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ATI Radeon X1950 Pro: CrossFire Done Rightby Derek Wilson on 10/17/2006 6:22 AM EST
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Zoomer - Thursday, October 19, 2006 - linkIs this a optical shrink to 80nm?
Answering this question will put overclocking expectations in line. Generally, optically shrunk cores from TSMC overclock to the about the same as the original or perhaps slightly worse. Reply
coldpower27 - Friday, October 20, 2006 - linkWell no as this piepline configuration doesn't exist natively before on the 90nm node. It's a 3 Quad Part, so it's basedon R580 but has 1 Quad Physical removed as well as being shrunk to 80nm. Not to mention Native Crossfire support was added onto the die. Reply
Spoelie - Friday, October 20, 2006 - linkOptical shrink, this is 80nm and the original was 90nm. You're normally correct because the first optical shrink usually does not have the same technologies as the proces higher up (low-k and SOI for example, this was the case with 130nm -> 110nm), but I don't think it's the case for this generation. Regardless, haven't seen any overclocking articles on it yet so I'm quite curious. Reply
Spoelie - Friday, October 20, 2006 - linkoie, maybe I should add that it's reworked as well, so both actually. Since this core didn't exist before (rv570 and that pipeline configuration), I don't think that they just sliced a part of the core... Reply
Zstream - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkBeyond3D reported the spec change a month before anyone received the card. I think you need to do some FAQ checking on your opinions mate.
All in all decent review but poor unknowledgeable opinions…
DerekWilson - Wednesday, October 18, 2006 - linkJust because ATI made the spec change public does not mean it is alright to change the specs of a product that has been shipping for 4 months.
X1900 GT has been available since May 9 as a 575/1200 part.
The message we want to send isn't that ATI is trying to hide something, its that they shouldn't do the thing in the first place.
No matter how many times a company says it changed the specs of a product, when people search for reviews they're going to see plenty that have been written since May talking about the original X1900 GT.
Naming is already ambiguous enough. I stand by my opinion that having multiple versions of a product with the exact same name is a bad thing.
I'm sorry if I wasn't clear on this in the article. Please let me know if there's anything I can reword to help get my point across. Reply
Zoomer - Thursday, October 19, 2006 - linkThis is very common. Many vendors in the past have passed off 8500s that run at 250/250 instead of the stock 275/275, and don't label them as such.
There are some Asus SKUs that have this same handicap, but I can't recall what models that were. Reply
xsilver - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkany word on what the new price for the x1900gt's will be now that the x1950pros are out?
or are they being phased out and no price drop is being considered? Reply
Wellsoul2 - Monday, November 06, 2006 - linkYou guys are such cheerleaders..
For a single card buy why would you get this?
Why would you buy the 1900GT even after the
1900XT 256MB came out?
I got my 1900XT 256MB for $240 shipped..
Except for power consumption it's a much better card.
You get to run Oblivion great with one card.
Two cards is such a scam. More expensive motherboard..power consumption etc.
This is progress? CPU's have evolved..
It's hard to even find a motherboard with 3 PCI slots..
What a scam! Where's my ultra-fast HDTV board for PCI Express?
Seriously..Why buy into SLI/Crossfire? Why not 2 GPU's on one card?
Too late..You all bought into it.
Sorry I am just so sick of the praise for this money-grab of SLI/Crossfire.
jcromano - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkAre the power consumption numbers (98W idle, 181W load) for just the graphics card or are they total system power?
Thanks in advance,
Jim Reply
Spoelie - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkThey're total system power, we're not gonna see 180W gpu's till november :) Reply
Aikouka - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkThose cards are going to be so hot.
Sorry, that was my one and only bad pun of the day :P. Reply
Aikouka - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkFirst off, it was an intersting article and it's nice to see that ATi is making changes to "fix" the poor dual-card implementation :).
But now akin to my subject line, I was wondering if you [Anandtech] would be keen on adding in a "Performance / Price" sort of chart at the end. The idea would be to keep different quality modes separate (i.e. No-AA/No-AF and #x-AA/#x-AF would need separate charts or only one chart but using one set of data) while ordering cards by their average FPS or "average ranking". Such as, if Video Card A is seen in spot #1 the most, it stays there in the chart regardless of the figure listed. I'd say this is more of a user-friendly idea than anything required to be practical. But here's what I think a typical bar would represent:
[ Video_Card_Name - (Average_FPS/Price) - Average_FPS ]
The idea is that some video cards may be return the same value (i.e. 120/$400 and 60/$200), but listing cards in their typical performance standing allows someone to say "well, hey... I like the performance ratio of this card, and I don't need 120 FPS!"
I think it may provide a way for people who read the benchmarks to get a real world idea of these cards rather than an "in box" idea, because as nice as it is to see a card produce 120 FPS... how much will we have to produce to purchase it ;).
Just something I thought up while looking at pages and pages of charts and not knowing how "worthwhile" the cards really were for the performance.
P.S. I'd love to hear comments! Reply
Spoelie - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkI don't think it'll be very practical for most people. When a graphic card purchase is being considered, most people just have a hard cash target in mind (for example, 200$) and just look for the fastest card at that price point. The only exception to this is when those people notice that a small rise in their budget allows a much more powerful graphic card purchase, e.g. 6600gt for 100$ but 7600gt for 130$
So as long as anandtech keeps comparing on pricepoints and of course mentioning any caveats/featuredifferences/possible better deals higher up, there's no real need for such a chart.
but that's just my opinion Reply
Aikouka - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkThat's really a view of someone who's looking to spend x amount of dollars trying to find the best item for that price, which is one thing that's kept in focus. My proposed chat method helps to show two things really, what's the best "bang for your buck" and allows you to see if that performance pricing is the level of performance that you want.
To go into detail a bit about that, if the best performance ratio was .3 (120fps/$400 or 60fps/$200, etc), someone might go, "Well, hey... I like the performance rating on these two cards, but I don't need something that fast." So, the user would shoot for the 60fps card.
But in your case, you most likely benefit from what's currently done. For me, I could really care less how much a new video card costs me. I got tired of spending smaller amounts on mediocre performance years ago and I've tried to keep my dollars spent in the high-end sector (the range of high-end cards, not necessarily referring to the ultra-high-end-uber cards only) as much as possible to avoid having to perform constant upgrades to keep that level of detail that I like (I can't stand "jaggies" ... I'm just too anal about things like that).
For example, my current 6800GT was the 2nd top performing graphics card when I bought it, but it simply doesn't suit my needs anymore as below 30FPS (in more render-heavy areas) in WoW at 1280x1024 with high graphics settings is just subpar. Now, my card is old and about to be replaced by another generation (the G80). Or maybe I just need one of them Killer NICs (just kidding :P).
I think a good thing to mention is that the bar system that I mentioned may be better for a bulk review more than a single card review. Especially since a lot of people may come into the review of a single card knowing all the information about the other cards, so they're only performing minor mental comparisons. But in a bulk review, there's a lot more information to keep in check, so an overall comparison that takes a couple of the specifics about a card ( average performance and price mainly ) could be beneficial.
Thanks for the comments! Reply
Aikouka - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - link"The idea is that some video cards may be return the same value"
should be...
