/i/2000820476.png?fit=%2C&ssl=1)
That’s right. My Asus Prime TRX40 motherboard also supports it. And GPUs are not the only thing it can be “useful” in, SSDs / network cards / etc.
The problem with many GPUs is that they are very much on the edge of PCIe, and there is also a lot of nuance in their firmware (especially in combination with the UEFI / firmware of a motherboard where terms such as GOP, Graphics, etc. Output Protocol, actually already offers a lot of “driver” at firmware level.
The protocol is therefore not always strictly followed, and so some things will have to be coordinated around firmware / driver / microcode. Many high-end GPUs are also quite demanding in terms of power / signal quality on the motherboard, making this even more difficult …
To state: “it’s standard PCIe functionality” is a bit strange, actually. Hotplug is that too, but that won’t work on consumer hardware either. And with so many low level things going on (also think about how hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling was such a thing … or how we also use frame buffer mirroring in things like laptop GPUs to get two GPUs on one connection), which do not naturally work equally well in EVERY combination.
So I get the caution. You might be right, “it doesn’t require any special hardware”, but you can get the hell out of it that it requires special software or firmware. And that is not only with the GPU, also with the motherboards, and the CPU (with AMD sometimes even an AGESA update necessary)
[Reactie gewijzigd door Umbrah op 26 februari 2021 12:53]
–
