AMD Moving Further Away from Multi-GPU; RX Vega Won't be Getting 3 or 4 way Support

[DocSwag]

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/3227907/components-graphics/radeon-rx-vega-no-4-way-crossfire-games.html

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On Thursday, AMD released Radeon Software 17.9.2, a driver that unlocks 2-way multi-GPU support in the company’s newly released Radeon RX Vega graphics cards. Great! But also weird. Previous Radeon generations supported up to 4-way CrossFire configurations. No more. In response to a PCWorld follow-up question, AMD confirmed that RX Vega will top out at 2-way configurations—at least in games.

 

“We have delivered two-way mGPU support in games,” and AMD representative told PCWorld via email. “Three- and four-way configurations will continue being supported in compute and professional applications.”

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There’s a caveat to all this. CrossFire and SLI enable multi-GPU support in DirectX 9 and DX11 games via AMD and Nvidia profiles, respectively. The new DirectX 12 tech found in Windows 10 requires developers to explicitly build multi-GPU support into their games instead of relying on those profiles. More advanced 3- and 4-way multi-GPU support will still work in DirectX 12 games that want to take the time to bake in that capability. But considering how few DX12 games currently support multi-GPU whatsoever, and how deeply niche 4-way fire-breathing gaming PCs actually are, don’t expect to see it embraced by DX12 games often.

This isn't completely unexpected but still somewhat of a surprise nonetheless. It's been known AMD has been distancing itself from crossfire for a while, with them saying they're moving away from crossfire during the vega launch and then not enabling crossfire, or should I say mGPU, on vega at all until just a few days ago, but this still comes as somewhat of a surprise given that just a year ago AMD was pushing crossfire pretty heavily. One of their first Polaris 10 demos was of rx 480 CF against a gtx 1080. And now, just a year later, they're dropping 3 and 4 way support and de-emphasizing 2 way.

 

The trend was started by Nvidia last year with Pascal but I don't think we were all expecting AMD to follow in Nvidia's footsteps.

[Damascus]

Dual ares 2 anyone?

[tp95112]

2 minutes ago, Damascus said:

Dual ares 2 anyone?

I miss the dual gpu cards. Sheer engineering aspect was awesome.

[Damascus]

1 minute ago, tp95112 said:

I miss the dual gpu cards. Sheer engineering aspect was awesome.

Asus confirmed a new ares, I'm legitimately excited to see how they cool it.

[Mira Yurizaki]

Maybe this is NVIDIA and AMD telling developers to start supporting that multi-GPU thing on DX12 for some good ol' fashion blame shifting.

[tp95112]

Just now, Damascus said:

Asus confirmed a new ares, I'm legitimately excited to see how they cool it.

Ares was AMD and Mars was Nvidia right? Those cards are going to be a fire hazard unless they decide to use mid tear cards again like last time.Curious on how the cooler would look. Definitly going need a dual rad loop cause a air cooler would run like a grill

[Godlygamer23]

I think it's logical for AMD to abandon anything more than two-way support for video cards. NVIDIA made the right decision, and AMD made the right decision by following suit.

[Trik'Stari]

As long as both companies retain support for dual GPU's, I guess this is fine.

 

I know that multi-gpu for gaming is never ideal, but it just looks so awesome in build.

[Guest]

Hmm, titan zp (or zv) with an RX Vega 64x2 (Or Navi 64x2) in mGPU may be the answer that 1200+W power supplies were looking for.

[Dabombinable]

51 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

As long as both companies retain support for dual GPU's, I guess this is fine.

 

I know that multi-gpu for gaming is never idea, but it just looks so awesome in build.

Voodoo2 SLI FTW (it really does look awesome, I just need a set of heatsinks for both).

[Potato*Salad]

To be honest they should allow up to 8 - way crossfire with TR CPU's and also ship a 3KW PSU.

[Okjoek]

About time. I mean I think maybe 2 GPU on one card might still be an okay idea, but I've never really been a proponent of multi-gpu setups for the average consumer.

