Big GPUs are set to die
It will be replaced by a cluster of smaller GPUs with the R700 generation. This is the biggest change in the paradigm since 3Dfx came out with SLI, oh so many years ago.
Basically, if you look at the architecture of any modern GPU, R5xx/6xx or G80, it comprises pretty modular units connected by a big interconnect. Imagine if the interconnect was more distributed like say an Opteron and HT, you could have four small chips instead of one big one.
This would have massive advantages on design time, you need to make a chip of quarter the size or less, and just place many of them on the PCB. If you want a low-end board, use one, mid-range use four, pimped out edition, 16. You get the idea, Lego.
It takes a good bit of software magic to make this work, but word has it that ATI has figured out this secret sauce. What this means is R700 boards will be more modular, more scalable, more consistent top to bottom, and cheaper to fab. In fact, when they launch one SKU, they will have the capability to launch them all. It is a win/win for ATI.
There have been several code names floating around for weeks on this, and we hear it is pretty much a done deal. Less concrete is the rumour that G90 will take a similar path, but things are pointing in that direction.
G80 and R600, or most likely their descendants in the next half-generation step, will be the biggest GPUs ever. I am not sure this is something to be proud of, but the trigger has been pulled on the next big thing. The big GPU is dead, long live the swarm of little GPUs. µ
Comments
secret sauce
Drivers for SLI and Crossfire are still very primitive.Modular GPU's will therefore need much more stable drivers than are currently available.
Otherwise the consumer will treat it with the kind of contempt and scorn currently being vent on MS and AMD for VISTA and PHENOM.
No more dud products please ...
Look closer
Hey Reynod, look a little closer...The thing here is not SLI/Crossfire. It's about multi-core GPU's, like we've been seening in the CPU front. Dual cores simply rule the CPU world by now, with quad's gainning momentum. Imagine the time when threading turn into the trend and quad/hexa core cpus become dominant. That's the path GPU's are going to follow now, too.
As the article says, it's cheaper and faster to produce a small cheap and put a bunch of it to work together in a multi-cpu scenario.
SLI/Crossfire is pretty much more far from this concept. It is, in reality, a way to get more cash from us. Got money? Buy the last card. Got more money? Buy two of it! Or even 4... And in the end, the next record-breaker was is always less then 6 months away.
I dare to bet that multi-core GPU's will ultimately become the death of multicard solutions. Multi-gpu cards can come in all sort of flavors, big or small memory, 1 to n cores.
Today we are stuck with one-gpu(core)-saves-the-day solutions. if you need more horsepower for your last game/app, you need one more card.
Tomorrow we may see multi-die solutions with, like we see in quad-cores today, with 16, 32 cores per die, let's say 64/128 cores gpu solutions, sitting in one card.
Do we need more?