ATI's unannounced SLI solution compatible with nforce4?

[KnightOfDarkness]

The thought just crossed me recently when I was deciding to pick an nforce4 sli setup. If and when ATI does announce an SLI solution, will it be compatible with current SLI setups? Or is it unlikely and all current SLI owners would have to buy a brand new mobo to support ATI? I know that the nvidia solution splits the current PCI slot bandwidth into half and distributes it to both cards. It's likely ATI will take a stance that promotes full bandwidth to each slot instead of splitting one into two, and may decide to create their own solution. But if they would do that, would it make it impossible for someone using an nforce4 mobo to have an ATI SLI solution, assuming the appropriate drivers were released. The main point I'm tryin to get is what is holding back people from putting in ATI cards into current SLI boards? Is it merely a driver issue to support the SLI bridge connecter, or are there more hardware issues related?

 

[Guden Oden]

There's no reason to believe it won't work... PCIe devices are required to be scalable anyway, so any 16x videocard should be able to work in 8x mode (or even 4, 2 or 1 for that matter).

Besides, ATi would be stupid to not make whatever solution they're cooking up compatible with current and upcoming systems, only thing they'd accomplish by that would be shooting themselves in the foot.

 

[Fodder]

Rumour has it one of the features the Rx480 re-jig (Rx482) brings to the table is support for ATIs multi-card solution. Interpret that as you choose.

 

[Sage]

yes, I imagine ATi would make their boards compatible with nVidia SLi motherboards... BUT will nVidia make their motherboards compatible with ATi? It's possible that nVidia SLi boards are designed specifically to work only with nVidia GPU's....

 

[DOGMA1138]

from what i`ve heared the AMR will be done from the motherboard`s side - no conectors between the cards.
somthing like VIA`s DualGFX just with a hardware based workload distribution.

 

[Sage]

i wouldnt put it past nVidia to have a "unique implementation to provide users with the highest performance possible" which breaks ATi's method...

 

[DOGMA1138]

i wouldnt put it past nVidia to have a "unique implementation to provide users with the highest performance possible" which breaks ATi's method...

huh?( )
do you mean that nVIDIA will make SLi compatible with ATi`s AMR, or come up with somthin better.

 

[Sage]

I mean nVidia would intentionally disable SLI with ATi boards, claiming that ATi is using an inferior method that won't work with nVidia's super advanced technology.

 

[DOGMA1138]

Oh heh
if they do that i give it 4 days until some script kiddie w/ too much time on his hands will find a way to enable it again, then the INQ will make a huge rant story over it.
seriouslly do you realy think that nVIDIA will do that? why wont they just make a PR about how ATi`s cards are much better, it`ll be quicker and less painfull.

 

[Sage]

why wont they just make an PR about how ATi`s cards are much better, it`ll be quicker and less painfull.

pride? Jensen is a very stuckup prideful bastard who will never admit to being wrong.

 

[DOGMA1138]

why wont they just make an PR about how ATi`s cards are much better, it`ll be quicker and less painfull.

pride? Jensen is a very stuckup prideful bastard who will never admit to being wrong.

there goes another empty space on "ATi`s" B.S. bingo

 

[KnightOfDarkness]

I read an article somewhere (that i can't find ne more) quoting someone from nvidia saying that ATI card's don't have the neccesasry "hooks" to work in SLI mode. Unless ATI makes a deal with Nvidia to have these hooks available in their cards, in exchange for AMR support of Nvidia cards, it seems unlikely that either IHV's chipset will support the other's GPU's. Even if ATI's solution could theoretically work with any gpu, ati may also include some kind of lock, perhaps at the hardware level to disable nething none-ati. The way the two companies have been recently just seems immature and stupid, but highly competitive, battling at all fronts meaninglessly. The whole MXM/AXIOM fiasco and the disagreement on a unified shader architecture at the hardware level. The Xbox and PS3 battle is another one that looms in the near future. From all these things, it seems to me the trend will continue with regard to SLI also. Which would mean that any one wanting an SLI setup that supports everything would have to wait until ATI's AMR is announced and then hope that one of the MOBO manufactures would implement support for both...and that day seems quite a while away. U guys agree?