"The idea is that some video cards may return the same value"
Stupid me deleting and rewriting so much that I'll leave in a word from a prior revision XD. Oh yeah, and I had to make sure to post this fix before someone sought it upon themselves to ignore the entire post, but to make a comment on my little accident :P. Reply
bupkus - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkWith other CrossFire configurations as a guide, we can easily expect X1950 Pro to nearly double its single card performance and put it on par with the 7950 GX2 and 7900 GT SLI configurations. As for single card performance, we see the trend of X1950 Pro domination continuing. Performance greater than that of the 7900 GS and GT for $200 is quite a plus. Reply
takumsawsherman - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkNow all ATI has to do is get rid of that Catalyst Control Center. I have been using a Radeon 9700 Pro for two years now, and I have been almost perfectly happy with it except for two problems: It sometimes loses TV mode with no explanation, and I have to remove and re-add the TV in CCC. The other is that CCC takes anywhere from 10-20 seconds to load up on an Athlon XP 2500+. The old control panel set opened within 2 or three seconds (the advanced screens). I've set up a quick profile, but even right-clicking the taskbar icon has a huge delay (often ten seconds or more) before the menu appears, and then sometimes activating the profile doesn't work, and I have to set it manually (sometimes it does work). After initial launch, it does open more quickly (cached, I assume). I assume that this is because of the use of .NET.
Also, ZoneAlarm reports that CLI.EXE (listed as various ATI apps) is listening to TCP ports 1052, 1057, and 1058. There are currently three CLI.exe processes running on my system, taking 6,132K, 5,800K, and 3,572K of memory respectively. That is about 15MB of memory, and I don't have CCC open. My old Matrox G400Max had tons of options in the advanced screens, had a better TV output quality, and didn't require all of this garbage. The old ATI control panel even seemed easier to use.
I would love to get a nice new x1950, as Oblivion gets pretty choppy even at fairly low settings. But I really want to get away from these bulky system tray apps. And look at the update process here: https://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?de...">https://support.ati.com/ics/support/def...mp;task=...
That is ridiculous. Can they not make an installer that removes their own cruft before installing the new version? It's a chore to put a new driver in, and it shouldn't be. Reply
Zoomer - Thursday, October 19, 2006 - linkI think this is partly microsoft's fault. .Net framework is a POS.
ATi should shoulder some of the blame too, for choosing a crappy base to program on. I would think even java based apps are not this bad. Reply
mesyn191 - Friday, October 20, 2006 - linkI dunno...
I personally don't like the whole CCC/CP approach to config. the graphics card either, but nV's implementation aint' half bad. Reply
Spoelie - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkIt might be a good idea to use omega's drivers, they do not include catalyst control center but instead use ati tray tools OR the old control panel slightly updated. The only downside to this is that omega's are sometimes one or two releases behind the official ones.
if you're not comfortable with omega's drivers (even though they're rock solid :)) you can always download just the driver from ati and install ati tray tools seperatly. it includes every option you need to change driver settings etc but is a sleek minimalist fast 1mb tool :) Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkUnfortunately, CCC is required to enable CrossFire. I don't know if Omega gets around this requirement somehow, but the standard ATI control panel drivers do not have the CrossFire checkbox anywhere. Reply
Aikouka - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkThe awkward drivers is actually the main reason I steer clear of ATi still. Also, I get a bit annoyed at the company as they only seem to care about their graphics sector and ignore all of their other products. My ATi TV Wonder Pro Remote Control Edition had so many problems over the years that it was barely worth owning. The Remote Control software just crashes randomly still.
Although, I have yet to try the newest version of the software, because I removed the card from my system and it won't let you install the main software without it.
So... with my experience, it leaves me a bit wary.
But I do also have to admit how much I also don't like the newer nVidia control panel, but at least I can go back to the original one with one mouse click :). Reply
DerekWilson - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkRight on. Reply
Zaitsev - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkTypo on page 2, third paragraph.
"It is hard enough for us to sort things out when parts hit the selves at different speeds..." Reply
RamarC - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linksuggestion: replace Q4 and B&W2 with Prey and Company of Heroes Reply
DerekWilson - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkWe are planning on doing exactly that starting in early November. Reply
spe1491 - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkPossible typo?
All in all, the X1950 Pro is the performance leader at the $200 mark. We hardily recommend it...
Basilisk - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkFurther clue: try "heartily"; "hardily" means "ruggedly", etc.. Reply
Spoelie - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkAfter browsing through some other reviews, all which seem to use the Catalyst 6.9 drivers, it occured to me that they all have significantly lower performance for the ATi camp then what anandtech is reporting.
Most reviews place 7900gs performance well above that of the x1950pro in quake 4. Can anyone explain to me why that is, and the supposed opengl/doom3 optimisations are only being seen by AT and not by sites such as bit-tech, hardocp, the tech report, firing squad, etc. ?? Reply
DerekWilson - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkFirst of all, every site uses their own benchmarking techniques and sequences in the games. Numbers between review sites won't be comparable.
For Quake 4 we used ultraquality mode, and this seems to give ATI the advantage over NVIDIA. We don't have a problem with this because we would prefer to tip the scales in favor of the product that can deliver the best performance at the highest image quality. Reply
munky - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkWould you rather Ati continued to ship the x1900gt with the original specs, and then a bunch of the cards would have to be RMA'd? Reply
DerekWilson - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkWe would rather they just run out of x1900 GT cards. They're discontinuing the line anyways, so it seems a little strange to try to increase supply by underhanded means. Reply
sri2000 - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkThey should ship it under a different model number. Call is the X1900 GTA or something like that (or some other alphabet soup combo that's not already taken) so that people can tell that the different model# = different performance.
Goty - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkYou guys are ragging on this CF implementation like it's some sub-par solution. The transfer speed may be lower than that used by NVIDIA's SLI bridge, but SLI is simplex while this implementation is full duplex. Being able to send data in both directions at the same time should provide a huge speed boost while using ATi's SuperAA modes. Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkScalability is the key factory. In most benchmarks, SLI gets more of an improvement than CrossFire, indicating that the compositing engine is not an optimal multi-GPU solution. There's almost certainly a decent amount of overhead involved. We do like the new CF connector, but the proof is in the pudding. If 7900 GS is clearly slower in single card configs but often faster in dual-GPU configs, clearly SLI is scaling better than CF. Reply
mesyn191 - Friday, October 20, 2006 - linkI don't think its possible to comment on the new CF at all, they've clearly got screwed up drivers for it ATM, but then its ATi so what else is new...
I hope AMD cleans up thier driver team because still even after all these years ATi does a half assed job on its drivers. Reply
Goty - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkAre you guys thinking of doing any testing with any of either vendor's multi-card AA modes any time soon? I really think the full duplex connection would really help there (i.e. the cards may not scale as well with the number of cards, but what about as the image quality increases?) Reply
Rza79 - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkThe Tech Report had problems with this motherboard and Crossfire which made them switch to the Asus P5W DH.
You aren't expiriencing any problems with this board?
Second thing, why no AA with games like B&W2 and FEAR? Reply
DerekWilson - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkNo problems with the motherboard.
AA performance under Black and White 2 and FEAR were excluded because we decided framerate was already at a minimum for the resolution we were testing. Reply
Spoelie - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkBit disappointed, was hoping for 600/700 clocks. I'm curious about the temperatures under load and if it would easily overclock to at least those speeds. And what about HDCP? But I guess we'll have to wait for retail cards.
If the price is €200 or less I just might be getting one to replace my x800xt :) Reply
Spoelie - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkApparantly, powercolor clocks all its x1950pro cards up to 600/700 and have a 512mb sku. Plus silent cooling :)
No word on hdcp and price tho :/ Reply
DerekWilson - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkHDCP support is optional for vendors, but it seems like ATI is heavily encouraging them to include HDCP on all 1950 PRO cards. Since it's not guaranteed, be sure to check the specifications before you purchase.
