Bulldozer SLI?

[maniacalpha1-1]

First off, what's the expected release date on Bulldozer? Googling shows anything from Q1, to April, to "later in 2011".

Secondly, I decided to get an Nvidia card recently, are Bulldozer mobos likely to rarely support SLI like current AM3 boards do? (which I say based on the fact I can't find more than a few AM3 SLI boards on Newegg).

 

[cusideabelincoln]

It's up to Nvidia and motherboard makers to allow SLI.

 

[SickBeast]

You can get SLI to work on a Crossfire motherboard by patching the drivers.

From what I've heard, Nvidia has no interest in supporting the AMD platform. If Bulldozer turns out to be a wild success, then NV may change their minds.

 

[Wreckage]

The last official date I've heard for Bulldozer was the 2nd half of 2011. Kind of vague.

 

[busydude]

The last official date I've heard for Bulldozer was the 2nd half of 2011. Kind of vague.

BD coming out in Q2 2011.

 

[digitaldurandal]

I don't believe nVidia could legally disallow them a license, however do you think AMD is going to pay for one?

My take is that there is no reason to go with an AMD processor in the first place. If you look at the charts AMD has made they are comparing like a six core bulldozer to a four core i7... and it is an i7 from the previous generation.

Bulldozer is not going to be some super awesome AMD top of the line chip like the FX series was. I predict Intel will continue to have the top end processors for gaming for at least two more years. Perhaps if more games went more multithreaded then they could capture it but as most games still only make good use of three cores I do not see what they are going to do with six that Intel has not been doing with 4 + HT. Sandybridge is clocking to almost five GHz on air.

I do feel bad for AMD, my first PC was a 1ghz Athlon.

 

[bryanW1995]

The last official date I've heard for Bulldozer was the 2nd half of 2011. Kind of vague.

BS, you have posted in several threads where jfamd has repeatedly said q2. He's never vague about it, either. You might have heard RUMORS of delays, and those rumors could even be correct, but unless you have a specific OFFICIAL source to back up your claims then go take your fud somewhere else.

@Digitaldurandal: Nvidia can legally decide what to do (or not do) with their IP. What are you saying, that AMD could somehow force nvidia to offer them an sli license???? lmfao!!! NV's decision to offer it (or not) really depends upon where they view their greatest threat: right now they view amd graphics as a greater threat than intel cpu/graphics so they're not helping amd. If in the future they determine that intel is the greater threat (and amd is still a viable partner) then they'll make nice with amd and possibly even shut out intel. Of course, nvidia's longer term strategy is probably arm + nvidia graphics with no support at all for amd OR intel platforms.

@OP: sickbeast has it right, you can run sli on an crossfire-enabled board already, it just requires a few driver tweaks. I don't know of any boards out there that are sli but not crossfire, but you could also theoretically make this work as well.

 

[Arkadrel]

I heard that AMD gives the crossfire licence up for free...

I heard nvidia isnt intrested in allowing AMD to have SLI, so they overprice the license to the point where it doesnt make sense for amd to have SLI motherboards.

So... no you probably wont see SLI amd boards with bulldozers... unless nvidia changes their stance on things.

You can get SLI to work on a Crossfire motherboard by patching the drivers.

Its like the physx issue.... hacked drivers get you far, with nvidia.

by issue, I mean, physx doesnt work with a dedicated physx card from nvidia, if your main card is a AMD product. Theres no reason not to, other than they dont want their cards used that way (which is odd because it might mean more people would buy a lowend nvidia card put in with their main card (if they went amd)).

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

I know intel has the most powerful processors, but AMD processors still get the job done, as far as games. Or they come close enough that if bulldozer even made up half the gap between the best current AMD processor and Sandy Bridge, and at the same time retained similar pricing and motherboard pricing, it would still be economically sensible to go AMD.

Of course I don't know what the intended BD pricing is for the CPU and mobos, if it's up there with SB then what I just said is much less meaningful.

I'm not an Nvidia fanboy either, I just happened to buy, and like, a GTX 560 and think SLIing another one in the next 12 months would be a great option...

 

[mnewsham]

I know intel has the most powerful processors, but AMD processors still get the job done, as far as games. Or they come close enough that if bulldozer even made up half the gap between the best current AMD processor and Sandy Bridge, and at the same time retained similar pricing and motherboard pricing, it would still be economically sensible to go AMD.

Of course I don't know what the intended BD pricing is for the CPU and mobos, if it's up there with SB then what I just said is much less meaningful.

I'm not an Nvidia fanboy either, I just happened to buy, and like, a GTX 560 and think SLIing another one in the next 12 months would be a great option...

SLI usually isnt a good upgrade option, there will be better GPU's in 12 months (28nm) that will use less power and give better performance, you could sell your 560 in 12 months and buy the next gen GPU of your choice.


Just my $0.02