Interesting read here:
 
http://www.anandtech.com/...multigpu-scaling-part1
 
I gotta say, I'm really liking the price and performance of the 3 HD6970's. Look at them go........

atfrico

Awww....there he is the one and only Craptacularone
I knew he will post sooner or later

?? I haven't really stopped posting

Too bad the stock cooler design on the AMD 6xxx is terrible for Multi-GPU's having to be right next to eachother, there's no space for airflow. Very impressive numbers though.

CraptacularOne

atfrico

Awww....there he is the one and only Craptacularone
I knew he will post sooner or later

?? I haven't really stopped posting

I was talking about new threads
 
Good find by the way

CraptacularOne

yellow__fever

Too bad the stock cooler design on the AMD 6xxx is terrible for Multi-GPU's having to be right next to eachother, there's no space for airflow. Very impressive numbers though.

It's really not that different with Nvidia cards either. I've run 3 way SLI with GTX470's GTX480's and GTX580's and if I didn't place 2 120mm fans near them (one on the side and one at the back) the temps get ridiculous too, easily soaring over 95C. With either camp's 3 GPU solutions, you have to add additional cooling if you want your temps to remain respectable.

 
The reviewer had to forcibly pry the AMD cards apart to get the temperatures they got, while they left the Nvidia's alone. I agree, running any multi-GPU setup is going to need good cooling, all I'm saying is that the stock cooler design on the AMD 6xxx cards aren't very multi-GPU friendly, in terms of temperature or noise.

interesting

Phero

Two 6970s beat three 580s and then the three 580s just barely beat two 580s, scaling looks pretty bad here.

 
More of a CPU bottleneck
 
Intel Core i7-920 @ 3.33GHz
 
Needz moar 980-990X @ 4.2GHz
 
or at least an i7-2600k at 4.5~GHz
 
Don't get me wrong today's graphics cards are well faster than the CPU
 

 
Well optimized engine...bypasses the CPU completely

No game "bypasses the CPU completely". All games are run by the CPU. It's the CPU that tells the GPU what to draw and in what sequence. Games like Metro 2033 use such complex graphical techniques and advanced lighting that the GPU cannot draw frames as fast as the CPU can give them. As long as the CPU is capable of delivering data to the GPU faster than it can draw the frames, you are not CPU bottlenecked. Thus you'll see performance gains when adding GPU power. Up to the point when you have more GPU processing ability than what your CPU is capable of delivering to it. At that point the GPU has to wait on the CPU to deliver data for it to be rendered causing the CPU bottleneck. 
 
Let's say for example a CPU is capable of delivering 100 frames per second in a game. Now the CPU does not care at what resolution or what amounts of AA you're using because it doesn't have to render the image. It only processes and sorts the data and sends it to the GPU to be rendered on screen.
 
Now for this example we'll say the GPU can render 100 frames per second at 1680x1050, 75 frames per second at 1920x1080 and 50 frames per second at 2560x1600. What this means is that at 1680x1050 in this example you have no bottleneck, but at 1920x1080 your CPU is capable of delivering data to the GPU faster than it can render it on screen. Thus creating a GPU bottleneck. You can overclock your GPU to increase rendering performance in this example and try to gain performance, but here a faster CPU will net you nothing, since your GPU is already at full potential.
 
Now we'll add GPUs to the mix. Also for the sake of this example we'll assume adding a GPU adds 100% performance. So if you now have 2 GPUs now the GPUs are capable of rendering 200fps at 1680x1050, 150fps at 1920x1080 and 100fps at 2560x1600. However at 1920x1080 you're only going to see 100fps because your CPU simply cannot process data fast enough to let your cards reach maximum potential at 1920x1080, creating a CPU bottleneck. Here you can overclock your CPU to gain performance and let your GPUs get closer to peak performance but overclocking your video cards at this point will not help since your CPU cannot deliver data fast enough.
 
All games work this way, no game escapes this reality. The CPU processes the data for the GPU to render. The example given is a crude one, but it mirrors what is happening. Of course you're not going to see 100% improvement in multi GPU and the CPU performance again is theoretical but it works in this example for the purpose of explaining what is happening.

No lephron, what you're forgetting is that as the technology moves forward, the load placed by games on GPU's will increase. For instance a game 5 years from now will presumably be much more demanding than a game today as graphics will be better. This will necessitate the need for more powerful GPUs.

CraptacularOne

No lephron, what you're forgetting is that as the technology moves forward, the load placed by games on GPU's will increase. For instance a game 5 years from now will presumably be much more demanding than a game today as graphics will be better. This will necessitate the need for more powerful GPUs.

unless the pattern of games being released with outdated engines and trailing behind on the buttox of computer advancement as it has
 
theres few games ive seen that my 2 480s probably even my old 285s if i had them still could run but horribly minus the fact that I use surround gaming atm

The way that the gpus' processing power increasing compared to cpu processing power and with the fact that more and more the games are ported from consoles to pc, the time that sli/cf will be unnecessary in order to enjoy pc gaming  is coming closer and closer with each gpu generation.
It is sad but true that the only hope to make a good use of even our current gpus let alone future gpus, is for consoles to get more powerful and use DX11. Then maybe a cpu-motherboard-ram upgrade together with the future console ported dx11 games will put the current gpus in full use.
 
As for the sli/cf scaling, if those tests are true, it is impressive improvement for AMD but kinda late for the previous reasons.

THe problem with ARM is you have zero backwards compatibility with x86 apps. Everything you use will have to be new. Forget ever playing your favorite games on ARM unless they come out in the future.

im sure brad doesnt mind hes just stating it will need to be setup as an emulation or something for older gamers as its gone anyway

I just hope that desktop equivilants are even ready for windows 8
=/

I went though a platofrm change around 2000, where I changed primary computer from powerpc-based to x86-based. I liken x86 to ARM as a simular change. Unless there is some serious x86 emulation employed, it's going to require that much of a mindset change.