The power color 1950 PRO is not passively cooled but it includes a low dB fan. It does look like an interesting product, and we intend to acquire one for further investigation. Reply
Goty - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkGo read the review over at bit-tech. They've got prices up and the Saphire card they reviewed has HDCP. Reply
MadBadger - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - linkThanks for the review :beer;
An observation:
-the pricefinder at the top of the article seems a bit out of whack. It shows as x1950 512 mb (PCI), but it links to the 1950 pro 256 mb for amazon and to the x1950 xt for the others. Reply


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subset: commoncrawl


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Asus P5N32-SLI: Dual x16 - What Dreams Are Made On . . .by Gary Key on 10/27/2005 12:05 AM EST
- Posted in
- Motherboards
70 Comments
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scottyfree111 - Friday, December 16, 2005 - linkGary, I got one of the first production runs of this board and I smelled something burning on the first post. I got it to work, but mobo temps were 46-48C. my friend got the same board a few weeks later in an almost identical setup (P43.46EE, dual Quadro FX-3400's, PC P&C 850 PSU) and got 28C mobo, and 29C (idle on the CPUw/Zalman 9500 cooler). So I RMA'd it, and am hoping for similar results. It should be back any day now and I'm hoping they replaced it. Asus forums list many unhappy campers having all sorts of Bios issues. Which Bios are you using now(212 maybe?) Also, I was disappointed that there are only 5 internal sata ports since I use 9 hard drives. I've been looking into using a Sil Image 5X1 port multiplier with a 4 bay esata enclosure from either Addonics or Cool Drives to get a RAID 0X4 on the Sil 3132 with my 4 WD740 Raptors for video capture/editing. Do you know anything about setting up an esata RAID? Thanks Reply
MadAd - Friday, November 04, 2005 - linkThanks for the reply Gary, dont bust a gut though, 1920x1440 is really good enough :)
Im just welcoming the recognition that people do use high res to do normal things like play games on (shock horror).
Ive always found it strange that Anandtech reports on so much cutting edge hardware in the cpu, mobo and video areas, the bread and butter of a good review site, but seemed to ignore people with high end monitors in test results - at least you are putting that right now, thank you again. Reply
MadAd - Wednesday, November 02, 2005 - linkHooray! a reviewer that benchmarks games up to high end video resolutions! Thank you thank you!!
My own resolution of 1920x1200 wasnt mentioned but I got the picture from what you did cover, thank you again- The other Anand reviewers seem to think theres no life after 1600x1200. (but there is :¬) )
Nice one Reply
Gary Key - Wednesday, November 02, 2005 - linkHi,
The review results will depend upon the monitor's capability during testing (several of my monitor's only go to 1600x1200 or 1280x1024). Also, please realize that a large majority of readers have 19" LCDs that only support up to 1280x1024. This is why we standardized on this resolution recently. However, we will start providing higher resolution benchmarks depending upon the hardware being reviewed (performance oriented boards) and time allowances. This is based upon the fact that the next step up for most buyers will be the 1600x1200 ~ 1920x1200 capable monitors.
The higher end monitor's I have for testing do not support the 1920x1200 format. They support the 1920x1440 and up resolutions. However, that should change in the next month or so hopefully. ;-)
I appreciate the comments and hopefully we can get you and others some 1920x1200 benchmarks in the near future.
Thanks! Reply
H0witzer - Saturday, October 29, 2005 - linkAs the owner of a P5ND2-SLI-Deluxe I have to say the C19 chipset gets WAY too hot. Not to mention the horrible stability of the BIOS. There has been Many complaints from ASUS owners about these issues. Another issue as of late has been power supplies blowing. I personally experience a 3 day old 500W Aspire power supply blowing, and after flashing the BIOS the entire system dying.
I wonder about the stability of the NVIDIA chipset and how it will hold up in the long run. I would have liked to see a comparison against the P5WD2-Premium. Reply
Gary Key - Saturday, October 29, 2005 - linkI have read some of the horror stories about the P5ND2-SLI-Deluxe and agree about the thermal issues among others with the A2 stepping of the C19. The A3 and up steppings are better in this regard and the new board layout is significantly more robust than the P5ND2 series. I believe Asus realized their errors from several product releases lately (I went to Intel boards after an earlier issue with Asus) and are in the process of correcting them. This board has restored my faith in their new product lineup. This bios we tested with (0047) has been wonderful from both a stability and performance viewpoint. I personally use OCZ or PC Power and Cooling power supplies and have never had an issue with any board, good or bad. I did not have the P5WD2 to test against but I do have the P5LD2 now. :-> Reply
H0witzer - Sunday, October 30, 2005 - linkHey Gary,
Thanks for taking the time to write back. Based on your article and statements here I am going to contact my online retailer who is processing my RMA and tell them to just issue a credit and I will purchase the P5N32-SLI instead. Don't worry i won't hold you responsible for my decision :-)
I just figured it couldn't be any worse than the last board. Hopefully they fixed the things that were issues with the P5ND2-SLI Deluxe.
One last question, when will this be available, have you heard anything yet? All the online retailers are saying Pre-Order. Reply
Gary Key - Sunday, October 30, 2005 - linkGood Day,
I bought a couple of boards from NewEgg last week but I noticed this morning they are out of them. I will send them a message and see when their next batch is in. When you receive the board please email me and we can discuss specifics on the board and bios. I really think you will be pleased with this board. If not, please post your issues. I would appreciate another viewpoint or opinion on the board. Reply
H0witzer - Wednesday, November 02, 2005 - linkHi Gary,
Any word on why the boards all disapeared? Seems that No one has them anymore. Reply
Gary Key - Wednesday, November 02, 2005 - linkGood Day,
We spoke with Asus tonight. The second production run of boards was slightly delayed due to a couple of minor hardware changes on the board that should not affect performance. They changed resistors in a couple of areas apparently. However, Asus will provide us a new board for testing to ensure results are indicative of the review board results. The next production run of boards should arrive within 7 business days according to our sources. I will post an update to the article if there are any changes with this new release.
Thanks.... Reply
Kensei - Friday, October 28, 2005 - linkI just wanted to say that I REALLY appreciate the wonderful combination of a person who is a very, very good writer and technologist. This extremely rare combination makes him one of the best technical writers I've come across in the past 20 years.
It's not too hard to find people who are technically competent but very hard to find someone who can communicate well and knows what the hell they're talking about (ask anyone who has been to college). Quite frankly, he sets a standard that I think all AnandTech writers (ok... all technical writers) should strive to eventually achieve. This level of expertise typically takes years of practice to acquire even among the talented. Can't wait for his next article.
To quote the first post..."Mixing philosophy, classical literature and computer hardware reviews? Gotta love it."
Kensei Reply
Gary Key - Monday, October 31, 2005 - linkI greatly appreciate the comments. This was my third article and hopefully I improve with each one although you have now placed a great deal of pressure on me. ;->
The next article series will be a multiple board review. I am learning how to convey several different messages in a very condensed form. It will be different than this last article so I would appreciate comments, good or bad. I try my best to listen to the readers and follow up on suggestions.
I have two very good editors in Wes and Karen so it really is a team effort at AnandTech. I still have a great deal to learn and in fact will be taking a composition course this winter to improve my skills. Reply
Kensei - Thursday, November 03, 2005 - linkYou are welcome. I don't think you need a composition course so I'd be interested in hearing how much you learned once it's over. Hopefully I'm wrong, but you may be disappointed by the course. If this is a college course, you may find that people in English departments don't quite get technical writing. It's different (although not totally different) than writing good short stories.
