"SLI patch" author interview
- Thread starter Geo
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dizietsma said:
I dunno if that's the case, but I was under the impression that the slot spacing on other mobos will make it impossible (further from each other than on nForce boards)? Unless you buy a longer flexi connector if there are any out there, but that's extra money again.
dizietsma said:
Well, there is the question of where you would get one in the first place. . . they come with the mobos, not the cards, right? Tho I suppose we could start an after-market on ebay for spares. . .I have two I'm not using at the moment.
Edit: Whups, or only one. I thot there was two in the box, but I'm only seeing one now.
geo said:Well, there is the question of where you would get one in the first place. . . they come with the mobos, not the cards, right? Tho I suppose we could start an after-market on ebay for spares. . .I have two I'm not using at the moment.
Edit: Whups, or only one. I thot there was two in the box, but I'm only seeing one now.
Well if Conroe gets going on Intel well these little bridges might be worth something, luckily I have a spare as well. I bet there is already a hedge fund buying futures in these things !
Indeed, you get connectors of different lengths (and both PCB and ribbon), depending on the board.
And _xxx_, I was running SLI with Xeons on E7520 before any nForce4 platform came along to support it.
And I'm not saying performance is the same without the connector, just that SLI isn't only possible on nForce4.
And _xxx_, I was running SLI with Xeons on E7520 before any nForce4 platform came along to support it.
And I'm not saying performance is the same without the connector, just that SLI isn't only possible on nForce4.
From what I can recall, NV wasn't first with dual PCIe 16 slots..._xxx_ said:
What exactly is it you want them to license though?
SLI relies on nothing specific in the mobo other than a standard PCIe interconnect to the host system, so there's nothing for anyone to license. You can't license something completely intangible such as "making SLI work". You might as well argue NV would demand all mobo manufacturers license simply having NV vidcards functioning in their boards period. It's rediculous!
How is that a fact?
What does the vidcard hardware bridge have to do with the mobo? I'll answer that one for you... Nothing!
What IP? Simply having two vidcards working together obviously isn't NV IP, if for no other reason that ATi's doing it as well.
Second, why wouldn't they want to have SLI working in all mobos? They'd sell lots more vidcards that way.
Vidcard price premium = high.
Mobo price premium = low. As witnessed by seeing manufacturer after manufacturer biting the dust over the years.
More mobos accepting SLI setup = more potential customers for profitable vidcard. Only NV idiocy and short-sightedness prevents them from seeing this.
Not everyone's going to buy a NV mobo just because they might want a SLI setup. NV wants to have cake and eat it, but this tactic only means they won't get either. No SLI mobo sale and no SLI vidcard sale either.
Well, there is clear IP they own and invested in to make it work. That would be the drivers. I suppose they could be made to interrogate for an NV chipset before turning on SLI functionality. And, no, I'm not advocating that. But I do think it a bit unfair to suggest that NV has no investment in enabling SLI on their cards (in whatever mobos).
Guden Oden said:
SLI is enabled by two video cards + chipset and always has been. Why do you think Nvidia themselves sell chipsets that do not support SLI - ever hear of the term "target market" ?
Your definitions of anti-competitive and monopolistic are a bit off. Nvidia does not have a monopoly in either the GPU or chipset space and does not hold patents on all possible ways to combine the output of two GPU's. Also, where you stand is irrelevant. Nvidia created and defined the technology and it's not up to you to determine what you deserve when you purchase a component.
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trinibwoy said:
Always has been? Didn't they get embarrassed early on by SLI being enabled on some of their own non-sli chipsets? How does the ULI patch work in the first place (when it does)?
In the past, it's been my impression they sell a non-SLI chipset for marketing reasons (i.e. to reach a different price point).
I think the driver, which as I said is still a signficant investment, is the real proprietary investment. And the SLI bridge, of course. Tritium may change that.
geo said:
Well the only reason they were embarrassed is because it was not supposed to work. So from Nvidia's perspective, yes a chipset has always been part of the SLI package.
Right, from a marketing and product placement standpoint the driver doesnt matter since there isn't anything technologically different about the "SLI" in Nforce4 SLI.
I'm not too sure if it's all about IP either, it may also be due to the fact that they don't want the image of SLI to be tarnished by some other company's less than adequate chipset driver. There has to be some dedicated stuff in there to optimize inter-GPU communication. SLI is a brand and if people started reporting "SLI is crap - it never works on my ATi/ULI/Via motherboard" the brand would be hurt significantly.
trinibwoy said:
Certainly from a marketing and investment-recoup perspective. And I certainly don't have a problem with them needing to make their investment back. And having a way to manage that. It seems clear to me that they made the decision that the people who want SLI capability should be the ones to pay for it by explicitly purchasing SLI capable NV mobos. Seems entirely reasonable to me (and I even own one I'm not using for SLI --but I knew what I was doing, so that's on me). But how do you manage that, without the freeloaders tiptoeing around it to get the goodies? By including the chipset in the package, whether you need to or not from a purely technical standpoint.
Actually, I can't think of any other way to do it that is nearly as effective. What other option would they have to do that? Sell a specific software license to SLI-capable drivers? We know how effective that kind of thing is for making sure eveyone who should pay does. . .(i.e. not very).
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