Even X58 "required" two nf200's for Nvidia to allow 4-way. X58 can do 4-way @ x8 link. I'm guessing they've came to their senses and are going to allow 4-way with x8 links?
Printable View
All amds high end chipsets from AM2 and up had enough pcie lanes to do 4 way sli/crossfire without the need for third party chips.(38 pcie 2.0 lanes)
So theres no change of heart here :)
As for the x58, there were four variants of the chipset, and two of those offered enough pcie lanes (36 pcie 2.0 lanes) to do 4 way on its own, nf200 chips were used to aquire nvidias license i believe.
The only thing that changed is that nvidia licensed SLI for 990FX.But it works on 790FX and 890FX also, you just need to hack the driver.Its paper/lawyer thing, not technical problem.
I was waiting for the FXA-UD5, but since the stock cooling is in the way (Xonar STX), i might have to settle with FXA-UD3 instead.
Seemes weird that they cant make the cooling so that it doesnt interfere with cards in the X1 port on the UD5, when they can on the UD3 :shrug:
990XA-UD3 and 990FXA-D3 just showed up on their site! :D
And FXA-UD3....
I should have been a little more clear. I was talking about the licensing issues and the use of nf200. I know X58 and FX AMD boards had enough lanes, but nvidia blocked it unless you used their junk nf200's.
All X58's had enough lanes to do 4-way with x8 links but nobody made boards with proper spacing for it until the Classified 4-way (with nf200's) and later boards. The first batch of boards would all do 16/8/8 but only because they had triple slots. My question to dino was really about nvidia loosening their grip about using their stupid bridge chips rather than having enough lanes. I think we all know 4-way running at x8 works just fine. ATI thinks so too.
The UD3 looks like a keeper:
990FX UD3
http://www.gigabyte.com/fileupload/p.../3894/4434.jpg
990X UD3
http://www.gigabyte.com/fileupload/p.../3901/4452.jpg
I'm probally blind but all I see mising is dual gigabit? I used to use dual gigabit on my Gigabyte GA-790FXTA-UD5 - PC to Modem and PC to X-Box 360, got a router now so not bothered and to be honest for around £10 just get a 10/100 network switch.
Will be interesting to see if much difference in using an 890FX board compared to a 990FX board in terms of performance / overclocking ability.
I will be best off with the UD3 but will get the UD7 just for the sake of it. :ROTF:
I really like the new black PCB's. I may need one of these too.
:up:
chipset's aren't created and fabbed in a day, it takes a long period of time.
when official specs aren't released or the required teams (in case of AMD) aren't available to make new chipsets you get this kind of upgrade (AMD chipset devision probably had enough things to do with the Brazos qnd LIano launch.
Even Intel on upcomming 79 chipset by the end of this year doesn't have the features so why complain to AMD at least they alreay implemented USB3 in the midstream.
http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news...-chipsets.aspx
990FX UD3 looks good, it has all I need for.
I hope price is very good so I choose this instead of UD5, since am3+ seems be shortlived. I see trend that mobo manf. creates 3 versions of 990FX like MSI, Giga..
I wonder if it is possible to modify a good bios rev (from ud7 for example) to fit ud3? Im not going to do it, maybe Gigabyte or user community do that? (depending how much ud3 gets attention in bios department)
why do you think AM3+ will be short lived? there is a very good chance the DDR4 cpus will have DDR3 support and backwards compatible.
No one said DDR4 is the reason for why AM3+ will be short lived.
look how much is updated chipset (990fx)? Not much. 8xx is even compatible with BD. (some, of course)
Thubans die when old Crucial D9 at volt 2.4 is used (my old 955 loves it!!) :rofl: Sure it is exaggeration. My 790Fx dont support volt 1.35 mem so I run 1.65v on Gskill Eco as lowest setting. All this is an example when a compatible Cpu is not enough.
Ddr4 mobos could have finer voltage regulations and other small stuffs so the new stuffs work together better. We dont know how sensitive BD IMC is for both ddr3/4. Probably less than ddr2/3.
But im going switch to ddr4 very fast especially when I stayed in ddr2 too long before I got ddr3.
check http://www.gigabyte.com/products/com...pids=3894,3891
2way (less 1 pcie lane for graphics compared to ud5 3way) and less sata.
Just found the following available for pre-order here in the UK at Aria. :D :clap:
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Compo...900+Chipset%29
£209.99 inc. VAT - Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7
£169.99 inc. VAT - Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5
£99.95 inc. VAT - Gigabyte 990XA-UD3
That is 100% purely gigabytes fault.
Thuban can take 1.9-2.0v fine from what I see, but dont expect to break 2000 Mhz with it. You could still run 1600-1800 C7 on a good D9 DDR3 kit with it. Even 800+ 4-4-4-12 with DDR2.
.003125 /.00625v voltage incriments are enough for me...
For everyone saying 4-card SLI/X-fire is no big deal, let me remind you that chipsets like X58, P55 and P67 can run 4-way SLI/X-fire, but that means you only have two slots at x8 performance. In order to get 4-card SLI/X-fire, previous chipsets had to use a middle-man, which greatly increased latency (look at the P67 UD5 vs. the P67 UD7 in 2-card X-fire). Amd will be running 4-card SLI/X-fire meaning there will be two slots at x8 performance. The old method presented a pretty large bottleneck because it was two gpu's trying to pump math through an 8x connector. Now, on Amd, it will still be the 8x connector, but one gpu per connector. This is a pretty big deal, IMO.
It isn't about having enough PCI-E lanes. Have a look at R3E (or R3B), for example. It has enough slots and enough bandwidth, but does not support 4-Way SLI without an extender which contains an NF200 chip. It's Nvidia's requirement.