Keep up the good work and I look forward to your future articles.
screwtech02 - Friday, October 28, 2005 - linkSo let me get this straight... In "theory" i can run my 820 at a 250fsb or 4.0, with a ddr700 rating?? And the board will recognize both the cores?? I'm tempted to get this board, but after having the previous one from ASUS, i'm scared to death, it was a HORRIBLE overclocker, max i could get was 230fsb, and lousey mem performance.... But if you say this board is different, i may try one.... Reply
Gary Key - Saturday, October 29, 2005 - linkEmail me please and I can forward some testing results to you along with additional information. Reply
NegativeEntropy - Friday, October 28, 2005 - linkPlease check your USB/Firewire/Ethernet throughput graphs for their use of MB (MegaByte) vs Mb (Megabit).
Nice board :) Reply
Gary Key - Friday, October 28, 2005 - linkI have corrected the charts. Thank you for noticing the issue. Sometimes you view something so much that you miss the obvious. :) Reply
noac - Friday, October 28, 2005 - linkI read that you thought most would fit - "an excellent amount of room for alternative cooling solutions". Im wondering more specifically if the Scythe Ninja will fit with/without the optional fans. BTW did you test them, the fans? Wondering how much noise they make and if they work well. Reply
Gary Key - Friday, October 28, 2005 - linkI do not have the Ninja although I know where to get one for a test. :) I received the optional fans a couple of days ago from Asus (tried to get them before publishing but it did not work out). I will try them this weekend and respond to your questions. They are designed to be used with watercooling or phase change setups. The stock Intel 840EE cooler (upgraded from other Pentium D units) provided enough air flow in the area to keep the MOFSETs cool. The aftermarket coolers I used provided more than enough air flow and fit great within the CPU area. Let me know if you need a listing of these heatsinks. Reply
yacoub - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkThat's a freakin' awesome (if expensive) board!
Btw THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for finally showing just how greatly sound enabled impacts the framerates on boards with on-board audio. Amazing that 17-19% of your CPU's power can be sapped by a stupid audio chip, especially when that turns into ~15fps drop in some games. Ugh. Reply
Gary Key - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkIt is an awesome board.
Thank you for the comments about the sound tests. We will be expanding this test suite greatly in the coming weeks. If you think BF2 has a hit, wait until you see the F.E.A.R. scores with sound effects at maximum. ;->
However, in order to be consistent we will be testing the latest driver sets for each audio implementation along with adding an X-FI into the mix. The audio drivers within the latest NVIDIA 6.82 platform set are more game friendly than the RealTek versions but you give up some functionality and features for it. Reply
yacoub - Sunday, October 30, 2005 - linkGary - don't know if you will see this or not, but it would be interesting to see how the X-Fi series Creative card compares to the BlueGears X-Mystique, which is a highly rated ~$90 audio card available from NewEgg among other sites that has an excellent featureset (of course it lacks the latest EAX that Creative keeps for themselves so they have a reason to sell their wares to gamers, but it has more Dolby-related 5.1 features than the X-Fi series).
Would be neat to see those two cards compared in "% usage" of CPU during gaming. Reply
Gary Key - Monday, October 31, 2005 - linkGood Day,
I have bought several cards the past few weeks including this one and the Chaintech AV-710. I intend to greatly expand the scope of audio testing on the board reviews due to the advances in on-board quality/drivers or the lack of in the nF4 area. I have a hard time understanding why most board manufacturers are shying away from C-Media as their on-board solutions always worked/sounded better than the RealTek AC97 counterparts. In the HD audio area it is a toss up in my opinion but I prefer the SigmaTel codec's on the Intel boards at this time including Intel's software packages. Hopefully I will be able to have the full audio section available in a couple of weeks. The next article series will have a little more information but is not representative of where we will be going in the future.
I appreciate the comments and suggestions. I welcome anyone to email me if you have concerns or suggestions about our information. Obviously we have a format to adhere to and cannot test every possible hardware/software solution but I am always open to suggestions. :-) Reply
yacoub - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkOh and dual true-16x PCI-E slots and the passive cooling are both incredibly desireable features. When the AMD version of the board comes out I'll be all over it provided it reviews as well as this one did. Reply
Leper Messiah - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkIf the AMD version works as well as this one does for intel's, I've got my new mobo picked out. Heat pipe cooling+ 8 phase power= The win! 840EE's at 4.2 might actually give an overclocked X2 a run for its money! :gasp; Reply
bob661 - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - link
quote:Except that EE's will run MUCH hotter than X2's. This isn't a big deal if you have your own nuclear reactor. Reply
840EE's at 4.2
Gary Key - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - link
Except that EE's will run MUCH hotter than X2's. This isn't a big deal if you have your own nuclear reactor.
It was not that bad on this board (a very good description from you), idle temps at 37c, 4.1GHz at 46c according to the bios readings. I believe they were very close as I had a duplicate setup with the MSI P4N in it and you could feel the difference with your hands near the case. We will have thermal tests in the near future. Reply
Karaktu - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkOne thing I would REALLY like to see added to review articles is the total power consumption of the test setup, both at stock and overclocked settings. There are a couple of power supplies (Coolermaster, Thermaltake) that include attached wattage displays for convenience.
This would be useful for a number of reasons, not the least of which would be an idea of how much it's going to cost you to run such a rig. ;)
Joe Reply
Gary Key - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkHi Joe,
We have discussed this and it is nice to see a request for it. :-) Hopefully, once I have the test equipment setup then we can include these results in selected articles. You will find this information in the some of the CPU reviews already. We will also start checking thermal readings when a manufacturer introduces new technology onto the board. Asus did this with the eight-phase design and it certainly helped the thermal conditions on the board and with the CPU. This was based on a more subjective review of numbers generated from the bios and monitoring programs (along with overclocking results) which is okay for a high level discussion but is not detailed enough for absolute objective statements.
Thank you. Reply
breetai72 - Monday, October 31, 2005 - linkI find it very hard to believe that this is an 8 phase vreg. Simply counting the inductors indicates that it's only a 5 phase. Can you post the VR controller part number so I can see the datasheet?
Gary Key - Thursday, November 03, 2005 - linkPlease email me and I will forward a picture of the remaining inductors without the heatsinks attached. There are eight of them and the picture is high-res so you can make out the various numbers. Reply
danidentity - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkDoes Anandtech plan on reviewing the AMD version of this board? The A8N32-SLI Deluxe? Reply
Gary Key - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkYes, Wesley will have it completed shortly. Reply
Tanclearas - Monday, October 31, 2005 - linkI look forward to that, particularly compared to the A8N-SLI Premium. I find it highly dubious that x16 SLI shows such noticeable improvements over x8 SLI. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I am definitely skeptical. I would guess there is something else going on between those two boards. Reply
Gary Key - Monday, October 31, 2005 - linkPlease note that I stated in the article-
quote:and -
This allows the option to support two full-bandwidth 16-lane PCI Express links for graphics compared to a single 16-lane PCI Express link or split into two full-bandwidth 8-lane PCI Express links previously. While this doubles the bandwidth of the previous chipset configuration, in reality, the actual performance improvements are dependent upon the CPU, GPU, applications, and driver sets used. We witnessed anywhere from a 3% to 25% improvement in certain applications and were, at times, CPU constrained when utilizing a pair of 7800GTX video cards in SLI configuration at 1600x1200 resolutions and above.
