The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Laptops with explicit multi adapter support

    Discussion in 'Gaming (Software and Graphics Cards)' started by PrimeTimeAction, Jul 7, 2016.

  1. PrimeTimeAction

    PrimeTimeAction Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    250
    Messages:
    542
    Likes Received:
    1,138
    Trophy Points:
    156
    With refresh of most gaming laptops imminent due to pascal, how far do you think we are to see dual GPU laptops that support explicit multi adapter (the DX12 tech that allows two different GPUs to work together).

    Is it something that can be done only through a bios update in current/near future dual GPU laptops or will it require different hardware setup?

    I am thinking that it will be useful to have an AMD card with and Nvidia because the two brands support DX12 slightly differently and by doing this, you could potently get best of both worlds. Also maybe we could even use IGPU with DGPU.
     
    PrimeTimeAction, Jul 7, 2016
    #1
    Kade Storm likes this.
  2. TBoneSan

    TBoneSan Laptop Fiend

    Reputations:
    4,460
    Messages:
    5,558
    Likes Received:
    5,798
    Trophy Points:
    681
    I don't see any reason a machine that supports 2 x MXM cards shouldn't host it in the same manner a desktop would.
     
    TBoneSan, Jul 7, 2016
    #2
    Kade Storm likes this.
  3. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

    Reputations:
    9,431
    Messages:
    58,194
    Likes Received:
    17,901
    Trophy Points:
    931
    Desktops and laptops are identical in this respect.
     
    Meaker@Sager, Jul 12, 2016
    #3
    PrimeTimeAction likes this.
  4. Mobius 1

    Mobius 1 Notebook Nobel Laureate

    Reputations:
    3,447
    Messages:
    9,069
    Likes Received:
    6,376
    Trophy Points:
    681
    P870DMG-2 1080 / RX480M lol?

    I was thinking that the RX480M goes into the primary mxm slot because of HDR and 10 bit opengl support
     
    Mobius 1, Jul 12, 2016
    #4
    PrimeTimeAction likes this.
  5. PrimeTimeAction

    PrimeTimeAction Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    250
    Messages:
    542
    Likes Received:
    1,138
    Trophy Points:
    156
    In desktops, the upper PCI slots are used as primary slot and lower one are secondary. I mean if you have a two unequal performance cards, you are supposed to put better one in the upper most slot and slower one in the next slot. If you put put it the other way round, the slower cards will bottleneck the faster card.
    How will this be handled in Laptop?
     
    PrimeTimeAction, Jul 12, 2016
    #5
  6. Mobius 1

    Mobius 1 Notebook Nobel Laureate

    Reputations:
    3,447
    Messages:
    9,069
    Likes Received:
    6,376
    Trophy Points:
    681
    I believe the Z170 does x8 x8 on PEG
     
    Mobius 1, Jul 13, 2016
    #6
  7. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

    Reputations:
    9,431
    Messages:
    58,194
    Likes Received:
    17,901
    Trophy Points:
    931
    The second gpu has no display outputs so that's going to be an issue trying run something on the second card. Having two identical cards is going to be better performance wise.

    The IGP is disabled in our sli/xfire machines too.
     
    Meaker@Sager, Jul 13, 2016
    #7
  8. Marecki_clf

    Marecki_clf Homo laptopicus

    Reputations:
    464
    Messages:
    1,507
    Likes Received:
    170
    Trophy Points:
    81
    Just out of curiosity, what about using Intel's IGP together with a dGPU in laptops with a single dGPU? :)
     
    Marecki_clf, Jul 13, 2016
    #8