT.
I was trying to create a theoretical way for Apple to be able to include SLI on it's mobos.
Originally posted by ZachPruckowski
My idea was for Apple to create a way to have a lane that can run as either x16 or x8, through some method that disables half the lanes when it's in SLI mode. This way, you can have an SLI-mode that's dual x8, or a single card mode that's x16 and an adjacent x8. That'd be a new feature for motherboards (AFAIK), but pretty sweet if it happened.
I was trying to create a theoretical way for Apple to be able to include SLI on it's mobos.
They have board that do that.
Originally posted by ZachPruckowski
My idea was for Apple to create a way to have a lane that can run as either x16 or x8, through some method that disables half the lanes when it's in SLI mode. This way, you can have an SLI-mode that's dual x8, or a single card mode that's x16 and an adjacent x8. That'd be a new feature for motherboards (AFAIK), but pretty sweet if it happened.
Apple can't afford dual-x16, because they then couldn't have more than an additional 4-lane slot (which might be x16 sized), since they need 2-3 lanes for FW and BT.
But that's the past which was the original problem with SLI motherboards. Apples current G5 has a single 16X PCI-E slot, and I think it also has an 8X slot so you could already do what it is your suggesting.
To have dual 8x slots is no better than to have one single 16x slot, and I'm not sure that your seeing that.
The future of high-speed, and high-end graphics is to have two Full speed 16X PCI-E slots if you want them. There is no better solution. SLI-2X cards in one single slot are a substitute, but they don't compare to the dual slots because you can use two SLI-2x cards into a true SLI configuration and simulate a Quad SLI configuration if your graphics needs are that demanding.
The single 16X slot is old cow.
Originally posted by onlooker
The future of high-speed, and high-end graphics is to have two Full speed 16X PCI-E slots if you want them. There is no better solution.
I 100% agree. But that's too much to ask of a dual-processor motherboard in a computer line not targeted to gamers. In a gamer targeted line (like an XPS or an Alienware) you can get away with 2 x16 slots and nothing else, but you can't do that in a workstation, because people have need of 2-3 non-graphics slots, and they can't all be 1x.
I suppose a riser is possible, like what Dell and Alienware do for Quad SLI, but only in one x16 slot. That'd provide SLI reasonably, and is an option I somehow forgot.
Originally posted by ZachPruckowski
I 100% agree. But that's too much to ask of a dual-processor motherboard in a computer line not targeted to gamers. In a gamer targeted line (like an XPS or an Alienware) you can get away with 2 x16 slots and nothing else, but you can't do that in a workstation, because people have need of 2-3 non-graphics slots, and they can't all be 1x.
I suppose a riser is possible, like what Dell and Alienware do for Quad SLI, but only in one x16 slot. That'd provide SLI reasonably, and is an option I somehow forgot.
Interestingly I think they just need to improve the technology so they are all 16X slots.
Originally posted by DHagan4755
Mel Gross are you related to Todd Gross the weatherman?
www.weatherman.com
www.toddgross.com
That's funny. Whoever he is.