We benchmarked F.E.A.R. with the newly released NVIDIA 81.85 WHQL driver set, based upon recommendations from NVIDIA about further optimizations for SLI-AA and Dual Core processors that would show marked improvements for the x16 product at higher resolutions over the x8 product line. The Asus P5N32-SLI Deluxe indicated an almost 3% gain over the MSI P4N Diamond in the previous 1280x960 benchmark. As the resolutions increased in the standard AT benchmark settings, the ability of the MSI P4N Diamond with its x8 SLI configuration fell behind the Asus P5N32-SLI Deluxe by upwards of 11% in this application. Once we changed the standard benchmark settings to include 2x AA and 16X AF, the benchmarks ended up favoring the Asus P5N32-SLI Deluxe by 25%. Based upon these results, we can conclude that the additional 8GB/second of bandwidth afforded by the additional 16 PCI Express lanes and the 81.85 driver optimizations allow a great deal of headroom potential at the higher resolutions with today's hardware.
We found anywhere from a 3% to almost 11% difference between the x8SLi and x16SLI configurations with the first 3% coming from differences between the two respective board suppliers and the additional 7~8% coming from the additional bandwidth/optimizations at the higher resolutions between the two boards. The driver set utilized (81.85), video cards (7800GTX), applications (GPU intensive F.E.A.R.), driver settings (AA/AF on), and cpu combination account for the difference. We will have additional information on this in future articles including different game benchmarks were the differences are not as great but the base improvement still exists. There is a true base difference between the two configurations (could vary by board design) with the 81.85 driver set accounting for the majority of the difference after this initial improvement. Reply
Tanclearas - Monday, October 31, 2005 - linkNo need to get defensive. I just think that a single comparison of two boards (from two different manufacturers) does not make a conclusive argument for those improvements being from x16 vs x8 SLI configurations. If the tests show the same pattern for the A8N-SLI Premium and A8N32-SLI, then I will start to believe that the additional PCIe bandwidth is indeed what is behind the increases. Right now, we have a sample of one, which should never be the basis of a conclusion. Reply
Gary Key - Monday, October 31, 2005 - linkI am not getting defensive and did not mean for the message to come across that way. I had clearly stated that several factors played into the equation and I agree the additional bandwidth is only part of the equation. However, the same base advantage held true over the MSI P4N with the Gigabyte Quad board with the 78.01 drivers and in SLI operations with the 81.84 and 81.85 beta drivers. I agree about testing x8sli against x16sli from the same manufacturer but in this case the x8sli board would have been the P5ND2-SLI Deluxe which had severe issues in several areas. In this example the argument would have made that testing any another x8sli board would have been more beneficial for results. ;-> Reply
breetai72 - Monday, October 31, 2005 - linkAre the benchmarks used for comparison from old reviews or did you rerun the tests again for this review? If so, the results aren't worth comparing to given what you said about difference in drivers, etc.
I find it very hard to believe that any graphics setup is exceeding the bandwidth of a x8 slot. The private pixel bus handles most of the traffic anyway. Reply
Gary Key - Monday, October 31, 2005 - linkI reran all of the benchmarks for this article and also standardized on DDR2-667 at 3-2-2-8-1T as stated on the Test Setup page. There was no difference in numbers between the beta 81.85 and whql 81.85 drivers we used for the article. The 7800GTX SLI setup has the ability to exceed the x8 slot capacity and this is shown in the base benchmarks. I am sure the next article to be published will further show the differences between x8sli and x16sli. ;-) However, I will state once again that the main increases will come from the 81.85 drivers, certain GPU intensive games, 7800GTX SLI setup, additional AA/AF settings, and higher resolutions. Reply
Gary Key - Monday, October 31, 2005 - link
quote:Should be- "different game benchmarks where the differences". I hit the enter button accidently before checking my spelling. Reply
different game benchmarks were the differences
Beenthere - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkWhy would ANYONE spend the coin to buy an Intel based SLI system when you can buy an AMD system for the same price that will out-perform the Intel system and be upgradable for years???
The only reason I can see for anyone buying any Intel product at this time is if they are stuck with an Intel system already and they desire to upgrade to a faster chip if they can find one to fit whatever socket Mobo they have. Otherwise I see no logical reason whatsoever for even considering an obsolete, under-performing Intel product. Reply
Shintai - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkYou ask the wrong question. Why would anyone buy a SLI/CrossFire system at all. Reply
bob661 - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - link
quote:He can ask any question he wants. There are no wrong questions.
You ask the wrong question.
quote:Because one can. :) Reply
Why would anyone buy a SLI/CrossFire system at all.
Ricky Ling - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkI only afraid on the future upgradeability on this board because according to ASUS Support FAQ (as this news has not been revealed on the Internet), this board does not support future Pentium 4 that based on 65nm technology, namely Cedar Mill (Single core replacing Prescott) and Presler (Dual core replacing Smithfield)
So how is testing done the Presler sample processor cause I thought Anand got holding of 1 Presler sample...Pls double check at the following :
As Presler start hitting OEM already....we need more info on this issue???
Gary Key - Sunday, October 30, 2005 - link
As Presler start hitting OEM already....we need more info on this issue???
The initial information I have from Asus this weekend is the board will support the 65nm CPU range with a bios update and the CPU steppings must be B1 or above. Reply
Gary Key - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkHello,
I had already asked for public clarification about this issue from Asus after visiting the website last week. I believe the entire FAQ has not been properly updated as it still states the Pentium 820 will only work in single core mode which is no longer the case with this chipset revision. We have not had an issue testing the Presler or Cedar Mill CPUs with current board designs from different suppliers.
I will respond once I have further information.
Thank you. Reply
Chuckles - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkHow's the clearance on the right-most PCIe x1 slot? It looks like a card put in there would be perilously close to the northbridge heatsink. Reply
Gary Key - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkHi,
The D-Link DGE-560T PCIe network adaptor card fit fine and it is the longest card I tried in the x1 slot. I would agree if a card had several logic chips placed in the right area on the back of the board then clearance could be an issue with the heatsink. However, the few peripheral PCIe cards that I have fit fine. Reply
erwos - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkI wouldn't have minded seeing the difference between bridged SLI and bridgeless SLI on both SLI Dual x16 and SLI Dual x8 motherboards.
My gut feeling is that nVidia is going to be phasing out the bridge in the near future, if they can get the same performance without it using the PCIe bus.
-Erwos Reply
DigitalFreak - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - link"ASUS CPU Lock Free (BIOS setting to unlock multiplier locked CPUs)"
Does this mean that all multipliers (up and down) are available again? Reply
Gary Key - Sunday, October 30, 2005 - link
Does this mean that all multipliers (up and down) are available again?
Asus will be clarifying the supported range of CPUs with the Lock Free setting. I noticed a difference this weekend on the retail board and bios with a CPU stepping range I thought was fully supported. I know the EE series all work properly, the balance I am not sure of at this time. Reply
Gary Key - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkIt will allow you to go down to 14x only in my testing. I did not have an issue with the dual core cpus down to 14x or raising the 820D to 16x. However, I have a single core cpu coming and will verify the settings with it. Please email me so I can repsond to you directly. Reply
Spacecomber - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkI think a more to the point intro would have been to ask whether a $250 motherboard can make up for the shortcomings in the current line of Intel desktop processors and make them more attractive to the computer enthusiast.
