Intel SLI

Perhaps we'll be seeing a discrete NVIDIA chip to "unlock" SLI like we see on the mobile front with the "nForce 100"?

http://extremeoverclock.org/new-nforce-100-sli-on-intel-chipset.html

 

Ohhh, nice catch. That definitely fits in the definition of 'not licensing SLI to Intel' and 'SLI remaining nForce-exclusive'. But this does confuse me from a technical POV. Why is it that I don't see a southbridge on that diagram? Does this mean NVIDIA is actually selling their southbridges to Intel for them to couple with their northbridges? That would definitely be very interesting for a number of other reasons...

 

And perhaps just as importantly, how would they connect a Nvidia Southbridge to an Intel Northbridge ?
I seem to recall that NV prefers to use Hypertransport for such duties, and Intel might not like it so much for obvious reasons...

ATI (pre-merger), SiS and Uli would use a few PCI-Express lanes...
What if this so-called "Nforce 100" is actually an evolution of an earlier Uli chipset famed for having "unofficial" SLI support ?

 

Interesting. A bit of Googling around tells me that the nForce 550 can be either a MCP55S (NVIDIA chipset) or a M1697. Furthermore, MCP65 (which is used in the nForce 570 LT SLI and the nForce 520 non-LE) seems to me like it could have been an ULi chipset they hadn't released yet pre-acquisition and that was in its final stages, so that they decided to eventually release it anyway. Or it could just be a joint development without TCP/IP acceleration and a bunch of ULi tech, obviously.

That does give us two obvious candidates for the nForce 100, or maybe it is yet another ULi chip. Or even a NVIDIA chip just communicating via PCI Express lanes somehow. Either way, this does begin to make a lot of sense in my mind.

For the X38, however, it makes more sense in my mind that they would want to sell MCP72 to Intel, so they should just make PCI Express-based communication possible there, rather than use an ULi chipset. Pairing a X38 with an antiquated southbridge is kind of an heresy IMO, hehe.

And this certainly would be a very interesting and logical thing for NVIDIA to do: If they can sell their southbridges for $20-60+ to Intel, and have it present on potentially even more motherboards than otherwise, what is there not to like with that? This business model is certainly much more attractive than just licensing out SLI and asking for a one-time fee or even royalties!

 

$60+ for a southbridge? Wishful thinking!

 

Never underestimate NVIDIA's greediness!
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/chipsets/display/20061124180024.html

It is true that such a price was most likely justified mostly by the northbridge and the fact it was NVIDIA's highest-end chipset, but MCP72 in the context of X38 would also be the differentiating value-add that justifies a higher price for the motherboard. So I don't think $60 is completely out of the realm of possibility, but I agree that $30-40 is a much more reasonable range for that.

 

Good lord, I had no idea that the 680i was that expensive - no wonder when MB with that chipset first came out they were >$300.

I just thought the MB makers were being greedy - turns out it was NVidia robbing the SLI hungry, Core 2 OC-ing enthusiasts! Why do I get the feeling that the only reason they charged that much for the chipset basically came down to "Because we can".

 

There's always the 650i SLI, at a little more than $100.
And if you want to skip the SLI action, they still offer the 650i Ultra (a.k.a. "vanilla" 650i) below that price-point.

Just look at the newest ROG model from Asus.
It has a midrange chipset (P35) and yet it's priced well above $300. God knows how much they're planning to charge for a ROG X38...

 

When I was looking (early in the year) 650SLI wasn't out yet. That is one of the main reasons I passed on going the Intel route when I built my box - I couldn't justify a $300+ MB to go along with the <$200 CPU I was going to overclock in it.

650SLI is a good deal now, though, and of course now the prices on 680SLI MBs have also dropped to a more reasonable price point. As for the ROG X38, who knows. Apparently it is becoming fashionable to also charge as much as possible for decent motherboards, too - excuse me while I use a $50 CPU together with a $100 power supply, $300 MB and $400 GPU.....oh wait, I can't afford a heat sink now.