ASUS ROG Xpander enables 4-way SLI on Rampage III Extreme

[NH|Delph1]

ASUS ROG Xpander is simply a PCI-Express daughter card for the ASUS Rampage III Extreme. The circuit board comes with four PCI Express x16 slots and two Nvidia NF200 PCI-Express bridges. These circuits take the 32 available PCIe 2.0 lanes of the Intel X58 chipset and expand them to 64 lanes, divided across the four PCI Express x16 slots on the daughter board. In the end this enables you to connect four graphics cards with maximal PCIe x16 bandwidth.

ASUS ROG Xpander only has one real use, to enable 4-way SLI on ASUS Rampage III Extreme. Quad-SLI with dual GTX 295 or the coming NVIDIA D12U-15 works without ROG Expander. They already have an integrated NF200 chip (also known as BR04).

The reason ASUS has designed a separate daughter board for Rampage III Extreme is that Nvidia demands that motherboards supporting 4-way SLI has to use two NF200 bridge chips, and an official 4-way license key. According to our sources this adds about $100 to an already expensive motherboard.
With Nvidia's flagship GeForce GTX 480 we have seen the ways of 4-way SLI and how it can break records like no other in the right hands. This is the reason ASUS developed ROG Xpander. The number of consumers that are interested in 4-way SLI isn't big enough to justify the added cost, but the extreme users should not have turn any other way but just upgrade to get 4-way SLI support with their ASUS Rampage III Extreme motherboard.

Judging from the information we have the reason for Rampage III Extreme not getting 4-way SLI from the start wasn't just the cost. The two bridge chips does enable higher bandwidth, but also higher latencies that most non-4-way SLI systems would be crippled by. Second generation PCIe x8 offers enough bandwidth to keep most users happy.

One of few Intel X58 motherboards that support 4-way SLI from factory is Gigabyte GA-X58-UD9 and if you compare the price with ASUS Rampage III Extreme you see the extra costs we're talking about. Gigabyte's motherboard is listed for $700 at Newegg.com, while Rampage III Extreme is listed at $380.

At the same time the Nvidia NF200 bridge chips adds 12W power consumption, each, which is actually more than some low-end graphics cards consume. On a positive note, no power will be taken from the motherboard, but all power comes through three 4-pins molex power connectors and one 6-pin PCIe connector.

Even if ASUS didn't see the point of supporting 4-way SLI from factory with Rampage III Extreme it is aware of the customers that do want 4-way SLI, and that is why ROG Xpander is expected to appear in stores in the near future.

Considering just the chips and license cost near $100 it won't be cheap, but if you can afford four GeForce GTX 480 graphics cards it's a minor problem.

Source and pictures

Pictures tricky to hotlink here.

Cheers!

//Andreas

[Musho]

The daughter board is quite a bit above the motherboard. Won't you have major issues securing your cards to your case's PCI(-E) brackets?

[RejZoR]

Ok, but how do you allign graphic cards to the back of the case since they are raised for like 2cm from the mobo? Or is it meant to just run it on a desk without any case?

EDIT:
Musho beat me to it

[Utnorris]

I would imagine this is meant for benchers in which case the whole setup would probably be open air. It's a neat idea, especially if you have to insulate the add on card for LN2 runs, it should be easier to do.

[SKYMTL]

Good God. This is the mother of all band aid solutions. Seriously, this isn't a "PCI-Express daughter card", it's a whole darn board that will likely carry the price of a brand new motherboard.


ASUS: We have the highest-end X58 motherboard with every feature you can think of!

Customer: But EVGA has 4-way SLI!

ASUS: Uh oh. *runs to parts bin and cobbles something together*

ASUS: Now we have 4-way SLI!!!**


**ASUS Disclaimer: But it won't allow you to actually INSTALL the 4 graphics cards inside a case.

[zanzabar]

i guess that NV is really being an ass about those nf200, i dont get why when they make no difference in sli (sicne NV made their cards work in 8x) and hurt xfire performance. i would think that asus would have enough sales that they could get away with no nf200, i thought that gigabyte could also but the then the ud9 got 2 nf200 also

[Dumo]

How much that riser will cost?

Well compared to this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128446
$2700 total with 4X GTX 480s ......Wonder how much Gigabyte's Stock @ Taiwan S Exchange, if it listed

[Kuroimaho]

This is so lame.

[zalbard]

Wow, this thing is huge and even has an active cooler!
Surely there are more simple solutions...
And people who need 4 way SLI will just buy a different board to start with...

[Splave]

ouch going to heat up the sink it covers even more.

[massman]

Djeez, this is just a very complicated solution for a very simple problem. I don't even want to begin insulating that PCB. Another board it is.

[Monstru]

So that is why I didn't manage to do 4WAY SLI on this one...Asus held back on the NF200....arghhhhhh

[Loque]

I'm confused, why is that needed if this is possible ?

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...10#post4393710

[G.Foyle]

Nvidia must have been very persuasive if they talked ASUS into doing... this

[gatecrasherlok]

Certainly going to be fun attaching that to your case.