 

[Dave Baumann]

At the moment I'm thinking things are the other way around for ATI; it'll work on current graphics boards, it'll be the chipset that needs changing.

 

[DOGMA1138]

At the moment I'm thinking things are the other way around for ATI; it'll work on current graphics boards, it'll be the chipset that needs changing.

thats my 'hunch' aswell.

 

[Jawed]

At the moment I'm thinking things are the other way around for ATI; it'll work on current graphics boards, it'll be the chipset that needs changing.

thats my 'hunch' aswell.

And mine too...

Jawed

 

[Lezmaka]

I mean nVidia would intentionally disable SLI with ATi boards, claiming that ATi is using an inferior method that won't work with nVidia's super advanced technology.

They've already done that.

Anandtech[/url]]It appears that the later Forceware drivers check the chipset ID and if the driver sees "Ultra", then SLI is not enabled.

 

[Stefan]

There is no SLI-capable Chipset!!
Every chipset with PCI-Express lanes (and it's unimportant if that are x1, x2, x4, x8 or x16) is good for powering PCI-E graphic cards in SLI-mode! nVidia just tries to make people think something different ("SLI only works with nForce4 SLI and nForce5").
And for ATI's solution this will be the same, also for S3's solution (Destination Films). But each vendor will tell you that "his" solution only works well with his chipsets, but this is nonsense!
SLI/AMR will work with Intel chipsets, VIA chipsets, SiS chipsets, ALi/ULi chipsets and of course with nVidia or ATI chipsets! That's it...

Of course, nVidia could try to prevend the cards from working together if no "certified" chipset is used (better: the graphic driver would'nt allow it), but if ATI won't do so either, nVidia will find itself standing in the rain...

 

[DOGMA1138]

There is no SLI-capable Chipset!!
Every chipset with PCI-Express lanes (and it's unimportant if that are x1, x2, x4, x8 or x16) is good for powering PCI-E graphic cards in SLI-mode! nVidia just tries to make people think something different ("SLI only works with nForce4 SLI and nForce5").
And for ATI's solution this will be the same, also for S3's solution (Destination Films). But each vendor will tell you that "his" solution only works well with his chipsets, but this is nonsense!
SLI/AMR will work with Intel chipsets, VIA chipsets, SiS chipsets, ALi/ULi chipsets and of course with nVidia or ATI chipsets! That's it...

Of course, nVidia could try to prevend the cards from working together if no "certified" chipset is used (better: the graphic driver would'nt allow it), but if ATI won't do so either, nVidia will find itself standing in the rain...

and why is that...
nVIDIA`s currnet SLi is based on an external hardware link which conects the cards GPU`s, and a software workload distribution done in the driver.
ATi`s AMR will be based on an internal link between the cards on the chipset level, and on a hardware/software workload distribution method.
even if AMR`s workload distribution will be done on the software level, i realy dont see a way for it to work on current SLi based chipset due to the fact that SLi chipsets rely on the external SLi link, and do not support a link on the chipset level.

 

[Stefan]

The Link is _not_ provided at chipset level but also at GPU level. The difference is that nVidia uses a dedicated and independent connection between the two cards and ATI uses the PCI-Express lanes as connection. Therefore ATI has the disadvantage that the PCI-Express bandwith is more used.
But on the other hand it could be possible that more than two cards could be used with the ATI solution e.g. for the professional sector.

 

[KnightOfDarkness]

This link shows that the nforce4 SLI will work even without the bridge connector. And their benchmarks were not that bad. I'm guessing that without the bridge connector the SLI operates through the chipset. So if ATI were to release the proper driver support then SLI should work with their cards too.