Intel confirms 'Skulltrail' Quad SLI support

[Warboy]

Nvidia will be bringing Quad SLI to Intel's upcoming 'Skulltrail' eight-core gaming platform - at least, that's what the chip giant is telling companies it hopes will be selling the new motherboard.

Skulltrail will go on sale in Q1 2008 as the Intel D5400XS motherboard based on the company's as-yet-unlaunched 5400 workstation chipset, a leaked Intel presentation slide posted on Chinese-language site HKEPC reveals. Currently, Intel's top-of-the-line workstation chipset is the 5000X, which, like the 5400, supports up two CPUs. The 5400 primarily adds support for a 1600MHz frontside bus (FSB) frequency.

The D5400XS is designed to take two quad-core Core 2 Extreme QX9775 chips, which are expected to operate on said 1600MHz FSB, contain 12MB of L2 cache each and be initially clocked at 3.2GHz.

We say 'initially', because the chip has no overclocking limits - "overspeed protection removed", is how Intel puts it.

The slide confirms the D5400XS features four PCI Express slots for "quad graphics support", which Intel later specifies as "Nvidia Quad SLI support".

Intel demo'd Skulltrail running Quad SLI at this past September's Intel Developer Forum. At the time, it said Quad SLI support in the shipping product would depend entirely on Nvidia making the drivers available to buyers. Intel's slide suggests the GPU maker has decided to do just that.

Will that be enough to tempt buyers? Intel's slide doesn't indicate D5400XS pricing, but with the QX9775 expected to cost $1499 and the board taking pricey 800MHz FB-DIMM server memory - up to 8GB of it - complete systems are going to cost a pretty penny.

Source - Reg Hardware (http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/10/16/intel_skulltrail_gets_quad_sli/)

[AliG]

Nvidia never has been great about drivers though, look at quad sli with the 7950gx2. ATI did kinda bad with the r600 at first, but if you look at the past they usually succeed in that respect, so I think quadfire might be a bit more successful

[mascaras]

maybe you should post here >>> http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=162397



:up:

[zanzabar]

so will it do sli and crossfire, since its an intel platform they might not remove crosfire, adn the rd790 has it on the amd side so i cant see them missing out

[ExodusC]

SLI boards alone seem expensive. Quad-SLI? Heh...

Maybe a little out of my league, but cool they are offering it nonetheless.

[Warboy]

Meh, :hehe:

Well anyways, This is talking about the Quad SLi Feature. So it should get its own news spot :P


maybe you should post here >>> http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=162397




:up:


Oh, Now you edit your post so it has a pic lol

[mascaras]

Meh, :hehe:

Well anyways, This is talking about the Quad SLi Feature. So it should get its own news spot :P



Oh, Now you post a pic lol

not me , it was already posted by Face in the other thread i just post here cause the subject is the same



edit : check the slide in the source of your post , same slide posted by face in other thread , whatever , i edited the image

:up:

[Warboy]

not me , it was already posted by Face in the other thread , i juts posted here cause the subject is the same

:up:

Close to the same, This just points out the SLi feature.

[disruptfam]

Way to expensive $$$$$ for me.....

[zanzabar]

thats like $2800 for 4x 8800 ultras rite, and i cant think of a psu that could do it off hand without running a pci-e secondary psu

[safan80]

Nvidia never has had great SLI drivers.

fixed

[fhpchris]

The only way 771 will have SLI is on an NVIDIA chipset, there is no real proof that nvidia has opened up or will ever open up SLI to any intel chipset.

[grimREEFER]

wow, i dont think pc's can keep up this rate of evolution for much longer. i mean, this thing has over twice the cpu power and (assuming 4x9800gtx is used with it) over 4x the gpu power of the kentsfield and 2x8800gtx's which is like the best of today.
remember the days of the pentium 4, where it would take a year to get just an fsb increase lol?

[Zytek_Fan]

Supposedly under a heatsink on the board is the NVIDIA bridge chip, enabling SLI.

The D5400XS chipset is based off the 5300VXN server chipset.


wow, i dont think pc's can keep up this rate of evolution for much longer. i mean, this thing has over twice the cpu power and (assuming 4x9800gtx is used with it) over 4x the gpu power of the kentsfield and 2x8800gtx's which is like the best of today
That's why Intel keeps changing Moore's law, although it's already dead :p:

[X.T.R.E.M.E_ICE]

SLI or Quad SLI is useless as i use 2 monitors when i play supreme commander, ati and nvidias multi combo gpu don't work with multi monitors.

[zanzabar]

The only way 771 will have SLI is on an NVIDIA chipset, there is no real proof that nvidia has opened up or will ever open up SLI to any intel chipset.

gigabyte had a quad sli 975 so why would it be unreasonable to think that nvidia wouldent go for intel sli for something that like 200 will buy its not a significant market share just stuff for bragging rites for nvidia grafix

[[XC] gomeler]

blah blah blah

the Intel D5400XS motherboard based on the company's as-yet-unlaunched 5400 workstation chipset

blah blah blah


Sign of things to come? XS48 chipset to come next? :D

[MuffinFlavored]

That's why Intel keeps changing Moore's law, although it's already dead :p:

There needs to be a universal law that says GPUs and CPUs should be the same transistor size and they should totally kick ass, use minimal power, and overclock lots!