[FatAlbert]

maybe quad sli will work on other boards

maybe on asus Crosshair IV extreme

[Kinc]

I would imagine this is meant for benchers in which case the whole setup would probably be open air. It's a neat idea, especially if you have to insulate the add on card for LN2 runs, it should be easier to do.

You are correct. It is only to give the option of 4 pcs GTX 480 for the truly extreme 3D overclockers. It is NOT for a ATX chassis based system. It makes little sense to build a gaming system with 4 480.

[zalbard]

I'm confused, why is that needed if this is possible ?

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...10#post4393710

Making $$$, press / hype, etc.

[Kinc]

I'm confused, why is that needed if this is possible ?

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...10#post4393710

That is not possible, there have been some kind of missunderstanding. NF200 are needed for Forceware to enable Quad-SLI. There is no work-around. Only thing would be for Nvidia to simply allow it without pciex extension ics. Like they decided to do with X58. Remove need for NF200 and only have the license.

[it_is_me]

this thing brought up some memories about ASUS CT-479 Adapter
however, this thingy it is not practical at all, and probably will never gain any popularity except few labs and bench sessions.
like was said above - Asus got jealous and couldn't stand evga being the only one with 4-way sli.

Remove need for NF200 and only have the license.

they force users to have nvidia only gpus for physx.
they force nf200 on mb makers for sli.
the way its meant to be played

[ottoyu34]

smart idea, since most of the R3E are going to be a normal gaming PC anyways.

but I can imagine the pain in the butt to insulation another PCB just to bench with four GTX480.

and that daughter board need to hold up at least a few pounds of GTX480 with pots. hmm..

[sholvaco]

Nvidia must have been very persuasive if they talked ASUS into doing... this

Naw man. It's about not letting EVGA and now Gigabyte grab all the top bench results at ORB. Gotta show some numbers to move the merch and make some figures, the $$$ kind of figures. IMO this way is better than going all out crazy and offer a new integrated solution, for both asus and the end users. ASUS doesn't have to drop heavy mullah into R&Ding a new board, the rare few who need this kind of capability don't need to spend mullah on yet another new board (for just this one feature). Looks conceptually ugly but then again if it works more power to them.

You don't need this for GPU computing (for example) so the regular board still keeps relevance in any other scenario, not to mention remains the best laid out tylerburg solution out there (save for P6T7 maybe). Trifire, plus hacked PhsyX, plus a choice of either PCIe or PCI sound card (of any length). They need to bring out an SLI bridge that skips one of the middle two x16 slots to be able to say the same about tree way SLI, but the potential is still there...

[massman]

You are correct. It is only to give the option of 4 pcs GTX 480 for the truly extreme 3D overclockers. It is NOT for a ATX chassis based system. It makes little sense to build a gaming system with 4 480.

Wouldn't it be easier to just have two separate products just like Evga has? A non-NF200 for those who are not going to use the 4-Way SLI and one with the NF200's for the extreme benchers/overclockers? Possible with an upgrade-path from non-NF200 to NF200.

How thick is the PCB exactly? How is the cold moving from the PCIe lanes on top of the PCB to the ones under the PCB? Will it be necessary to insulate both the mainboard and the Expander completely to ensure condensation free benching?

[Hondacity]

Wouldn't it be easier to just have two separate products just like Evga has? A non-NF200 for those who are not going to use the 4-Way SLI and one with the NF200's for the extreme benchers/overclockers? Possible with an upgrade-path from non-NF200 to NF200.

How thick is the PCB exactly? How is the cold moving from the PCIe lanes on top of the PCB to the ones under the PCB? Will it be necessary to insulate both the mainboard and the Expander completely to ensure condensation free benching?

you nailed it!!!

[Kinc]

Wouldn't it be easier to just have two separate products just like Evga has? A non-NF200 for those who are not going to use the 4-Way SLI and one with the NF200's for the extreme benchers/overclockers? Possible with an upgrade-path from non-NF200 to NF200.

How thick is the PCB exactly? How is the cold moving from the PCIe lanes on top of the PCB to the ones under the PCB? Will it be necessary to insulate both the mainboard and the Expander completely to ensure condensation free benching?

This way extreme benchers can choose to go NF200 for 4-way 480, that has very limited need for an alround extreme (ln2) bencher. For 4-way AMD you do not want the extra latency and 1-3% degraded performance. Also when using less than 4 graphics cards for older 3d benchmarks, NV or AMD, I still would prefer not to have NF200 there to get every last bit of 3D peroformance. Since the add-on-board solution works and performs flawlessly, I see no need in going any other direction to enable 4-way 480.

The PCB is very robust and will keep the cards in perfect alignment. The PCI-slot on it will have exact touch to the 4th 16C slot on R3E and offload the weight perfectly.

I would put some dielectric grease like vaseline in all MIO connectors directly linked with with grahpics cards. Add some tissue paper like usual. More than that I do not see needed.