AMD Rebrands CrossFire As Just mGPU

[phoronix]

Phoronix: AMD Rebrands CrossFire As Just mGPU

While not particularly relevant to Linux gamers at this point in time, AMD is dropping their CrossFire branding in favor of just calling it their mGPU technology...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=AMD-CrossFire-mGPU

[duby229]

That's true, but I'd be willing to bet that if game titles start using the multiGPU support and it ends up being practical, then you'll see the number of multiGPU systems increase again.

[L_A_G]

It's pretty decent of them when you think about it. Crossfire was after almost completely in-house developed technology and putting their name on something more generic like DX12 and Vulkan multi-GPU functionality is a tad dishonest.

[bug77]

I still don't see multi-GPU becoming mainstream. It always comes with a host of problems. Unless you're at the very high-end, it's always safer to get one faster GPU then hoping two weaker ones will work together fine.

[salsadoom]

Yeah this was always on the silly side. I mean, if its middle range cards just get a higher end card. If its two top end cards ... why? The money you spend won't deliver a better experience, and in a year or two there will be a new top end card that'll be faster anyway. mGPU/Crossfire/SLI/Whatever was always pretty absurd. Still, you know, it exists.. a guy game into the store where I work and picked up a pair of 1080ti's to SLI them. Crazy, if you ask me, but its his money to do with as he pleases.

[jrch2k8]

I still don't see multi-GPU becoming mainstream. It always comes with a host of problems. Unless you're at the very high-end, it's always safer to get one faster GPU then hoping two weaker ones will work together fine.

Well, not necessarily because crossfire and SLI had one fundamental problem that was never possible to fix, neither DX nor OpenGL understood offloading or Multi Threading by design, hence this Crossfire/SLI technologies had to find a way on the driver to spilt the rendering and as we all know now it never worked properly without heavy modification on the driver side per game per engine.

Vulkan and DX12 are low level enough to make this technical feasible and driver implementation independent because you control manually what goes into each GPU, also notice mGPU not necessarily means more FPS but could also mean more quality with Vulkan and DX12 simply because you have way more options than the old tech could offer. For Example.

1.) You can now write a Vulkan/DX12 based physics engine that can choose at runtime to offload the computation to a second or N.. GPU, this will release a lot of power in your main GPU to push more FPS.

2.) You can also add Vulkan/DX12 based post processing engine that can choose at runtime to offload the computation to a second or N.. GPU, this could allow insane level of AA or (sub)pixel particle effects(like very real hair effects) without compromising FPS and with a third GPU you can use 1 and have it with amazing physics as well.

3.) You can also add Vulkan/DX12 based geometry engine that can choose at runtime to offload the computation to a second or N.. GPU, this way you can forget about LODs and have as much geometry on scenes as your extra GPU can possibly manage without compromising FPS

4.) etc.etc.etc

Vulkan/DX12 handle mGPU completely different than the old technologies but of course it will all depend of developers actually focusing on implement them tho

[TumultuousUnicorn]

a guy game into the store where I work and picked up a pair of 1080ti's to SLI them. Crazy, if you ask me, but its his money to do with as he pleases.

If you want to play in 4K with ultra settings and with a lot of FPS, it's a good choice. Also depending on monitor count.

[stiiixy]

Yeah this was always on the silly side. I mean, if its middle range cards just get a higher end card. If its two top end cards ... why? The money you spend won't deliver a better experience, and in a year or two there will be a new top end card that'll be faster anyway. mGPU/Crossfire/SLI/Whatever was always pretty absurd. Still, you know, it exists.. a guy game into the store where I work and picked up a pair of 1080ti's to SLI them. Crazy, if you ask me, but its his money to do with as he pleases.

Exactly. The most recent iPhones and Galaxy's are another example of hardware not justifying the cost, but damn, the advertisement's make me feel sexy.

So, as a company, why would you stop if people are throwing shit-tonnes of cash at you? You'd be nuts to stop; it's not YOUR fault you've managed to convice a pack of meatbags in to giving you your money legitimately.

[eydee]

First problem to solve for both AMD and nvidia would be game developers being absolutely uninterested in DX12 and Vulkan. There are of course some marketing titles, and some games utilizing a wrapper, but only 2 and no more games actually utilizing the APIs as they're meant to be used. CF and SLI are still very necessary for multi-GPU gaming systems. No one builds such a rig to play DOOM and AotS only.

[shmerl]

First problem to solve for both AMD and nvidia would be game developers being absolutely uninterested in DX12 and Vulkan.

Not sure where you got that. All major engines already added or are adding Vulkan support. Unity, Unreal, Cry, etc. So clearly developers are interested. Not being interested in DX12 I can understand. It's needed only for Xbox.