To the author: I see what you did there and I like that Cyberpunk: Edgerunners reference ^,^
We Need New Motherboards Before GPUs Collapse Under Their Own Gravity
201–210 of 362 posts
Re: We Need New Motherboards Before GPUs Collapse Under Their Own Gravity
#202> Should we have GPU VRAM slots alongside CPU RAM slots? Is that even possible? I chuckled a little at this because I used to wonder the same thing until I had to actually bring up a GDDR6 interface. Basically the reason GDDR6 is able to run so much faster is because we assume that everything is soldered down, and not socketed/slotted. Back when I worked for a GPU company, I occasionally had conversations with co-wor…
The NUC Extreme line is basically that, which IMO is a really good form factor. Memory and nvme storage are dense enough to make anything larger obsolete for the practical needs of most users. Emphasis on ‘practical’, not strictly ‘affordable’. The only advantages of larger form factors are the ability to add cheaper storage, additional PCI-e cards, and aftermarket cosmetic changes such as lighting. IMO, each of thes…
Pretty much, but I'd change the dimensions of the graphics card to match mini ITX, and so that it could be bolted to the case. This provides two benefits: It can support a bigger and heavier heatsink and it also allows you to spread the VRMs around the chip and DRAMs for more consistent power flow.
Re: We Need New Motherboards Before GPUs Collapse Under Their Own Gravity
#203I think this problem will resolve itself. Nvidia pulled out all of the stops with the 4090 because they thought (hoped) they were going to be able to sell it in an insatiable market that was begging for the biggest most powerful die possible, mostly because of mining. Gamers have no appetite for such a monstrosity (the gpu equivalent to national lampoon’s family truckster), and there aren’t really any games on the ho…
Outside certain enthusiast group gamers are somewhat price sensitive. And this new generation went beyond that level. Not yet having anything on acceptable, albeit high price level. But I might be wrong, have to see how sales go after scalpers get burned.
Re: We Need New Motherboards Before GPUs Collapse Under Their Own Gravity
#204I'm surprised this isn't mentioned here more clearly: Some high end cases like the be quiet silent base I'm using have the option to mount the graphics card vertically, basically parallel to the mainboard, in a separate anchor slot. It needs an additional connector cable (~$20), but other than that is easy to setup, looks better with a look-in case (the illuminated fans face the glass side) and the weight pulls on a…
How does latency impact rendering etc?
PCI latency has no impact on rendering, but your card/motherboard may fallback to PCIE3 instead of using PCIE4, in which case filling the cards entire VRAM from RAM could take an extra half-second (slowing the loading of new textures an infinitesimal amount).
Re: We Need New Motherboards Before GPUs Collapse Under Their Own Gravity
#205Every time I see the sizes of GPUs increase, I'm reminded of this from over 2 decades ago: https://vgamuseum.ru/wp-content/gallery/bitching-fast/bitchi...
If you watch the linked YouTube video, one of the card's marketing materials — which clearly exactly 0 people read prior to publication — is quoted (screenshotted, in the video[1]) as,
> has a total length of 2704mm and a surface area of 905637mm²
We're going to need a bigger case.
Re: We Need New Motherboards Before GPUs Collapse Under Their Own Gravity
#206I'm surprised this isn't mentioned here more clearly: Some high end cases like the be quiet silent base I'm using have the option to mount the graphics card vertically, basically parallel to the mainboard, in a separate anchor slot. It needs an additional connector cable (~$20), but other than that is easy to setup, looks better with a look-in case (the illuminated fans face the glass side) and the weight pulls on a…
These 4-slot cards won't fit in most vertical mounts, and if they do the fans might be pressed up against the side panel. But that's definitely a good route to go, now that case manufacturers know what they're dealing with.
Re: We Need New Motherboards Before GPUs Collapse Under Their Own Gravity
#207Every time I see the sizes of GPUs increase, I'm reminded of this from over 2 decades ago: https://vgamuseum.ru/wp-content/gallery/bitching-fast/bitchi...
Haha: "Bitchin'fast!3D²⁰⁰⁰ supports neither OpenGL nor Direct3D, nor does it fit in any case known to man."
Almost like some giant graphics cards...
Re: We Need New Motherboards Before GPUs Collapse Under Their Own Gravity
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have one of these for a much smaller card, mostly so that cold airflow from the floor intake fans actually has a path to get up to the RAM and VRMs. This is a workaround for a case that doesn't have front intake, which is preferable in my opinion. It does look a little cool, but I always worry a little about the reliability of the cable itself. Does it REALLY meet the signal integrity specifications for PCI-E? Prob…
LTT has a video where they tried to see how many PCIe riser cables they could string together before it stopped working.[1] They got to several meters. Maybe you could argue that it's worse inside a PC case since there's more EMI, but it seems like your PCIe riser cable would have to be very out of spec before you'd notice anything. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5xvwPa3r7M
I wonder if that benchmark actually loaded the PCIe bus to any significant degree after the initial benchmark startup, or just updated a couple small parameters on a single scene and thus mainly just tested the local computation on the GPU?
You'd want to somehow monitor the PCIe bus error rate - with a marginal signal and lots of errors -> retries, something that loads the bus harder (loading new textures etc) could suffer way more.
They do briefly show a different PCIe riser made out of generic ribbon cable [1, 3:27], and say that one failed after chaining only two ~200mm lengths. The quality of the riser cable certainly matters.
Re: We Need New Motherboards Before GPUs Collapse Under Their Own Gravity
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
... maybe don't ship a built system then? Those boxes get dropped
That's not a reasonable answer. Many people want to buy assembled systems, and lack the skills/inclination to do it themselves. Pre-built systems is a huge $1B+ market, and "kill the market entirely" is not an acceptable answer.
Your business model is not required to be viable.
I said don't ship them. I did not say don't build prebuilt systems.
Re: We Need New Motherboards Before GPUs Collapse Under Their Own Gravity
#210All In One liquid coolers are the answer. They were already getting popular in the RTX 3000 series. They make the card thinner and separate out a lot of the weight. They can't cost much more than some of those massive conventional coolers.