MaximumPC 2005 03

10 MA XIMUMPC MARCH 2005

W

e thought we’d seen the last dual-

GPU videocard when 3dfx crashed

and burned, taking its dual- and

quad-GPU Voodoo5 boards with it. But

now that SLI and PCI Express have arrived,

Gigabyte has taken the plunge and packed

two nVidia 6600 GT cores onto a single

PCB for single-card SLI action. Dubbed the

3D1, it’s the first dual-GPU videocard to

come along in a long time, and it promises

to offer saucy performance—faster than

the fastest single-card offerings from either

nVidia or ATI. (As we went to press, images

of a dual-6600 GT core card from Asus

showed up on the Internet, but we have yet

to confirm the card’s existance.)

Though we weren’t able to get our

hands on a test unit prior to deadline,

Gigabyte is claiming that the 3D1 will

score more than 14,000 in 3DMark 2003

on an Athlon 64 3000+ test bench. To

put that into perspective, a 6800 Ultra

scores about 12,000 in a comparable test

system. Keep in mind, however, these

are Gigabyte’s numbers, not ours.

Though a single 6600 GT core isn’t

all that exciting, when paired with

another core its specs become more tit-

illating. If you were to purchase a single

6600 GT, you’d be saddled with a lowly

128MB of memory, but the 3D1 features

256MB of GDDR III memory running

at 600MHz, with both cores humming

along at 500MHz. The card supports the

usual inputs and outputs—DB-15, DVI,

and S-Video out. Gigabyte also designed

a special dual-fan cooling system just

for this board. It sucks air in from the

top of the card and exhausts it away

from both cores along the card’s hori-

zontal axis.

At this point, you’re probably think-

ing, “Sounds great, so what’s the catch?”

Unfortunately, there is a catch and it’s a

big one. Gigabyte isn’t selling the card all

by itself, but rather in a bundled package

with its nForce4-based Socket 939 K8NXP-

SLI motherboard. Also, preliminary reports

show that this videocard will only work

in this particular motherboard, so even if

you bought one out of the back of a van

in a dark alley, it probably wouldn’t work

with your current mobo. There is a bright

side, though: The total package (mobo

and videocard) is priced at $600. That may

seem steep, but when you consider that a

GeForce 6800 Ultra costs about $500 alone,

$600 for a mobo and videocard doesn’t

seem too shabby.

Unfortunately, the 3D1 doesn’t

include the now-standard nVidia SLI con-

nector, so rigging up two 3D1s for quad-

GPU performance is out of the question.

QuickStart

The beginning of the magazine,

where articles are small

Two GPUs–

One Card

Who says you need two

videocards to run SLI?

Gigabyte’s 3D1 pairs two nVidia

6600 GT cores for onboard SLI that’s

reportedly faster than a 6800 Ultra.

By using modestly clocked 6600 GT cores,

the 3D1 gets away with a single-slot

cooling solution.