Intel blocks Nvidia from running SLI on Conroe platforms

[ShadowOfMyself]

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=32667

WE GOT some interesting input on Intel not supporting SLI on its Conroe-supporting motherboards. Up until now, we, and our, sources have blamed it all on Nvidia but it turns out we might be wrong about that.

There is a big chance that Intel doesn't want to allow Nvidia to run SLI, as it doesn't want to make a big thing about SLI on its own Conroe machines.

Intel is in the bed with ATI and signed a cross-licensing agreement quite some time ago, the upshot of which is that it officially supports ATI's Crossfire on Intel 975/965 boards. We hear that Intel doesn?t want to let Nvidia's SLI to run on its boards, at least not officially.

There will no-doubt be a leaked driver that will allow such a scenario, but even if the high-end tweakers society might be happy about it, none of the system integrators or OEMs will make such a machine as the driver would never be official and WHQL.

Doesnt sound like a rumor, does it? Specially after that Ati + Intel campaign for crossfire with i975 boards... Comments?

 

[Acanthus]

I smell a lawsuit coming...

Why grant the chipset license then force them to disable features?

I could see Intel intentionally forcing SLI problems on their own chipset, but on Nvidias chipset? Thats a joke.

Edit: unless im reading this wrong?

Are we only talking about intel chipset boards?

If so then... I dont care, the Nforce 590 for Intel is faster anyway.

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

We hear that Intel doesn?t want to let Nvidia's SLI to run on its boards, at least not officially.

Seems it's Intel only... would be really stupid to not allow sli on nvidia boards imo

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
...

Are we only talking about intel chipset boards?

If so then... I dont care, the Nforce 590 for Intel is faster anyway.

It would be nice though to not have your motherboard choice today dictate your future multi-gpu purchases. Motherboards usually last longer than video cards for me, and in my current situation I can't go with a dual ATI card setup without replacing my motherboard. It would be nice not to be forced into a whole rebuild (and OS/app install) just to switch to a different video card setup.

 

[Genx87]

Nvidia has its own chipset coming out for Conroe and it looks promising. For conspiracy theorists, could this tie in with Dell working with AMD? Dell likes the lucrative graphics workstation market where selling SLI quadro's could make them lots of money. If Intel crashed SLI on Conroe platforms it could have hurt Dells plan to offer such a platform?

 

[TheRyuu]

Nvidia will have it's own SLI platform based on the proven and good 590 chipsets.

Personally, I would like to set ATI, Nvidia and all the other board manufacturers reach some agreement that they can ALL run each others hardware (SLI and Xfire) on ALL of the mobo's. So if I had an Intel mobo, I would like to be able to run Xfire and SLI on it, if I had an ATI mobo, I want to run Xfire and SLI on it, and same goes for nvidia.

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: wizboy11
Nvidia will have it's own SLI platform based on the proven and good 590 chipsets.

Personally, I would like to set ATI, Nvidia and all the other board manufacturers reach some agreement that they can ALL run each others hardware (SLI and Xfire) on ALL of the mobo's. So if I had an Intel mobo, I would like to be able to run Xfire and SLI on it, if I had an ATI mobo, I want to run Xfire and SLI on it, and same goes for nvidia.

That'll never happen.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: thilan29

Originally posted by: wizboy11
Nvidia will have it's own SLI platform based on the proven and good 590 chipsets.

Personally, I would like to set ATI, Nvidia and all the other board manufacturers reach some agreement that they can ALL run each others hardware (SLI and Xfire) on ALL of the mobo's. So if I had an Intel mobo, I would like to be able to run Xfire and SLI on it, if I had an ATI mobo, I want to run Xfire and SLI on it, and same goes for nvidia.

That'll never happen.

Maybe... The main reasons that it isn't happening today are because ATI has such a small share of the chipset market and because most serious gamers choose AMD over Intel. NVIDIA can lock Xfire and Intel out of SLI without having to worry about reprecussions from this market segment. However, if after Conroe's launch Intel becomes the gamer's choice, and Intel prevents SLI from working on its chipsets, you might all of a sudden see NVIDIA more interested in sitting down to discuss options with ATI and Intel on how to make things a bit more cross compatible.

