SLI on X58 without nF200 Chip

[skinnee]

SWEET!!!

[crazy1323]

So what does this mean for me:

I am planning on using two GTX 280's in SLI but i also have a SAS controller that that is PCIe 8X. Will i need the nF200 chip so that I can have two lanes at 16X and one at 8X?

[mdzcpa]

SLI on an Intel based mobo.....finally. Honestly, I'm pretty done with these Nvidia based boards. The 680i and now 790i have worked well, but they never delivered the kind of stability I cherish.

This also means I can go back to offering SLI on my client builds again (which I have not bean able to do since I will not warranty an Nvidia based mobo for OCing builds).

Good news indeed.

[Xoulz]

Is that supposed to be funny? I sure as hell wouldn't pay it. It's a different world now with AMD becoming so badass, born-again-hard. Nvidia now has some real competition in GPU-land. So they just can't pull that kind of crap anymore. Of far as I'm concerned SLI is already dead in the water with the availability of cards like the 4870x2. Maybe this move will help revive it. Why would I pay even an extra $20 for SLI support whether there is an extra silicon space heater onboard or not? To hell with that. F U Nvidia for ever having limited SLI to your own chipsets in the first place. Jerks.

Wait... weren't you one of the biggest Nvidia fanbois..? What happened?

[iadstudio]

Is that supposed to be funny? I sure as hell wouldn't pay it. It's a different world now with AMD becoming so badass, born-again-hard. Nvidia now has some real competition in GPU-land. So they just can't pull that kind of crap anymore. Of far as I'm concerned SLI is already dead in the water with the availability of cards like the 4870x2. Maybe this move will help revive it. Why would I pay even an extra $20 for SLI support whether there is an extra silicon space heater onboard or not? To hell with that. F U Nvidia for ever having limited SLI to your own chipsets in the first place. Jerks.

Ha. Well said.

I know SLI would be possible on the x38, but not readily enabled by nVidia and not easily hacked anytime soon. Apple and nVidia are both jacka$$'s for pulling the crap they do. Only reason I have nVidia right now is because it was the best quick fix at the time, but I can promise you that I will NEVER use nVidia for multi gpu solution unless it's on an Intel platform.

I see where the brand equity BS comes into play with nVidia, but as long as they have AMD going head-to-head w/ them on performance, their brand isn't worth crap unless they are the performance king.

This coudl be the only reason I end up with nVidia. Also the reason I puked a little bit in my mouth when they bought Ageia.

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/37611/140/

[lutjens]

Nvidia,

How's it feel to be pushed around by the big dog?? Kudos to Intel for standing firm against Nvidia and telling them the way things will go, instead of the other way around (with Nvidia calling the shots). Intel FINALLY decided to play hardball with NVidia...and predicably, NVidia lost. Now we'll see how many NVidia chipsets sell...personally, ever since I had one on my dual Opteron system, I've wanted nothing further to do with NVidia core logic.

NVidia finally gets its comeuppance....today is a sweet day indeed...

[twwen2]

This might have already been posted, but bit-tech ran an article here:
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/08...-sli-support/1

I found this bit interesting (about hacking the bios/drivers whatever nVidia are gonna use):

So what about if a budding enthusiast manages to extract the key from one or more boards? Nvidia said it wouldn’t do anything to stop enthusiasts enabling SLI support on non-certified motherboards themselves. Tom Petersen, Technical Marketing Director in Nvidia’s chipset business unit, said that he’d be quite happy if enthusiasts did that because it’d mean they’d be using two (or more) Nvidia graphics cards in their system.

But also:

He added that the certification process is in place to ensure a great out-of-the-box experience – boards that aren’t certified by Nvidia may encounter problems and it’ll require some BIOS modification on the user’s part. I’m not quite sure how Nvidia will react to custom BIOS files enabling SLI support on non-certified boards being hosted on the ‘net, as the company’s legal team has had a fairly rocky relationship with modified driver developers in the past – things could play out either way here.

Bring it boys, we got the best right here at XS! I'm sure we can figure something out...

[Anemone]

Good news because it means that you can buy a mobo and then choose the best gpu option, down the road, for a given time period. If they did not do this, I think a lot of folks just would have opted for the CF solution only.

Bad news is that nearly all X58's will have probably paid for this (the enthusiast models which will be almost all models) thus the costs will go up even for those who will never run SLI. But that's acceptable imo, because the whole NF200, add layers to the mobo, add heat to the setup, thing was just totally wrong.

[Macadamia]

Ha. Well said.

This coudl be the only reason I end up with nVidia. Also the reason I puked a little bit in my mouth when they bought Ageia.

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/37611/140/

It uses OpenGL (has nothing to do with GPGPU), AMD demoed it on the Radeons (http://techreport.com/articles.x/14990/16). I'm gonna correct everyone until the the record's right.

[3NZ0]

Yes its logical FOR US..but not for nV. Because if they allow SLI on chipset INTEL, the people will just buy INTEL CHIPSET and no longer nV chipset.. that why

The true implications of this would be that they would sell many more gpu's and slightly less motherboards, people would still go lengths to buy nvidia over intel. If they did sell absolutely no motherboards then that would be a benefit to us and them. They wouldn't have to waste time supporting and building a crud chipset while all the OEM's like evga take the stick for everything and we, the users wouldn't have to use the crap in the first place.


But look at it now, nv are no longer ABLE to make a chipset and intel is the only option (how it should be)

[Jamesrt2004]

Wait... weren't you one of the biggest Nvidia fanbois..? What happened?

Good contribution to the thread right there





[ot] I though Nvidia has pulled out of Chipset business now but yeah, am I wrong or right?

[ShArKo]

The true implications of this would be that they would sell many more gpu's and slightly less motherboards, people would still go lengths to buy nvidia over intel. If they did sell absolutely no motherboards then that would be a benefit to us and them. They wouldn't have to waste time supporting and building a crud chipset while all the OEM's like evga take the stick for everything and we, the users wouldn't have to use the crap in the first place.


But look at it now, nv are no longer ABLE to make a chipset and intel is the only option (how it should be)

yes that is true.....but nV is trying to expan the market.......so they will try to get more and more marked....sellding chipset, VGAs, etc.

[Tonucci]

Wow tri-sli + 1 card for physX is supported

Even tho I used to think that nvidia and intel were just playing games until an deal was signed, I was not so sure lately, seeing how they were constantly exchanging words and stuff..

[WRC]

But look at it now, nv are no longer ABLE to make a chipset and intel is the only option (how it should be)

I read an article where it states that nvidia does have a QPI license for nehalem, but they will not make any boards soon because it is not cost effective to them, in other words they will not sell too many boards. It is very tough beating intel at their own game

[Bo_Fox]

I wonder if it would be possible to use that NF200 chip for Xfire solutions? Perhaps an ATI engineer could teach a hacker how to "reverse-engineer" the NF200 so that it allows Xfire to take advantage of the extra PCIE bandwidth... ooooh *puts pinkie finger in the mouth*!