Then again, maybe people who are sticking with their Prescotts really are dreamers. Reply
Gary Key - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkGood point and one that Intel finally understands but we will have to wait until next summer to see the results. :) However, this board does make up for some of the current Intel CPU shortcomings and is truly an enthusiast board for Intel customers. Reply
tuteja1986 - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkAsus were leader once and i think are going to take the leader crown again: )
They have been getting good success with:
Dual GPU 7800GTX
Now This motherboard
Also they are working on 7300 go
Good work and keep it up
Bozo Galora - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkreads like an ad for asus
who the hell would use a current Intel cpu?
not the 80% of the people who come to AT
I'll take the upcoming (delayed again) DFI NF4 Expert mobo, thank you Reply
Gary Key - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - link
reads like an ad for asus
If it means anything, I purchased a pair of these boards after I completed the initial testing to replace a couple of systems in our household. I am that confident in the board and its ability.
who the hell would use a current Intel cpu?
About 80%+ of the buying public currently although the numbers are greatly skewed in their favor by large OEM and Retail sales. Actually, the newer Intel products are decent performers at a good price point. However, I completly agree that AMD owns the performance market and should receive wider credit for their efforts over the past couple of years.
not the 80% of the people who come to AT
Agreed, but sometimes it is good to visit the other side of the fence. A few short years ago your statements would have held true for people with AMD systems. ;-)
I'll take the upcoming (delayed again) DFI NF4 Expert mobo, thank you
An excellent choice but while you are waiting you could purchase this board now. :-)
karioskasra - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkDreams are made on an Intel platform? Did I miss something here... Reply
Gary Key - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkIf you have an Intel CPU, then no, you did not miss anything. ;->
I fully understand the performance and cost advantages the current AMD64 platform has over Intel. However, this should not dismiss the fact that the NVIDIA nForce4 SLI platform along with the implementation of it by Asus is an excellent solution regardless of CPU choice.
I personally own several AMD64 platforms but in reality you would be hard pressed at this time to tell the difference in performance between the two without benchmarks. I realize there will be a small population that can but overall an current Intel based system is fine for gaming and applications. Reply
ksherman - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkI REALLY like the fan less northbridge cooling setup... Wish my DFI had one like it. Esp. since my Zalman 7700 will keep those heasinks nice and cool... Reply
Wesley Fink - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkThose accustomed to looking at AMD Athlon64 Performance Scores are used to seeing numbers almost the same across motherboards because the memory controller is on the CPU. The Intel Memory Controller is in the chipset and performance varies much more depending on the chipset and the quality of the motherboard design.
That is one reason we often test Latency in Intel MB tests. If you look at the Latency test results in this review you will see a fairly wide variation across the tested chipsets and motherboards for the Intel CPU. Athlon64 Latency tests would all be virtually the same with the memory controller a part of the processor. Reply
toyota - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkhow can motherboards make that much difference in gaming?? in the Doom3 benchmarks they range from 63 to 95 fps! i dont understand benchmarks like that and nobody else ever makes a comment. am i missing something? Reply
Gary Key - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkGood Day.....
I revised the article statement about the Doom3 scores. I left it out on the final copy by mistake. We are still investigating the differences as an upcoming article from Randi on another nF4 Intel SLI board has scores higher than the numbers I have reported by a fair margin again. In fact, I will be testing the Abit board once it arrives with an disk image from my previous tests.
Due to the memory controller not being on the CPU (current Athlon64 family design) the Intel based motherboard design makes a great deal of difference not only from a chipset choice but also from how well a board manufacturer designs and implements the supporting components and bios.
Thank you. Reply
xsilver - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkthe 63fps is on another chipset, the chipset affects memory, hdd performance directly and everything else indirectly..
the 95fps actually looks like an anomaly -- and AT member will have to confirm that (SLI setup in the NI8?)
so in fact the numbers are actually 75.3-79.4fps which is an acceptable range for the same chipset
many people forget the mobo is the heart of the system, it pays to get a good one :) Reply
TransientBen - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkMixing philosophy, classical literature and computer hardware reviews? Gotta love it. Though it's difficult to not get caught up in the philosophy and then question, "Is it worth $200 for a motherboard or a plane ticket to a new place?"
There is so little time, afterall.
Always been a big Asus fan. Have one of the first (original slot a) Athlon boards still up and running after all these years - rock solid - and, more recently, a Z33A laptop that's blown me away with it's quality. I look forward to the inclusion of many of these features on future AMD boards. Reply
noac - Saturday, November 12, 2005 - linkHi, Im reading my manual and it says:
DIMM_A1 (yellow), DIMM_A2 (black), DIMM_B1 (yellow), DIMM_B2 (black).
Channel A = DIMM_A1 and DIMM_A2
Channel B = DIMM_B1 and DIMM_B2
For dual-channel configuration, the total size of memory module(s) intalled per channel must be the same (DIMM_A1 + DIMM_A2, DIMM_B1 + DIMM_B2).
Asus did an excellent job with the color coordination of the various peripheral slots and connectors. The DIMM module slots' color coordination is correct for dual channel setup.
My question which way is it? Im I getting the manual wrong? How to I palce my two mems for dualchannel? Reply
Gary Key - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - linkEmail me if you have any issues or further questions please. Reply
Gary Key - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - linkSorry about the late reply...
You place the memory in the two yellow DIMM slots for dual channel. Reply
Gary Key - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - link
Mixing philosophy, classical literature and computer hardware reviews? Gotta love it. Though it's difficult to not get caught up in the philosophy and then question, "Is it worth $200 for a motherboard or a plane ticket to a new place?"
Depends on the time and place in my book. :-> However, considering where I could go for $200 at this point in time I will take the board. I also believe Dickens is queued up for the next article.
I had been concerned about Asus the past couple of releases as I honestly thought Intel had passed them on the high end side (useable features, stability, throw in Abit for performance) with their 925x and 955x boards until this gem landed on my doorstep.
I think the AMD version of this board should be equally adept and we should find out shortly. ;-> Reply
xsilver - Thursday, October 27, 2005 - linkI can see asus and the other mobo companies making this refresh right after/before christmas and then obviously another refresh for M2 socket Reply


text:
- Description
Dripping with shimmering crystals, the St. Francis Collection brings a luxurious allure to your decor. Framed in chrome, gold or dark bronze finish metal, delicate crystal glass pieces adorn this enchanting take on the traditional crystal chandelier.Includes
1 Wall SconceDimensions
Overall: 17" H x 13" W x 8" D
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- Additional Information
Additional Information
SKU 24803820 MPN 2015W3DB/RC GTIN N/A Brand Elegant Lighting Collection St. Francis Assemble Length N/A Assemble Width N/A Assemble Height N/A Assembly Required Yes Material Metal Finish N/A Styles N/A Shipping Time 1-2 Weeks Free Shipping Yes
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text:
Why have web standards & guidelines?
As a diverse, urban university, the many schools and departments within Virginia Commonwealth University offer unique cultures and perspectives. Each individual department and school reflects that variation. The web publishing guidelines have been established to accommodate the individuality of each unit's websites, while sustaining a consistent university environment with standard visual elements and an accessible experience throughout the VCU domain.
Adhering to the VCU web standards & guidelines for your website will help:
- create a strong and unified identity for Virginia Commonwealth University and identify your organization as a member of the university community,
- provide a good experience for visitors by making your site more accessible, quicker and easier to use, and more secure,
- and establish consistency among the many unique school and departmental websites.
The web standards and guidelines laid out on the following pages are a good starting point for making your sites more usable and accessible to visitors. This site only brushes the surface on many of the best practices covered - see the additional resources to delve deeper.
The official communication method for VCU web administrators and technical contacts is the WUG-L listserv.
What standards must my website meet?
Official university sites
Official university websites, including those for schools, departments, and institutions, must follow all general regulations, accessibility and branding guidelines, and security requirements. They must also include all required content.
