GIGABYTE 3D1-68GT: Double fun
Final Words
No doubt, 3D1-68GT is a very interesting video card. The card is unlikely to gain wide occurrence on the mass market. And, admittedly, it is a bit too late. Certainly, the performance demonstrated by 3D1-68GT is very very good. But as you could see for yourselves on the example of F.E.A.R, it is extremely difficult for 3D1-68GT to compete at new-generation games with "single" leaders of today. Reality is such that with time the difference will be increasingly noticeable. Nevertheless, for now 3D1-68GT is a product that is worth of attention.
The "two-headed" video cards of 3D1 series open another very interesting possibility - in the Internet you can come across messages of successful re-making of NForce 4-4x chipsets into full-featured NForce 4 SLI. Of course, such re-making won't add a full-featured PCI-E slot on the motherboard, but you can install a 3D1 video card into the only PCI-E 16x slot and raise the performance of the video subsystem substantially. You might object - why such perversions are needed? In any case, single 7800GT/GTX show similar performance. I intentionally stress it out - a solution of 3D1 series. The path has been paved, and two-headed solutions based on most recent VPUs will appear sooner or later.
On the other hand, 3D1-68GT has every chance to become a rarity, and who knows maybe in a couple of years you might earn a lot at an auction? : Unfortunately, not all unusual moves to becoming a rarity with time. Would you give a lot of money for the first keyboard that Bill Gates used? Personally, I wouldn't. But his brain encephalogram recorded during writing his first MS-DOS would definitely become a sales hit. Sort of a textbook for beginner programmers. Thing like "strive towards that, and you are in for a great success". Anyway, I'd like to warn the followers of such approach - having decided to write your first program and trying to look as as close as Bill Gates as possible, be careful not to arrive at the same alpha-rhythm, that is, to avoid the same MS-DOS. :) :) Well, I have distracted a bit.
According to the information from Gigabyte Russia's representation office, the recommended price for 3D1-68GT is set to $599. Video cards should arrive within a few weeks. Gigabyte representatives recommend to contact authorized distributors of the company.
Let's sum it all up:
- The requirements to the system imposed for 3D1-68GT are serious enough. Support for SLI is a must, and a powerful PSU, good cooling are also needed.
- The price somehow exceeds the middle level of video cards built on 7800GT/GTX, but is less than the total cost of two separate 6800GT cards, and of course much lower than two 7800GT/GTX.
- The performance of 3D1-68GT at most modern games is close to 6800 Ultra-SLI and surpasses that for single 7800GT/GTX by as high as 25%.
- 3D1-68GT is a stylish image-making thing.
Everyone should decide upon what is the most important of the above listed. No doubt, 3D1-68GT is a successful product albeit belated with the release onto the market.
Conclusion
3D1 based on two 6600GT proved to be the first successful signs for the past two years, although the 128-bit limitation for the GPU but prevented it from showing its worth. 3D1-68GT video card is a dignified heiress of 3D1. I hope engineers at Gigabyte have done a good job mastering the practice of creating video cards on the base of two GPUs and work at next-generation dual-chip video cards is at full sway at laboratories.
Indeed, why not to make 3D1 on two 7800GTX chips at a time? The power consumption of 7800GTX is smaller than in 6800Ultra. 7800GTX video processors support up to 512 MB of memory - a really good chance to be the first in the world to release a video card of 1 GB memory onboard. Although that much is not yet needed, but GIGABYTE will certainly have something to boast unless some rival outdoes it.
Do 3D1 solutions have a right to live? Definitely, yes!
Will they be attractive to the user? The question is a bit more complex to answer. As we already stated, the system requirements for two video cards in the SLI and one dual-chip video card are the same. The system configuration made up of two video cards is more flexible. But dual-chip video cards offer one more potential advantage. Perhaps, eventually NVIDIA will dare for the move like support for four VPUs within one system. Why do you think the company is producing chipsets of the NForce 4 SLI x16 series then? In this regard, installation of two dual-chip video cards of the 3D1 type in a system with two PCI-E 16x slots does not seem so extraordinary.
Will a SLI-bridge be needed to merge two dual-chip video cards? You never know. Today's designs of video cards of the 3D1 series do not provide for that. Perhaps that would require introducing changes to the already complicated wiring. Hopefully, the engineers will overcome all these problems with honor and surprise us with unusual solutions.
No doubt, much will have to be done to let us enjoy the full power of four VPUs fitted within a single system. As rumors have it, the drivers that allow that are already coming up. But there is a substantial restriction from the CPU side - the CPU performance is already not enough sometimes to load even the two video cards. On the other hand, wide occurrence of dual-core CPUs will sooner or later compel the developers to optimize the software in terms of real dual-core performance of CPU and we will see old records renewed.
Finally, another insane fantasy. I wonder is NVIDIA does implement support for 4 VPUs in a single system, will engineers at Gigabyte start creating a "four-headed" video card? What would be its name then? 3D2? 3D4? 3D-QUAD? I think neither engineers at Gigabyte nor marketing people still don't know the answer to these questions. Time will tell.
For now, we are delighted to grant our award "For innovative design" to Gigabyte.
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