Special – XGI Graphics Card

This content was originally featured on Amdmb.com and has been converted to PC Perspective’s website. Some color changes and flaws may appear.

I got the chance to meet with XGI while at Computex and what they showed was quite interesting. First, here are some pictures of the reference graphics card on display.

Computex 2003 - AMD, VIA and NVIDIA Square Off - Shows and Expos 99
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Computex 2003 - AMD, VIA and NVIDIA Square Off - Shows and Expos 100
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Computex 2003 - AMD, VIA and NVIDIA Square Off - Shows and Expos 101
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The duo board uses two processors, as you can see above, though they do not work in SLI mode (scan line interleave). They actually work by rendering individual frames into individual frame buffers (memory) in alternating order. GPU1 will render frame 1011 while GPU2 will render frame 1012 and then GPU1 renders frame 1013, and so on. They are using a bridge mechanism between the GPUs where the first GPU is referred to as the primary and then passes on information to be calculated to the second GPU. This is necessary because the AGP bus can only communicate through a single processing source. The dual power sources on the card are to guarantee a clean power source to each individual GPU.

XGI claimed that their Duo V8 line of cards will compete with the Radeon 9800, but if they intend to compete in the market, they need to have product done and for sale very soon.

Here are a couple photos of the board in action:

Computex 2003 - AMD, VIA and NVIDIA Square Off - Shows and Expos 102
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Computex 2003 - AMD, VIA and NVIDIA Square Off - Shows and Expos 103
Click to Enlarge

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