CES 2006 - Day 1: Dell's 30" Display, Quad SLI, WUSB and more
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 6, 2006 4:20 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
The World's First Upgradeable Graphics Card
MSI had an interesting proof of concept design at their booth: a PCIe x16 graphics card that featured two NVIDIA MXM interfaces. With two separate MXM interfaces, you can theoretically put any MXM GPUs on the card - making it an expensive, but upgradeable graphics card.
The problem is that since each MXM module has its own memory, there's no real benefit to this sort of approach today. And you wouldn't want to keep the memory on the PCIe card itself and just upgrade the GPU since you'd inevitably end up being way too memory bandwidth limited after one or two GPU upgrades.
Instead, this sort of an upgradeable GPU design may make sense if technologies like NVIDIA's Turbo Cache gain acceptance in the mid-range and high-end graphics markets. Reducing the dependency on high speed local memory for anything more than a cache would eventually allow these sorts of upgradeable designs to be used on desktops (or maybe even pave the way for the socketed GPU).
MSI also had a solar powered laptop on display:
The construction was crude, but a single lamp had no problems powering the notebook just fine.
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bob661 - Friday, January 6, 2006 - link
The basic Dell XPS 600 costs over $4000. I'm thinking this will be pretty close to a $10,000 system.bob661 - Friday, January 6, 2006 - link
True indeed but you really won't see much difference in framerates without some insanely high resolution monitor.jvrobert - Friday, January 6, 2006 - link
nonsense.. Try playing F.E.A.R at 1600x1200 with everything turned on on any current video card.bob661 - Friday, January 6, 2006 - link
Forgot about FEAR. I wonder if that game would become CPU limited. I'd like to see some benchies.at80eighty - Friday, January 6, 2006 - link
..and Dell debuted their 30"er - coincidence?MrSmurf - Friday, January 6, 2006 - link
Ironic that Dell would showcase such a computer which is obviously targeted at hardcore PC user but hardcore PC users wouldn't buy a Dell.Deinonych - Friday, January 6, 2006 - link
Not only that, but until they start putting AMD procs in their boxes, they'll never have *any* credibility with gamers. Even then, I don't think their "target market" would consider a pre-built box anyway. Sounds like another still-born idea by a bunch of MBAs that don't know anything about the DIY/gamer set.Pass.
Bonesdad - Friday, January 6, 2006 - link
no matter how fast it is...it's fugly as heck.Why do manufacturers put PC users on a level with guys who pimp out their pickups and vans?
at80eighty - Friday, January 6, 2006 - link
while 'fugly' is debateable - to me, the last pic on page 2 - of the rig in flames , is frickin perfect on two levels1) Blazing performance
2) Reminds you that you'll need a fire hydrant handly in case that baby blows up :-)
at80eighty - Friday, January 6, 2006 - link
i have NO clue how that happened - mods please delete repeated entries