Personal sites
Personal websites for faculty, staff, and students must comply with all general and security regulations in addition to the guidelines for personal websites. Compliance with accessibility is suggested but not required.
Student org sites
Student organization websites must comply with all general and security regulations in addition to the guidelines for student organization websites. Compliance with accessibility guidelines is suggested but not required.


text:
Individual Rye Bread
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Working Hunter Spotted Saddle Horses for sale in Longview
Big Beautiful Trail Horse
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Age7 yrs 2 mths
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13 year old gaited gelding
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Gaited, Easy Keeper, Trail Horse
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Horse for sale
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Age17 yrs
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Color -
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Registered Spotted Saddle horse; black/white tobiano. 14. 3 hands. Easy keeper. Gaited horse. $1000 ...
$ 1,000


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Lucid's Virtu Enables Simultaneous Integrated/Discrete GPU on Sandy Bridge Platformsby Anand Lal Shimpi on 2/28/2011 10:38 PM EST
- Posted in
- CPUs
- Sandy Bridge
- Lucid
- GPUs
40 Comments
Back to Article
lukechip - Monday, February 28, 2011 - linkI'm curious to understand how discrete GPU power consumption behaves when Virtu is not installed.
If I have a H67 mobo and a discrete GPU, and no display connected to the discrete GPU, does the discrete GPU consume any power ? If it does, then is it the rated 'Idle' power, or something even less since it is maybe just spinning its fan(s) ?
From the power consumption table in the article, it seems that under Virtu, the 6970 was using nearly 90 W at idle (126 - 34.7), whereas the 6970 when reviewed by AT was clocked at about 20 W idle.
All in all though, Virtu does sound promising for me, as I plan to have an H67 or Z68 based HTC with a discrete GPU for gaming. Reply
Ryan Smith - Monday, February 28, 2011 - linkMy best guess (I have not seen Virtu myself) is that the AMD GPU didn't properly go idle. Otherwise AMD has 2 idle power states - one for normal idling and an even lower one for the slave GPUs in Crossfire - either one of them should have consumed much less power.
It's worth noting that at CES Lucid told us that they can completely shut off the dGPU. One of the benefits of working with mobo manufacturers is that they can ensure that the boards properly support the necessary sleep states. So it's supposed to be possible to completely power down the dGPU, just as Optimus, etc power down the dGPU in a laptop. Reply
mianmian - Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - linkAccording to Tom's hardware, the idel power when Virtu is enabled seems to be IGP + dGPU. That is a little bit more than when the dGPU is at idel without Virtu. Reply
jimmyzaas - Monday, February 28, 2011 - linkThis technology reminds me of the 3dfx Voodoo 2 card I used to love! The addon card that adds 3d goodness to your games when you need it via some sort of loopback cable that hooks up to your normal 2D video card. I'm kinda shocked Nvidia didn't invent this.
Really an excellent idea, this Virtu chip.. looking forward more stuff from Lucid. Reply
aegisofrime - Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - linkThe best thing is that, as I understand it, Virtu isn't even a chip: it's software. It will be great to see all motherboards that can support it do so. Reply
kilkennycat - Monday, February 28, 2011 - linkPlanning any tests with SLI/Crossfire and Virtu ?? Reply
jcandle - Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - linkIts great Lucid found another niche, and not to rain on their parade... but, does anyone else think with the release of Quick Sync on SB that ATI and nVIDIA will pay up to MPEG-LA and drop in encoders to their next GPU releases. If so, Virtu's usefulness could be even more niche, since as mentioned in the article notebooks have been shipping with mechanisms to swap between IGP and discrete. Furthermore there's really nothing stopping nVIDIA or ATI from integrating the piping of data to IGP for Quick Sync with an update to their Optimus or Switchable Graphics software routines.
This is not designed to be a flame, just looking for a poll of opinions on whether or not you'd drop dollars on this if either graphics manufacturer came up with their own solution on a refresh. Reply
Stahn Aileron - Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - linkWell, the nice things about Lucid's tech is the fact it's purely software. As far as I recall, all the other switchable graphics are hardware based to some extent.
If what Anand is saying about Virtu is true, it'll be a more seamless system that's completely vendor- and hardware-agnostic. The other switchable schemes are proprietary and locked into whatever platform they support - That works for laptops (as a user would usually replace the system in one go; not that many laptops are GPU-upgradeable anyway...)
In a desktop, where the possible combinations of hardware are near infinite, having something that's completely neutral to what you have installed could be very useful. Reply
jcandle - Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - linkThat certainly is a good point. The question remains, would you buy a board just for this? Over an undoubtedly cheaper competitor or model, if as I mentioned both AMD and nVIDIA start including Quick Sync type encoders inside their the next refresh of their respective graphics boards. Their previous tech Hydra seemed more useful for the reasons (not usage) you mentioned.
And just to clarify if Quick Sync does catch on you can expect AMD to either include it in their graphics boards or with their CPU releases. If it becomes a feature of the graphics board you can expect similar offerings from nVIDIA. Reply
firstname.lastname@example.com - Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - linkI'm sorry if i missed this in the article. But what exactly is the point? Were going to pay money for software that makes our games run at a lower frame rate so that we can have software driven switchable graphics on our desktops? For what purpose? I just don't get it. Reply
PhoenixEnigma - Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - linkThe point, in a nutshell, is to be able to have both a dGPU and Quick Sync work on one system. Without this, it's one or the other, which is a shame as both provide significant benefits. Reply
synaesthetic - Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - linkTo save power, to reduce heat and fan noise.
(This will probably be more useful on laptops than desktops, however...) Reply
JumpingJack - Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - linkSB enables a key feature that some, maybe even many, people will find useful: video transcoding. If you do not do much nor no video transcoding, then all this is sorta pointless. But, if you are one to move lots of media to your portable devices, then this is a good solution to an otherwise bizarre design of the SB platform.
QuickSync uses the iGPU to work much of it's magic, a combination of fixed function encode HW and use of the EUs in some of the transcoding stream. Intel, in a fit of non-brilliance, did not account (or did not take time to think through) the fact that some people will would want to use a dGPU. As a result, using a dGPU renders the function of SB HW transcode non-operational. This is a big deal since the SB transcode can out perform most GPU accelerated transcode by a wide margin, for a high end Radeon SB can be as much as 2x faster, and for Fermi as much as 60-80% faster. Reply
mbf - Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - link...thinking it would have been a good idea to have iGPU data sent to the dGPU instead of vice versa? Or perhaps even make this configurable.
I know that you wouldn't be able to cut down on power or noise, but I'm sure you'd lose less perfomance in gaming. Reply
QuantumTR - Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - linklol exactly... Reply
Breit - Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - link...just wanted to ask same question. ;)
As far as I understand it, Intel shuts down its iGPU if no monitor is connected and that is why you have to route the display output through the iGPU. Maybe Lucid should talk to Intel first before releasing this... 8)
Btw: How do you connect multiple monitors to such a setup? Reply
QuantumTR - Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - linkI think that it could be better if the Virtu actually copied the frame buffer from integrated GPU in 2D mode or encode and decode to the discrete GPU so that the overhead incurred in 3D rendering would be minimized? I'm pretty sure most people would not prefer having a %5-10 performance impact on their games instead of finishing a QuickSync encoding a few seconds later. Or better than this would be allowing the user to select the output graphics card. Reply
jcompagner - Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - linkhttp://www.nvidia.com/object/optimus_technology.ht...
