Stardock Tool To Let You Mix AMD And NVIDIA Cards In One PC

It isn't ready for the market yet. It doesn't even have a cool name yet. But when Stardock's promised multi-GPU tool does come out, it could very well change the way we build PCs and buy graphics card. In theory, Stardock's still to be christened technology will allow you to mix and match any card to boost your PC's graphics capabilities. While that has always been possible with NVIDIA's SLI and AMD's CrossFire, the key difference here is that you can even mix and match cards from different brands and generations as well.

Computer games are getting ridiculously more demanding each year. Virtual and augmented reality are set to push our computers to their limits even further. However, graphics cards aren't getting cheaper, at least as you go higher in processing power. And even dual graphics card setups only mean you have to cough up that high amount twice, since you usually need matching graphics cards to make it work

Stardock thinks that shouldn't really be the case. The company, more popular for its Windows tools like Fences and even a Start Menu for Windows 8, is coming up a way with to let you mix older cards with newer cards. In fact, you can even mix NVIDIA cards with AMD cards if needed. And all of these will be possible not with a new hardware peripheral but via software.

Stardock and Microsoft have supposedly been working together for about a year now to take advantage of a feature found in DirectX 12 that will make this possible. Details of the requirements still remain undisclosed but in theory, you could mix multiple cards, perhaps not just two, to give your PC the necessary graphics power to run not just games but VR and AR apps as well. Stardock admits that the feature could trip up overclocking, though the benefits could far outweigh that.

It might sound like another cold day in hell if AMD and NVIDIA would allow this sort of thing, but Stardock does say that they have been working together with these two giants. While the two are unsurprisingly not that keen on having their cards inside the same machine, they are at least open to the idea of being able to sell more graphics card that way. And in the end, it is all about profits for them anyway.

VIA: VentureBeat