You're right, i was mainly pointing out that the hardware is generally identical and the drivers just enable disabled parts of the chip.
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ATI Crossfire or Nvidia SLI support
- Thread starter iansilv
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You're right, i was mainly pointing out that the hardware is generally identical and the drivers just enable disabled parts of the chip.
It would work if they took out those stupid artifical locks that stop you from doing it
It would work if they took out those stupid artifical locks that stop you from doing it
I agree. By artificially locking it, aren't they limiting their ultra high end solutions to like 10% of computer users? This may be why SLI/XFire isn't growing, not just because of price.
You would think that these greedy businesses would want to maximize sales...
They do want to maximise sales. That is how they got Intel to license the NV100 SB for the Skulltrail boards. Nvidia (and probably ATI) supposedly makes more money from motherboard chipsets than they do with video cards. The only cards with great margins are the higher end cards that very few people buy. The rush to the cheaper card isn't as lucrative. Getting an OEM (systembuilder) to user your mobo can rake in more money (sheer volume) than selling higher end video cards ever would.
Nvidia would have to let Apple use SLI without using Nvidia chipset. They didn't let Intel (who is far larger than Apple) use it without the NV100SB. Why would they let Apple use it?
If Apple were to hack their own drivers I think Nvidia would stop giving them driver support. Besides it isn't Vista's fault SLI was horrible, it is Nvidia's fault. MS doesn't write graphics drivers like Apple does.
It would be more likely to see Crossfire support. Since ATI is nicer about it than Nvidia. Of course games would still need to be SLI/Crossfire aware. Although that may not be the case if the X2/GX2 cards are used as they can show up as one card versus two.
Vista was not at fault about it at all - ATI and Nvidia dropped the ball badly on support for CF and SLI in Vista. Hell, their support in XP took forever to get going, and the GX2's quad-SLI was completely forgotten and shoved under the rug.
As far as sales go, motherboard chipsets DO NOT make more money for the companies. They're all relatively small departments - the big money maker for companies is in their mainstream cards. High end cards bring attention to the name but the mainstream is what most people buy and what drives profits.
As far as SLI/CF go, it's both a driver and a software thing. In truth, SLI does NOT require a chip. The Skulltrail has SLI enabled precisely because Intel bought the NV100BSB and thus Nvidia gets money for it - but the NV100SB is not required. Back in the day, people had hacked drivers to enable SLI on the 975X which did not have any nForce chip. CrossFire doesn't require any chip either as it's run quite well on both Intel and AMD chipsets.
Drivers have to unlock the card to work on the motherboard. Drivers also drive how well the card performs. But the software must also take advantage of multi-GPU's. For instance, F.E.A.R. scales really well with SLI/CF while some other games such as World in Conflict, not so much. It's how the game is written as well.
Also, for multi-monitor support: ATI has the advantage on this one as their upcoming CrossFireX supports not only 2-4 GPU's, but it also supports up to 8 monitors. There's a video on youtube of them running a demo with 8 monitors + Flight Sim X. Impressive to say the least
Good news is that multi-GPU support seems to be increasing. ATI released the 3870X2 recently and Nvidia is set to debut the 9800GX2 in early March. Also, ATI's next generation R700 is rumored to use multi-GPU approach as well.
NO. Is that that quote from the nVidia website? Yeah, they need to fix that before someone wastes a bunch of money on cards and fries their motherboard. You can only have two 8800 GT in your Mac Pro because of power restrictions and the fact that there are only two external power cables. Looks like they just changed 7300 to 8800...
I have not found any successful driver hacks that allow the G8x/G9x to work without Nvidia chipsets. So it seems like they have somehow fixed the drivers. So for now to get the latest and greatest it does require a chip.
I guess I was mistaken on the mobo thing. I has seemed to recall Nvidia posting crazy profits due to the Nforce mobo's doing so well. Truthfully AMD chips pretty much were only worth it when running Nforce. You haven't seen the same level of pickup with Intel chips due to Intel having a pretty good chipset/mobo already. ATI/AMD has to get cranking on the chipset/mobo front.
Actually there is a physical limitation. Something about a northbridge needs to be present, and Nvidia SLI MCP's. I've done a little research on this myself. Sorry to burst your bubble.
You only needed hacked drivers and the SLI bridge for 7 series cards I believe. Though I would think Nvidia either made it so their chips needed to be present with 8 series cards, or no one wants to create the hacked drivers anymore.
If you look at, and read about the SkullTrail motherboard that intel is developing you'll notice PC gamers are completely going off the hook crazy because intel is using server FB-DIMM's for RAM rather than high performance gaming memory. (which is like 40% slower for gaming on a PC)
The other thing you'll notice is if you look at it closely - being that it has FB-DIMM's it is basically the same motherboard Apple is using now accept it has the Nvidia MCP's on it for SLI. Makes you wonder.
The other thing you'll notice is if you look at it closely - being that it has FB-DIMM's it is basically the same motherboard Apple is using now accept it has the Nvidia MCP's on it for SLI. Makes you wonder.
If you look at, and read about the SkullTrail motherboard that intel is developing you'll notice PC gamers are completely going off the hook crazy because intel is using server FB-DIMM's for RAM rather than high performance gaming memory. (which is like 40% slower for gaming on a PC)
The other thing you'll notice is if you look at it closely - being that it has FB-DIMM's it is basically the same motherboard Apple is using now accept it has the Nvidia MCP's on it for SLI. Makes you wonder.
Wonder what?
lol, if a variation on this motherboard could be in the next Mac Pro. If it is, when the next ones come out, I'll sell mine and get one.
Unlikely. I can't imagine that their is any real money to be made for Apple from it.
That depends on how much they make on graphics cards, but I wasn't pointing to Apple making money from it as the reason. It's common for for Apple to use the best intel motherboard and XEON processors available in the Mac Pro. And there is the fact that they have never been able to support SLI until now. If it's a question of people using it, there are plenty of threads concerning Apple and SLI at Apples own forums along with every other forum on the internet. And I don't see how it could be a drawback for those who wouldn't want to use it because if you don't want it; just don't buy a second graphics card and you have a standard motherboard.
I think there is a good chance that Apple will have this board in the next Mac Pro. It'll be about a year away before the Mac Pro motherboard is updated if you ask me, but I think there is a good chance that this will be in it. Or at least in the high end version.
Actually there is a physical limitation. Something about a northbridge needs to be present, and Nvidia SLI MCP's. I've done a little research on this myself. Sorry to burst your bubble.
You didn't burst any bubble because you are wrong. SLI doesn't need anything hardware wise on the motherboard (except for dual PCI-E slots which can accommodate graphics cards) to work.
Please prove me wrong
I can't because i don't have the hacked drivers nor an SLI rig. I also don't really want to look for them or hack the drivers myself.
The limitation is simply driver related, but it needs a lot of work to hack them (or else everyone would have hacked them and they would be readily available).
EDIT: I'm not positive about this, but i read that the nVidia chip on the skulltrail motherboards simply contains an encrypted "key" which tells the drivers to allow SLI to work. It sounds plausible.
26 Page Thread talks about using hacked driver to run SLi. From what I have read in it, it doesn't seem like anyone has gotten the GF8 series to work without Nvidia MCP (or SB).
No one is saying you couldn't do it with a 7 series card, but from what developers are saying you can not do it now.
Here read up.
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=SLI+hack+patch&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
Here read up.
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=SLI+hack+patch&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8