I am searching for a SB notebook, but i want that enabled, because i almost never use the discrete gpu anyway. And yes i have to buy one because in the 17" high end laptop you don't have a choice.. Reply
mutantmagnet - Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - linkor Lucid eventually revises their technology so we can choose the output otherwise I wouldn't be able to use Eyefinity without constantly rearranging the cables.
I really like the idea behind this but I'm wondering how flexible it can be at handling the allocation of multiple gpus to more than 2 displays. Having an agnostic gpu virtualization platform instead of being locked into either AMD or Nvidia would be beneficial espeically since they currently believe only people in the enterprise market are considering gpu virtualization. Reply
DooDoo22 - Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - linkWhat is apple doing to utilize both quick sync and discrete amd graphics switching? Is it something similar to this? Reply
DanNeely - Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - linkThis is being pitched as something to be bundled by the mobo vendor. Does this mean people who bought SNB prior to this coming out will be sunk unless they buy a new board? Reply
haplo602 - Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - linkSo finaly somebody reimplemented what voodoo graphics chips (1 and 2) were doing back then (and TV tunner cards). Copying the framebuffer to a specified region where it was displayed by the primary card.
What's the big deal ? I mean Microsoft should have this figured out already and implemented in the OS. Why does it take an ISV to kick the big players ass to implement usable technologies ?
Intel made a big mistake with their QuickSync implementation (only usable on laptops and very low end desktops). But given the SB issues on Linux, I guess Intel did not think things through.
I am waiting on a homogenous implementation of various computation units with a NUMA like architecture. I hope AMD will make this possible with their Llano parts and the integrated GPU will simply be another coprocessor when not hooked to a display. Reply
Stargozer - Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - linkIn addition to the reduced frame rates, is there any latency added by using Virtu?
How are the minimum frame rates affected (it seems possible that all the shuffling might be more of a limitation in a high-stress scenario)? Reply
Figaro56 - Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - linkIf Intel is so great why don't they fix this retarded situation? For the marginal performance benefit you get form Sandy Bridge I think I'll just stick with my AMD chipset and motherbaord. I don't have to mess around with gay things like this to benefit. Reply
fic2 - Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - linkWouldn't it be easier just to make a dongle that plugged into the iGPU video port and acted like it was a monitor? Reply
hechacker1 - Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - linkWhat happens if you are interested in DXVA? Which GPU does the decoding?
I'm also curious if there is any latency issues for gaming and video playback, with the frame-buffer being copied from the discrete GPU to the Intel GPU. Reply
billythefisherman - Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - linkIf vritu is simply copying the frame buffer over what exactly is turning off the iGPU normally? If its simply the port then surely there's a simple way to turn the SB iGPU on to aid in direct compute or open cl acceleration. Surely this can be controlled by a very simple firmware update provided by a mobo manufacturer? Reply
jmunjr - Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - linkSo Virtu's only real purpose is to allow Quicksync on systems with discrete GPUs? This is moronic... Reply
fic2 - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 - linkHence my previous suggestion that it would be easier just to create a "monitor" dongle that plugged into the iGPU port and acted like a monitor. This would enable the QuickSync feature without actually having a monitor.
Of course, the obvious solution is for Intel to fix their d@mn implementation so that there doesn't have to be a monitor plugged in. Reply
strikeback03 - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 - linkSupposedly it could also power down the dGPU when not needed, saving energy. That said, it seems Intel should be able to enable the iGPU portion of the chip when desired for transcoding, maybe a firmware update. Reply
Voldenuit - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 - linkWhile I applaud the job that Lucid has done in ameliorating some of the annoying flaws in the Sandy Bridge platform, I do wonder who this solution is targeted at.
10% performance penalty on all your games on the off chance that you want to use the HD 3000 to transcode video. That's a lot. 10% is enough to make some gamers upgrade their GPU.
On the bright side, you can continue to play games while transcoding, with a hit on Quicksync performance, so that may be of interest to anyone who games and has a PMP.
Right now I'm using Handbrake instead of ATI's AVIVO Video converter, as AVIVO is simply useless - no 2-pass encoding, no deinterlacing (very useful on those nasty 1080i broadcastss) or inverse telecine, no batch processing, etc. and the quality is not as good as the CPU with high profile. Hopefully media espresso and media converter are a lot more powerful and configurable than AMD's free tool, but they're also asking $40 a pop, and they're competing with free, in this case Handbrake (among other tools), which is very full featured for the asking price ($0). Reply
MrSpadge - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 - linkI hope this works not only with DX but also with GP-GPU, be it CUDA, CAL or OpenCL. It could help keep your desktop snappy while the GPU is doing heavy number crunching.
MrS Reply
slyck - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 - linkFor everybody wondering why Intel made these mistakes, or accidentally messed up on the platform, come on this is Intel you should know better. These restrictions were put in place intentionally to maximize profit. If anybody wants to argue "but they would make more if it was done right blah blah", no. Large corrupt monopolistic corps like Intel know how to make money better than you or I. SANDY BRIDGE IS BROKEN ON PURPOSE. Thank their greedy execs and beancounters. Reply
kenour - Thursday, March 10, 2011 - linkDon't be stupid... It's not like Intel Capital is one of Lucidlogix's investors! Oh wait... Reply
mpowell - Saturday, April 02, 2011 - linkAnd yet another Windows-only Windows-centric item...
Which does nothing for someone who runs a Linux desktop and dual monitors. However, I did note the Intel workaround comment about connecting one monitor to each video output, e.g. one to the SNB motherboard output and the second to a discreet add-in video card.
I would simply love to know if this workaround situation would also apply to a Linux desktop with dual monitors, in lieu of Lucid's software probably never being released for Linux.
senderj - Wednesday, May 04, 2011 - linkDoes Virtu work on all H67 mobo, or just those "registered" with Lucid? Reply
swindmill - Monday, May 14, 2012 - linkThe LogMeIn Mirror driver seems to break Lucidlogix's Virtu software as detailed in this blog post:
http://blog.ampx.net/2012/05/lucid [...] gmein.html
Has anyone else experienced this issue? Reply
swindmill - Monday, May 14, 2012 - linkWhoops, let's try that again!
http://blog.ampx.net/2012/05/lucidlogix-virtu-and-... Reply
bodark - Friday, August 10, 2012 - linkI don't know if there is latest post about LucidVirtu. This review dated 2/28/2011. Today is 2012, whoever read this. This is not the full result anymore.
I use LucidVirtu & I approve LucidVirtu power. I use
i7-3770 (HD 4000) with Z77 Asus Motherboard (with LucidVirtu MVP feature of course) & GTX 550 Ti SLI.
I tell you what. I never believe it, it's 2x the power.
P/S: Sorry for my bad English. Reply
TimeTravelDude - Tuesday, January 10, 2017 - linkJust reading this from 2017 after a Google search and having a little laugh at the bit about consumers not having to pay. Turned out those who continued using Lucid/Virtu WERE eventually asked to buy in to continue support. That's when I removed that garbage from my system and never looked back. As far as I could tell, it never did deliver well on the hype and promises. BTW: I'm still using my sandy bridge system with Win7-64bit--but Nvidia handles all my graphic needs fairly well. And with Iray moving processing of renders from the CPU to the GPU's, well, I don't see a need to upgrade anytime soon. Best computer I ever owned in terms of longevity as a primary PC. You wonder why they are pushing so hard for a death to the PC? This right here. Haven't purchased a new computing device in six-plus years because they aren't controlling my money by delivering consumables that are only intended to work for a year or two. Death to tablets! Death to smartphones! Death to consoles!!! LONG LIVE THE GLORIOUS PC MASTER RACE!!! Reply