 

[Ulfhednar]

Death to SLi and Crossfire!

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: thilan29

Originally posted by: wizboy11
Nvidia will have it's own SLI platform based on the proven and good 590 chipsets.

Personally, I would like to set ATI, Nvidia and all the other board manufacturers reach some agreement that they can ALL run each others hardware (SLI and Xfire) on ALL of the mobo's. So if I had an Intel mobo, I would like to be able to run Xfire and SLI on it, if I had an ATI mobo, I want to run Xfire and SLI on it, and same goes for nvidia.

That'll never happen.

Not to rile up the whole "one card \ two card" debate, but you can run a 7950GX2 on an ATI board.

The new Intel chipsets are not out yet, nor is Conroe. This seems like more Inq FUD. Obviously the NVIDIA based Conroe chipsets will support SLI so it would only hurt Intel to not support it.

 

[Hyperlite]

If its just the Intel chipsets that will be blocking SLI, then we have nothing to worry about. I highly doubt any of us would be using Mobos with intel chipsets.

I just don't see something like this happening, it would cause too much of a stir.

 

[LittleNemoNES]

ATi won't have conroe chips for a while so they partnered with intel. So Intel is not allowing SLI on their own chipsets. However, Nvidia can still have a prescense as it always has -- from folks like ASUS, etc. This is only for Intel boards. I forgot where I got this from so don't get pissed @ me if you know better. However, I'm quite confident that's what's going on.

 

[Soccerman06]

I really dont care, all I want is the fastest single card solution out there, thats all I care for, and I cant afford anything more than 1 card now days.

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: Wreckage

Originally posted by: thilan29

Originally posted by: wizboy11
Nvidia will have it's own SLI platform based on the proven and good 590 chipsets.

Personally, I would like to set ATI, Nvidia and all the other board manufacturers reach some agreement that they can ALL run each others hardware (SLI and Xfire) on ALL of the mobo's. So if I had an Intel mobo, I would like to be able to run Xfire and SLI on it, if I had an ATI mobo, I want to run Xfire and SLI on it, and same goes for nvidia.

That'll never happen.

Not to rile up the whole "one card \ two card" debate, but you can run a 7950GX2 on an ATI board.

That's true, but requires a bios update and isn't compatible with all boards right?

Actually on the NVIdia website there is only 1 ATI chipset motherboard on the compatibility list. The rest (about 50 motherboards) are either NVidia, Intel, and one VIA chipset.

 

[Gstanfor]

Good to see intel is as morally upright as always.... And they chose a chipset partner who shares their morality....

About all chipsets being able to run all flavors of SLI, I find it highly ironic that the technology that was supposed to unify expansion choices for the mess that preceded it (PCI-e) has ended up creating more division than we have ever seen...

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: Gstanfor
Good to see intel is as morally upright as always.... And they chose a chipset partner who shares their morality....

huh?? You mean like how NVidia doesn't allow anything but SLI versions of chipsets to run SLI?? (ie. some NF4 Ultra mbs that had 2 X16 PCI-e slots used to be able to run SLI I think but NVidia changed something about the chipset ID or something like that.) And how no ULI motherboards got SLI support even after NVidia bought them. Oh how moral of them. How pathetic of you to even say something like that because it has everything to do with business, which isn't always moral unfortunately.

Is this your argument until G80 comes out?? That ATI isn't moral?? You mad you're not part of a "focus group"??

As keys said, you really are gonna go into every thread and start a flamewar aren't ya??

 

[Ackmed]

Rumor, and I doubt that would happen.

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: Ackmed
Rumor, and I doubt that would happen.

If Intel would block SLI from running on it's OWN chipsets (ie. the 945/965/975 chipsets) then that would probably make sense. I don't think the article says anything about completely blocking SLI(even on Nvidia chipsets) though.

 

[Sc4freak]

Originally posted by: Ulfhednar
Death to SLi and Crossfire!

:thumbsup:

And even if this does come to pass, who cares? The majority of the market will be using Intel's chipsets, but those who have SLI won't, even if they could.