ATI's SLI video cards sound much nicer than NVIDIA's

[Creig]

Thank you for pointing out the obvious, Rollo. But until ATI releases some concrete information, we'll continue to speculate on what ATI AMR may or may not be capable of based on whatever scraps of information that are leaked out.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: Creig
Thank you for pointing out the obvious, Rollo. But until ATI releases some concrete information, we'll continue to speculate on what ATI AMR may or may not be capable of based on whatever scraps of information that are leaked out.

Apparently someone needed to point out the obvious Creig- because posts like "ATIs SLI sound much nicer" based on some rumors might get someone to think ATIs SLI has actually been seen by someone, or may be available for sale someday soon.

My prediction- no ATI SLI this summer, maybe by Christmas.

 

[ronnn]

Originally posted by: Rollo

My prediction- no ATI SLI this summer, maybe by Christmas.

That would be good news, as that would suggests the r520 totally rocks and ATI has no need for gimmicks. 😉

Still your clairvoyance when it comes to ATI has been negative and much off the mark lately.

 

[crazyeddie]

Just an aside, I bought my MSI RS480M2-IL almost two full months ago. In addition to the MSI board, Shuttle is shipping a Radeon Xpress 200-based SFF system. Socket 754 and Socket 939 Radeon Xpress 200 boards are in production from ASUS, Sapphire, Powercolor, and ECS as well as MSI and Shuttle. Why aren't you seeing them? Because they're going to OEMs oversees and they'll probably be showing up in Athlon 64 and Sempron 754 retail systems.

You couldn't give me an Nforce 4 Ultra or an Nforce 4 SLI motherboard even if you offered me a straight trade. My MSI RS480M2-IL benches faster than every comparable (3000+, 1Gb DDR400 Dual Channel, X800XL, standard timing) NF4 Ultra system I've seen scores for. It has everything on it I wanted and it's as stable as any motherboard I've ever used.

I guess being faster and $30 cheaper than most NF4 Ultra boards makes the MSI RS480M2-IL a piece of junk, but I can't figure out why. I love mine and I'm quite delighted with my ATI Radeon Xpress 200 motherboard and X800XL video card.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
Oh, and how is NV any different at all, in this regard, by requiring an NV-chipset (NF4) mobo, to use NV PCI-E SLI video?

If this were true, you would be correct. It is my understanding that nVidia SLI will work on pretty much any motherboard with 2 PCIe x16 slots.

If you remember when SLI was first introduced (not launched), nVidia was actually running SLI on an Intel Tumwater chipset based dual Xeon mobo (from Tyan I think) because this was the only board that had two physical PCIe x16 slots.

Also, this is the reason that you can use the DFI nForce4 Ultra based mobo in an SLI configuration.

The primary diffference between nForce4 SLI and both Tumwater and nForce4 Ultra is that it allows the PCIe x16 slots to be run as dual x8 slots instead of one being x16 and the other being x2. Basically, nForce4 SLI is recommened to get the best performance out of an SLI rig, but it isn't required. Based on this, I wouldn't be surprised if even an ATi Radeon Xpress 200 based mobo could be used with dual nVidia cards in an SLI configuration.

Of course, we will have to see what the requirements are for running ATi's Multi VPU setup. Either way, this is interesting stuff, and way too early to decide on which solution is better.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: nitromullet

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
Oh, and how is NV any different at all, in this regard, by requiring an NV-chipset (NF4) mobo, to use NV PCI-E SLI video?

If this were true, you would be correct. It is my understanding that nVidia SLI will work on pretty much any motherboard with 2 PCIe x16 slots.
If you remember when SLI was first introduced (not launched), nVidia was actually running SLI on an Intel Tumwater chipset based dual Xeon mobo (from Tyan I think) because this was the only board that had two physical PCIe x16 slots.

Ah, thanks for the correction. link
So I guess that both ATI's, and NV's SLI solution will work with Intel chipsets. (Well, not proven yet for the ATI solution - I guess we'll see eventually.)

The primary diffference between nForce4 SLI and both Tumwater and nForce4 Ultra is that it allows the PCIe x16 slots to be run as dual x8 slots instead of one being x16 and the other being x2. Basically, nForce4 SLI is recommened to get the best performance out of an SLI rig, but it isn't required.

Originally posted by: nitromullet
Based on this, I wouldn't be surprised if even an ATi Radeon Express based mobo could be used with dual nVidia cards in an SLI configuration.

Do you mean NV's or ATI's SLI technology, using that hardware config? NV I could see, ATI I just don't. Pretty sure that ATI's, like NV's, requires driver support, and ATI writing drivers for NV video cards, I don't see happening.

Another take on it, EliteBastards thread

 

[Drayvn]

From what i heard nVidia are trying to stop ppl from using 2 nVidia SLI enabled cards on any dual PCI-E slot motherboards. Well they are trying to stop them from doing this on nForce boards, as they didnt like how DFI were doing things...

 

[nitromullet]

Do you mean NV's or ATI's SLI technology, using that hardware config? NV I could see, ATI I just don't. Pretty sure that ATI's, like NV's, requires driver support, and ATI writing drivers for NV video cards, I don't see happening.

When I say "SLI" I mean specifically dual nVidia cards. Based on what I know about SLI, it appears that dual SLI capable nVidia cards will work on any mobo with dual PCIe x16, so I would assume that it should work on a Radeon Xpress 200 mobo with dual PCIe x16 slots. Perhaps the performance will not be optimal though. I don't think that the nForce4 chipset plays much into SLI, except that it makes the two PCIe x16 slots run in a dual x8 configuration.

From what i heard nVidia are trying to stop ppl from using 2 nVidia SLI enabled cards on any dual PCI-E slot motherboards. Well they are trying to stop them from doing this on nForce boards, as they didnt like how DFI were doing things...

That stands to reason. That doesn't mean it doesn't work though.