"Grouper" first look

[STEvil]

How powerfull is the onbaord video, If it's as around as good as the 9800pro I got then this is perfect jumping point for me to go pci-e. I can sell my current mother board and vid card and just pick up this motherboard and I'm back were I started and possibily with money still left in my pocket.

So any specs on the onboard video?

agreed!!!

[Squid_Spit]

How powerfull is the onbaord video, If it's as around as good as the 9800pro I got then this is perfect jumping point for me to go pci-e. I can sell my current mother board and vid card and just pick up this motherboard and I'm back were I started and possibily with money still left in my pocket.

So any specs on the onboard video?

My guess would be probably about the same or bit worse than the x300se hypermemory.

[alpha0ne]

My guess would be probably about the same or bit worse than the x300se hypermemory.

Agreed, anything more and I think you are dreaming

[STEvil]

agreed again, unfortunately

[situman]

wouldnt it be too stressful for the mobo to put something like a 9800pro class on it? I mean the power draw from such a color would heat up the mobo quite nicely and draw substantial amounts of power. Remember, the 9800pro did need an external molex to work properly.

[alpha0ne]

It also has to fit/be part of the northbridge using the same bus so 9800 volt draw and required bandwidth = not in these times, maybe another 5 to 10 years

[mrlobber]

Whats the story with HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) in these chipsets? Yea or nay?

I looked it up: HDCP: High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection. Created by Intel, HDCP is used with HDTV signals over DVI and HDMI connections and on D-Theater D-VHS recordings to prevent unauthorized duplication of copywritten material.

But what does it really mean to the end user?

Ouch.

[Tony]

Because this commentin regards to the Q surrounding capabilities of the board appeared to possibly be implying that it was only the engineering samples that weren't going to have the full capability Fog is gone now, planned capabilities in shipping configuration understood in that regard.

SI Q was result of layout... and to a lesser extent Tony's comment regarding TCCD OC'ing... speaking of which, can you say what the options are going to be for Interleave modes?

Peace

Interleaving...now there is a good question.

From the AMD docs there are 4 actual states of interleaving 2,4,8 node and off, there are also a few reserved options as usual. Now i asked that all 4 or maybe more if they actually do anything be options in bios. The reason for this is they greatly effect speed, but they also greatly effect overclocking.

Now i know DFI have applied some tricks to interleaving to retain high clocks, they may use 2 node only which would probably explain why it is actually off with 2 single sided dimms, so...i asked ATI to offer all working options so you can decide just how you want to set the board to do.

The bios is still engineering, more can be added as needed, there are lots of tweaks still to be discovered on the amd memory controller and im sure we will see most of them featured on Grouper.

[babyelf]

wow.. that will be nice.. so still no ETA?

[STEvil]

hurry up and get the board to market, my saleable organs only have so many years left on them!!!

[4rory]

hmm but dont they have mother boards for laptops that have 9700pros built in?

Heres a qwike google of "laptop 9700"
http://www.gen-x-pc.com/note_CL5620C.htm

Now its a ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 Now the mobility part of it mean follows a four pixel-pipeline design, instead of 8 and performance wise its closer to a 9600xt, but this was last christmas or more, don't we have better by now and power draw doesn't really matter on desktops so they can built it for more power, and we all remeber the heatsinks on the 9700pro and 9800s they went exaclty massive, the 9700pro had such a werid and bad heatsink design, im sure they could make it work. At least on the amd's they don't have the memory controller on the nb so thats some extra space... and with smaller process... come on is it at all possible?

[STEvil]

yup.. if they took the technology from laptops that allows upgradeable GPU's and applied it to desktop boards (and graphics boards!) the world would be a better place.. and probably the GPU market too

Unforunately it looks like i'll have to settle for x300se -ish performance until I can save up cash for a "proper" pci-e video card once I get my hands on this board.

[alpha0ne]

In your linky it states 128MB "dedicated" video memory, that means (dedicated) it has a seperate card

[4rory]

Hmm, i tried to find out if it was a card or not but I guess it would take more time and its late, But ive seen onboard video that has its own onboard ram to.

[Grayskull]

Dual core works fine and overclocks really nice on this board.

what about dual core support?

[Grayskull]

Water cooling is possible. We tried Danger Den and Swiftech X850 waterblocks and they both fit. In fact a phase cooled CPU at 3.4GHz and dual volt modded and water cooled cards hit over 13500 in 3DMark05. With the Danger Den blocks/pump/rad either of the cards was slightly over ambient on the backside of the ASIC. And that's running both cards off of one system. It works really well.

is watercooling in AMR feasible? The slots look awefully close to each other.

[Grayskull]

20 pin PSUs work fine. We have tried Enermax 465W supplies and have found no problems with them.

Sweet...Finally the return of decent on-board for enthusiast amd systems...

Thanks for the answer. It's appreciated.

Have you happened to try it with a 20pin psu? This board looks sweet, and I love my fortron...I'm hoping she can make it another cycle and become the oldest piece of still-used hw in my rig.

As for the ETA, while I of course don't know anymore than anyone else...if both the crossfire and non-crossfire boards are fairly similar, you'd think they'd be released around the same time, that being late July or sometime August (as that seems to be when most companies are releasing their crossfire boards), with the non-xfire perhaps a little sooner.

On a side-note, any word on a on-board gpu board that's cross-fire compatible (using all three gpus), or is that the next-stage in (m)architecture with a different chipset?

[Grayskull]

I guess the confusion is that what you guys are seeing as engineering samples are really just samples of the final boards. The "real" engineering samples will never really be seen by anyone outside of the engineering team.

Because this commentin regards to the Q surrounding capabilities of the board appeared to possibly be implying that it was only the engineering samples that weren't going to have the full capability Fog is gone now, planned capabilities in shipping configuration understood in that regard.

SI Q was result of layout... and to a lesser extent Tony's comment regarding TCCD OC'ing... speaking of which, can you say what the options are going to be for Interleave modes?

Peace

[Grayskull]

Onboard video has the same display quality and output features as a 9800 class product. However the 3D capabilities are more inline with an X300 class product. Having 9800 class 3D performance in an integrated gfx product would be very cost prohibitive.

This board features onboard VGA, both dsub and DVI are provided. I hear its as good as 9800 but i would have to check with ATI.

The onboard can be used with the external for a surround view if needed and as far as i know can be overclocked from bios.

Crossfire seemed to be missing the onboard VGA, but as you see from this bad zoom the board is VERY similar to the white grouper I have here apart from 2x16X slots all power regulation is the same.

[Grayskull]

In the case of the laptop above, that's correct, dedicated means that it's frame buffer only memory which is obvious since there's an external gfx device. However that's not always the case, for example, the Radeon Xpress 200 also supports dedicated frame buffer memory. That is, memory which is connected to the northbridge and is only used for graphics. In this case, none of the system memory (nor system memory bandwidth) is sacrificed for graphics use.

In your linky it states 128MB "dedicated" video memory, that means (dedicated) it has a seperate card

[babyelf]

no ETA? =/

[NickK]

Not to sound like an arse.. but my X2 4400 is preordered and so I'll be looking for a motherboard this month - along with a gfx card (although an X800XL looks on the books to span until the R520 iteration 2 cards arrive ). Current option is the DFI.

So the key question is - when will I be able to have this installed and in my machine?

Also preordered BF2

[Fairydust]

Same here, X2 4400+, Bf2 preordered. Waiting for this Board.

[4rory]

So it can be done

[krampak]

Has anybody asked for the estimated price? Can't see it