Will intel ever support SLI?
- Thread starter slapnutz
- Start date
Silent_Buddha
Legend
I'm not sure it makes sense for Intel to not license the tech to Nvidia at this time.
Nvidia doesn't license it's SLI "tech" (ability to use SLI) for use on Intel chipsets in order to make their own chipsets more attractive when Intel chipsets are generally superior and more stable. It's a way to manipulate the market to gain marketshare without directly competing with Intel.
Intel on the other hand doesn't gain much by limiting Nvidia's exposure to QPI. Nvidia's chipset share is still relatively small compared to Intel's so there's no danger there yet. Likewise, increasing exposure to QPI will also increase licensing fee's Intel would receive. I'm assuming this isn't free to use.
It could be argued that Nvidia could stand to gain licensing fee's from Intel in order to allow SLI to work on Intel chipsets, but Nvidia is looking more at increasing/maintaining marketshare.
On the other hand, it's possible that Nvidia has proposed a licensing fee to Intel for SLI to be allowed on Intel boards, but Intel found the price too high.
I don't really see things changing unless Crossfire becomes so popular that it starts to reduce the use of SLI. In other words, don't hold your breath.
Regards,
SB
Nvidia doesn't license it's SLI "tech" (ability to use SLI) for use on Intel chipsets in order to make their own chipsets more attractive when Intel chipsets are generally superior and more stable. It's a way to manipulate the market to gain marketshare without directly competing with Intel.
Intel on the other hand doesn't gain much by limiting Nvidia's exposure to QPI. Nvidia's chipset share is still relatively small compared to Intel's so there's no danger there yet. Likewise, increasing exposure to QPI will also increase licensing fee's Intel would receive. I'm assuming this isn't free to use.
It could be argued that Nvidia could stand to gain licensing fee's from Intel in order to allow SLI to work on Intel chipsets, but Nvidia is looking more at increasing/maintaining marketshare.
On the other hand, it's possible that Nvidia has proposed a licensing fee to Intel for SLI to be allowed on Intel boards, but Intel found the price too high.
I don't really see things changing unless Crossfire becomes so popular that it starts to reduce the use of SLI. In other words, don't hold your breath.
Regards,
SB
Thats exactly what I thought might be the case. Sucks that people need to buy a crappier chipset just for SLI. There could always be a miracle and Ati might release a single gpu competitor to the 8800gtx.
Berek
Regular
While I'm not certain of the single and dual performance differences between the upcoming Radeon HD 4870 cards, I highly suspect they will give Nvidia a run for its money... finally.
Personally, I'll likely be adding a Radeon HD 4870x2 into an x38 mobo come this July. I was going to go P35, but I'd rather get a SLI capable mobo right away just because... and some x38 mobos aren't much more expensive (and should be even less so come July).
If, for some reason the Radeon HD's disappoint, it'll be 2x9600GTs.
Personally, I'll likely be adding a Radeon HD 4870x2 into an x38 mobo come this July. I was going to go P35, but I'd rather get a SLI capable mobo right away just because... and some x38 mobos aren't much more expensive (and should be even less so come July).
If, for some reason the Radeon HD's disappoint, it'll be 2x9600GTs.
Er... X38 supports crossfire, but not SLI.
Because why else would you buy an NVIDIA chipset except for maybe IGP performance? The only big reason left to buy an NV chipset is to get SLi running. Intel's offerings beats NV's on price, power consumption, overclocking, stability, and driver set last I checked.
Albuquerque, you're right on all but the overclocking. NV chipsets allow for higher FSB/DRAM speeds in my experience. Not to say that Intel chipsets are shoddy, 500/1000 on my P35
Albuquerque, you're right on all but the overclocking. NV chipsets allow for higher FSB/DRAM speeds in my experience. Not to say that Intel chipsets are shoddy, 500/1000 on my P35
My 100% unmodified GA-X38-DS4 did 575FSB on entirely stock voltages on an E6850 at 6x multiplier. So I think my X38 > just about every 6xx and 7xx chipset I've ever heard of. And it was cheaper than every 780 motherboard I've found too...
I'll simply refer you to XS forums and let you look around at the multitude of 600+ FSB & DRAM clocks on 680/780 boards
Don't get me wrong, I'm no advocate of NV chipsets, I think they're shit TBH. Just taking issue with your assertion about Intel chipset overclocking.
XS has plenty of people doing >600FSB, but they're overvolted, droop modded and heavily heatsinked or watercooled.
I'm talking about stock cooling, stock voltage, stock hardware running 575FSB. I don't see ANY 7xx series chipset hitting that on any processor platform. Not even on XS.
Edit
This is also with four sticks of ram and dual 3870's in CF. If you don't think that doesn't put some strain on your northbridge, then think again...
I'm talking about stock cooling, stock voltage, stock hardware running 575FSB. I don't see ANY 7xx series chipset hitting that on any processor platform. Not even on XS.
Edit
This is also with four sticks of ram and dual 3870's in CF. If you don't think that doesn't put some strain on your northbridge, then think again...
Last edited by a moderator:
More importantly why can't I have Crossfire on my 680i!?!
aaronspink
Veteran
And lets be pretty honest here, there really isn't any "tech" involved with the chipset for SLI or crossfire functionality except the basic peer-to-peer PCI functionality found on pretty much every PCI/-e chipset since their introduction. Its purely an driver enabling issue.
Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.
aaronspink
Veteran
The thing that surprises me is that someone hasn't hacked around what has be to a pci-e device id check. And on the same token, except for a driver check, I'm pretty confident that crossfire would also work on the nvida chipsets.
Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
More importantly why can't I have Crossfire on my 680i!?!
Actually you CAN have Crossfire on an Nvidia board.
It's called an X2 card.I believe that unlike SLI, Crossfire still requires a small bit of hardware help on the MB to be fully implemented.
Or it could just be AMD/ATI being happy that CF works on Intel and AMD chipsets and Nvidia isn't willing to pay the royalties to license CF for Nvidia MBs.
And while AMD isn't competing with Nvidia for chipset share for Intel CPU's, they are in competition for chipsets for AMD CPU's. So there's also a chance it could just be a marketing deicision.
IE - Licensing to Intel can only help them, while licensing to Nvidia could hurt them. Which could influence either a relatively high price for licensing or an unwillingness to license.
Regards,
SB
Sound_Card
Regular
It was to my understanding that CF is open technology, and chip manufactures such as Intel, Via and Nvidia are free to support it. Basically the grynch of the group is Nvidia. Keep their technology in, keep others out.
aaronspink
Veteran
as stated previously I'm fairly certain both CF and SLI are just relying on bog standard peer-to-peer PCI. For right now all they are really using PCI for is to transfer the frame buffer, which even for the high end of the display range is only ~< 1GB/s.
aaron spink
speaking for myself inc.
This is correct as Crossfire works on HP's blackbird (sports a 680i motherboard). Wavey has stated that Crossfire doesn't work on normal SLI boards because AMD can't (or probably won't/doesn't want to) certify those boards.
