Nvidia SLI on X58 Motherboards Without a Chip
Nvidia SLI on X58 Motherboards Without a Chip
Posted 08/28/2008 at 12:04pm
| by Chris Moody
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Cnet posted an article saying that Nvidia is now offering what it calls "native" licensing of SLI to its partners and system builders. Native licensing will not require the use of Nvidia's nForce 200 bridge for the Core i7 and X58 motherboards. That is right, no chip. The difference between native and the nForce 200 is that native SLI allows for more “common configurations”. There were no details on what “common configurations” could mean. Only the boards certified by Nvidia will be Nvidia will be able to enable SLI.
Pure speculation on my part is that it might mean only dual cards in SLI, not 3 or more on the native solution.
We can hope that this is a sign of a thaw in relations befween Intel and Nvidia. Of course Nvidia board certification may not make motherboard manufactuers very happy at the prospect of another hoop to jump through.
In any case, we can at least be assured of having a helping of SLI with our Core i7.
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Techrocket9
August 28, 2008 at 4:28pm
Quote, "the boards certified by Nvidia will be Nvidia will be able to enable SLI" end quote.
"Nvidia will be" is repeated.
sirphunkee
August 28, 2008 at 12:34pm
Chris, the diagrams here: http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=613 make it look like there will be native SLI support for 2-4 slots
AndyYankee17
August 28, 2008 at 12:15pm
intel and nvidea should have negotiated a merge years ago. there's no way a cpu company and a gpu company can compete against a cpu and gpu company.
intel's also being forced to be competitor with AMD but also be allied with ATI,
Cache
August 28, 2008 at 3:45pm
This could just be a stopgap measure, as there are rumors about nVidia trying to break into the x86 chip market. If true, then nVidia may be trying to position itself so that it can be a 'gamers chipset' rather than an office one. As Intel is attempting to break into the GPU market (again), the current solution is just meant to ensure income for nVidia--until they are in a place to rollout their own competing product.
But a merger? No. Hostile takeover, perhaps--someday. But right neither nVidia or Intel want to work with the other one. And even if nVidia doesn't rollout it's own x86 chipset--with Larrabee on the way, nVidia knows that it will need other revenue streams open if it is to remain competitive. Especially with ATI making a fierce comback to the high-end market.
AndyYankee17
August 28, 2008 at 4:13pm
that'd be neat, 3 CPU/GPU makers, it only means more performance and lower prices for the consumer
Cache
August 28, 2008 at 4:19pm
Depends if each of them use 'custom chipsets' so that if you want Intel as your CPU, you're also stuck with an Intel-only GPU. Or nVidia. Or AMD. You might have competitive prices, but if the tradeoff is that you can't mix and match parts, well then heck, why are we even building our own systems to *our* specifications?
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