[S w a t s o n]

DX12 mgpu means this is irrelevant, 1-4 will be automatically supported if the dev chooses so.

[Vode]

Come on.

 

There isn't a power supply in the world that can handle 4 RX Vega 64s anyways.

[mariushm]

I think you guys are misunderstanding things.

 

AMD is simply not making the effort to make profiles and all the shitty work for DirectX 11 and Crossfire. 

On DirectX 12, the game can simply access all the available graphic cards in the computer and work with them in parallel with minimal interaction with the graphics card drivers.

 

It's something that's supposed to be a DirectX 12 / Vulkan thing, so AMD is just saying they're moving from proprietary things like Crossfire (or the equivalent SLI from nVidia) to just letting game developers work harder to manage the cards.

 

4 minutes ago, Vode said:

Come on.

 

There isn't a power supply in the world that can handle 4 RX Vega 64s anyways.

Yeah, you can, just set the power limit to  minus some percent to make sure the card won't go over 300 watts, then use a 1600w power supply. It's possible.

[System Error Message]

The electrical utility companies love power hungry multi GPU setups.

[TheRandomness]

12 minutes ago, Vode said:

Come on.

 

There isn't a power supply in the world that can handle 4 RX Vega 64s anyways.

Yes there is. Super Flower has a 2000W PSU. 

[JediFragger]

1 hour ago, mariushm said:

to just letting game developers work harder to manage the cards.

 

Let's hope it's super simple to code for, because I can't see them putting major effort in for like 0.5% of the possible market

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, Vode said:

Come on.

 

There isn't a power supply in the world that can handle 4 RX Vega 64s anyways.

 

2 hours ago, TheRandomness said:

Yes there is. Super Flower has a 2000W PSU. 

My IBM x3500 M4 has dual 900W PSU, I'm sure it can do it. Our DL580's at work have quad 1500W PSUs so I'm quite sure that can do it too .

 

My NEX1500 in OC 1650 mode might just struggle to do it, send me 4 and I'll tell you 

[SCHISCHKA]

bye bye technology i never had and could never afford

[Doobeedoo]

Shame though expected due to nature of new low level APIs so they no longer work on profiles, but game devs to leverage it as featureset of DX12/Vulkan no. Cause it's supported by nature of those APIs is it not. 

But having two GPUs support at least is grat to have though. 

[mynameisjuan]

I mean who buys dual gpu's anymore? Especially when you can just by a 1080/1080ti and be happy. No sli/crossfire problems, cheaper, less power. 

[Zodiark1593]

11 hours ago, Potato*Salad said:

To be honest they should allow up to 8 - way crossfire with TR CPU's and also ship a 3KW PSU.

Developers should start using ray trace. That should scale nicely, though still might be too slow for 4k 60 fps.

 

[JediFragger]

18 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

I mean who buys dual gpu's anymore? Especially when you can just by a 1080/1080ti and be happy. No sli/crossfire problems, cheaper, less power. 

Powerful single card + Gsync/Freesync = Win.

 

(Ti + PG348 here)

[DocSwag]

11 hours ago, Swatson said:

DX12 mgpu means this is irrelevant, 1-4 will be automatically supported if the dev chooses so.

 

5 hours ago, mariushm said:

I think you guys are misunderstanding things.

 

AMD is simply not making the effort to make profiles and all the shitty work for DirectX 11 and Crossfire. 

On DirectX 12, the game can simply access all the available graphic cards in the computer and work with them in parallel with minimal interaction with the graphics card drivers.

 

It's something that's supposed to be a DirectX 12 / Vulkan thing, so AMD is just saying they're moving from proprietary things like Crossfire (or the equivalent SLI from nVidia) to just letting game developers work harder to manage the cards.

 

Yeah, you can, just set the power limit to  minus some percent to make sure the card won't go over 300 watts, then use a 1600w power supply. It's possible.

Thing is, not all dx12 games support it. There are quite a few dx12 games out there but the only one that supports it is ashes.