SLI hack on Intel legacy chipsets (not X58)

[TiN_]

Firewings [CCG] at Expreview forum (Chinese version) has figured out the way to get SLI support for its Asus Maximus Formula motherboard based on Intel X38 chipset, with one NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT and one GeForce GTX 260 graphics card.

Source:EXPreview.com

Great news, little obsolete, but still interesting for people. Hope we get support for SLI rigs with E8600 >6.5GHz soon.
Still, It's maybe possible to enable SLI with different GPU's, even on X58. There is no physical/tech limitations to such configurations.

Update:


For now, TechPowerUp forum member sveetsnelda made successful patch to ForceWare 190.62 winxp32bit driver to enable SLI on any chipset. Driver was tested on his system (ASUS P45 + two 9800GTX+) and by myself on P5B Deluxe P965 + two 6600LE so far.

We will make detailed HOWTO bit latter, together with better (more easy) patching process.

Little description for those who know what to do.

Hardcoded X58 chipset driver ForceWare version 190.62 (XP 32bit only ATM)


After driver unpack, put this file to C:\nvidia\displaydriver\190.62\english

http://www.xdevs.com/sli/nv4_mini.rar - 2.1MB

Then install as usual.
DSDT table must have valid SLIC X58 string.




To compare posting my own old single-card results:

3D'01: single card, QX9650 @ 4210MHz, 6600LE DDR3 640/640 : 33298
3D'01: SLI two cards, Q6700 @ 3000MHz, 6600LE DDR3 580/522 : 23650
3D'03: single card, QX9650 @ 4200MHz, 6600LE DDR3 660/670 : 10044
3D'03: SLI two cards, Q6700 @ 3000MHz, 6600LE DDR3 580/522 : 11087
3D'05: single card, QX9650 @ 4213MHz, 6600LE DDR3 646/660 : 3729
3D'05: SLI two cards, Q6700 @ 3000MHz, 6600LE DDR3 580/522 : 4975
3D'06: single card, Q6700 @ 3600MHz, 6600LE DDR3 580/585 : 1510
3D'06: SLI two cards, Q6700 @ 3000MHz, 6600LE DDR3 580/522 : 1808
Aqua: single card, QX9650 @ 4200MHz, 6600LE DDR3 670/670 : 71435
Aqua: SLI two cards, Q6700 @ 3000MHz, 6600LE DDR3 580/522 : 88185

HOWTO enable SLI article:
SLI hack article, revision 2.0

Added latest files, update FAQ, fixed minor bugs, updated list of people who tested SLImods.

Available and tested under XP 32bit, Vista 32/ Vista 64/ Windows 7 32/ Windows 7 64