:yepp:

Hopefully after this is released, and NVIDIA climbs even higher on the mountain of "Good GPUs", they will focus on drivers and make Quad-SLI true 4x performance in every single application!

/end_wishing_for_magic

[Blauhung]

The only way 771 will have SLI is on an NVIDIA chipset, there is no real proof that nvidia has opened up or will ever open up SLI to any intel chipset.

wrong. Nvidia has drivers that they will officially support for this board

[Zytek_Fan]

gomeler;2494342']Sign of things to come? XS48 chipset to come next? :D

Hmmm...never thought of that.

[Blauhung]

gomeler;2494342']Sign of things to come? XS48 chipset to come next? :D

hehe, would be cool with respect to the forum, but i wouldn't think Intel will share naming conventions between a server chipset and a desktop chipset.

although :rolleyes: I guess the QX9775 is kinda using the wrong naming convention though

[Zytek_Fan]

hehe, would be cool with respect to the forum, but i wouldn't think Intel will share naming conventions between a server chipset and a desktop chipset.

although :rolleyes: I guess the QX9775 is kinda using the wrong naming convention though

They could try extreme workstation chipsets :)

[Blauhung]

They could try extreme workstation chipsets :)

hehe, i'm pretty sure the Seaburgs that end up in Skull Trail are binned.

[Zucker2k]

We say 'initially', because the chip has no overclocking limits - "overspeed protection removed", is how Intel puts it.:eek2:

[Speederlander]

:eek2:

Don't kid yourself. It will be fully limited by heat and voltage. ;)

[MuffinFlavored]

Don't kid yourself. It will be fully limited by heat and voltage. ;)

Aww, come on. This is XtremeSystems, home of pushing Xtreme voltage into chips and then cooling them Xtremely.

[Xenogias]

well, i hope this is just one of those inelegant solutions the pc industry uses until it can figure out a better way to get the same performance with more traditional configurations.

[stevecs]

This board is sweet. Now if only it has on-board SAS & ECC memory support that would be cool!

[The Legend]

This board is sweet. Now if only it has on-board SAS & ECC memory support that would be cool!

Why would you want ECC memory support with this board?

[safan80]

FB-dimms :rofl: :ROTF: :yepp: :shocked: :ROTF: :shakes:

[happychappy]

Skulltrail is looking more and more tempting as each day goes by

If only it was a bit cheaper

[Blauhung]

Why would you want ECC memory support with this board?

much easier to overclock.

[The Legend]

much easier to overclock.

But, at a larger price increase compared to regular DIMMs. I'd rather spend my money elsewhere in the system.

[`danny]

Cool for the hardcore xtremists but I'll stick with my solo 8800GTS

[[XC]Atomicpineapple]

But, at a larger price increase compared to regular DIMMs. I'd rather spend my money elsewhere in the system.

It uses FB-DIMM as it is, which is $60 ish per GB (or around £50 in the UK). ECC looks to be just over half the cost of FB-DIMM.

[Movieman]

As of last night New Egg had 4x1 gig DDR2-667FBDimms for $254.00 delivered.
Way down from the $760.00 we paid last December..
Haven't found any 800's yet anywhere for sale..

[stevecs]

Why would you want ECC memory support with this board?

Same reason for wanting it with any board for data integrity. memory is actually worse than most good HD's in random bit errors. Many HD's get errors in the range of 1x10^14 or so. memory is around 1x10^12. which is only ~112GB of reads. When you have 8GB of ram that's just filling it up 14 times. Now with games or video playback you probably don't notice if you're working on stuff that bit errors will have an effect (applications, et al. and you can't control where the error is) it can be a killer. (bit error in a defrag program for example)

The original reason why parity/ECC is not used in PC's has long since been made moot (it was due to pricing of the additional chip to store the extra 8bits). Now back in the 1970's this was costly (heck I remember $1000 for 16KiB of ram! ) There's NO valid reason not to have it today with the densities we're talking about HD, memory, et al bit errors are COMMON and they shouldn't be.

[Movieman]

I hear people complain about the FBDimms all the time..Cost,performance.
The stuff just ain't that bad people..
I run the 667's at 702 loaded 24/7 and that ain't bad..8 cores at 3157/8mb/1404 ain't something to sneeze at.:D

[MuffinFlavored]

SLI boards alone seem expensive. Quad-SLI? Heh...


Yeah, that and then you would think, oh boy, now I have to buy 4 high-end graphics cards.

Not with the 8800GT though!
Great performance, even better price.

I will probably purchase one of these boards.