Specifications
MAXIMUMPC JANUARY 200514
Case #1: Where are the PCI Express
versions of the ATI Radeon X800
XT Platinum Edition and GeForce
6800 Ultra?
It’s a fact that high-end PCI Express
videocards are hard to find, especially
through retail channels. The culprit is the
small installed base of PCI Express moth-
erboards. None of the board manufactur-
ers see a large enough market for PCI
Express graphics accelerators to commit a
big chunk of their limited shelf space to
these products at large nationwide retail-
ers like Best Buy and CompUSA.
But just because the boards aren’t
on store shelves doesn’t mean they’re
completely unavailable. Intrepid upgrad-
ers should be able to find PCI Express
GeForce 6800 Ultra and Radeon X800
XT boards online through gray market
retailers that can be found on sites like
Pricewatch.com.
That said, you’re not going to be
able to find any PCI Express X800
XT Platinum Edition boards. This is
because ATI has pumped its alloca-
tion of Platinum-worthy GPUs into
AGP boards, where it can barely meet
demand. But hope is on the horizon—look
for the next-gen X850 XT Platinum to ship
first in PCI Express flavor next month.
As AGP gets brushed aside by PCI
Express over the next year, this trend
will surely wane, resulting in more PCI
Express videocard options over the next
six months.
Case #2: Whatever happened
to Alienware’s Video Array
technology?
We first mentioned Alienware’s propri-
etary dual-videocard technology—dubbed
Video Array—in our June 2004 issue, but
we still haven’t seen a single system from
Alienware that actually uses this tech. In
fact, the only dual-videocard rig we’ve
seen to date—an Alienware rig we review
on page 76 of this issue—uses nVidia’s
SLI design.
This is perplexing, to say the least.
When contacted, Alienware confirmed it
has ditched plans to sell Video Array tech
to consumers: “We currently plan to mar-
ket our patent-pending Video Array solu-
tion exclusively to enterprise customers.”
Particularly interesting is a comment by
Alienware’s Frank Azor: “We feel a sense
of accomplishment in that both nVidia
and ATI acted on our idea to reintroduce
a dual-videocard solution for the PC.” Is
ATI SLI on the way?
QuickStart
The beginning of the magazine,
where articles are small
MISSING! Two Next-Gen
Videocard Technolog
ies
Where are all the high-end PCI Express videocards? And
how about Alienware’s homegrown dual-card technology?
Maximum PC investigates
High-end users believe that their next system should include
a spare PCI Express slot, so they can buy one SLI-capable
videocard today, and then add a second card later when
prices drop. While this seems like a good idea, it’s important to carefully
consider your timing before you take the plunge.
For example, if you buy a GeForce 6800 GT now for $400, drop it in
your new nForce4 mobo, and wait six months to add a second videocard,
which you pay $300 for, you will have a dual-card system that’s faster
than any single-card system you can buy for about six
months.
This works fine as long as videocard manufactur-
ers simply rev existing chipsets for small performance
increases (10 percent or so). But when nVidia and ATI
release entirely new chipsets, the performance gains
will be more substantial. By way of example, the per-
formance difference between a last-gen 9800 XT and
a new-gen X800 XT is almost 100 percent. The bottom
line is this: If you buy your second card right before the
next-gen graphics hardware comes out, your dual-card performance is
likely to be inferior to a single next-gen GPU.
We expect to see the next-generation GPU cores—NV50 from nVidia
and R500 from ATI—sometime in late 2005 or early 2006. Make your pur-
chases accordingly. Which pretty much means, right now.
SLI Upgrade Stumper
Will upgrading to an SLI system be faster
than buying the latest card every year?