P5WD2 Premium & "SLI"

Hi guys! I have read a lot of opinions concerning SLI-mode on a P5WD2 Premium mobo; some say it works, some that it doesn't. Reviewers say the dual PCI-E 16x slots are there to increase the amount of monitors, but I doubt it. I recently bought a new rig (check sig), and I am really interested in buying another 7800GTX to my system before the winter. So if anyone have any information (Website or Forum URLs) regarding this, please tell me (if "Top Secret" information, you can PM me ).

I'm really right now, so please help me out.

Nvidia has to enable it in their drivers for it to work. No nvidia has NO PLANS to enable it as of yet. If you can get ahold of the first foreware drivers when the SLI video cards first came out, then it MAY work since those drivers didnt lock SLI into just the NF4 chipset, but nvidia learnt their lesson in later releases and has disabled SLI on every chipset but their own. If you can find these old drivers, you may be able to do it.

But, ATI announced that Crossfire will work on ALL 955X motherboards that have dual 16x slots. So you may wanna switch to ATI to do dual GFX on that board.

Dillusion said:

Nvidia has to enable it in their drivers for it to work. No nvidia has NO PLANS to enable it as of yet. If you can get ahold of the first foreware drivers when the SLI video cards first came out, then it MAY work since those drivers didnt lock SLI into just the NF4 chipset, but nvidia learnt their lesson in later releases and has disabled SLI on every chipset but their own. If you can find these old drivers, you may be able to do it.

But, ATI announced that Crossfire will work on ALL 955X motherboards that have dual 16x slots. So you may wanna switch to ATI to do dual GFX on that board.

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REALLY!?...hmm
so if i could get a 7800gtx or 2x x800xl which would you recommend?

Thanks for your replies. My only concern is that IF I manage to find these first SLI Forceware drivers, what is the chance that the drivers support the 7800GTX GPU?

Solari said:

Thanks for your replies. My only concern is that IF I manage to find these first SLI Forceware drivers, what is the chance that the drivers support the 7800GTX GPU?

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:/

Dillusion said:

But, ATI announced that Crossfire will work on ALL 955X motherboards that have dual 16x slots. So you may wanna switch to ATI to do dual GFX on that board.

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That is some of the best news I've heard in a while, do you have a link or some sort of confirmation?

Well. wonder if Nvidia wouldn't be inclined to make the drivers work on the 955x chipset if crossfire turns out to work just fine. I'm quite certain though, that technically SLI would work just fine one the P5WD2, a guy on overclockers australia had it working with the 66.75 betas and a pair of 6600GT's.

On one hand I understand Nvidias position, and on the other i really don't. From my point of view they're plainly just trying to "milk the market", and since nobody else has anything that rivals SLI on the market they simply have no competition, hence they're not as inclined to support any other chipsets. There could of course be other technical reasons for not supporting it on the P5WD2 at this time, however I really doubt it. I think they just want to sell as many chipsets and videocards as possible and figure this is the way to do it atm.

however with the crappy oc/stability results on current NF4 Intel platforms, there's just no way I'd replace my Asus P5WD2 by a motherboard with the NF4 chipset. So if Nvidia doesn't provide SLI drivers for non-nvidia chipsets I'l just not buy another 7800GTX, I'll buy 2x R520's in stead whenever they come out.

Besides benchmarks and Doom3 this 7800GTX really isn't much faster than my previous x850xt pe anyway. Also I would like a dual card solution that also works with dual monitors, so maybe ATI will end up providing the superior solution after all.

hmmm
what's the expected price on a R520?

d94 said:

hmmm
what's the expected price on a R520?

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I'd guess around the usual $600 a piece at launch?

I have tried the 66.75's and 2 BFG 6800gt's in the whole "SLI" thing on this board. Upon boot and into windows, the sli is recognized, and you can check the box to enable it, and reboot. Upon reboot the dual cards are listed, but once you try and run any games/mark03/05 ect, you get the ever-turning hourglass, and just when you think its gonna go, BAM! The instantanious reboot thing....

The only thing cool is that the chipset can see dual cards for SLI, which means that Nvidia has the means to impliment it on the 945/955 chipset...

I certainly hope so, i just went through 3 Nforce4 Intel SLi boards that were ALL JUNK..... (Biostar,Asus,MSI) None would hold a overclock once in the OS.. (I actually blew the centers out of 4 mosfets on the Biostar board)

With the coming release of Crossfire, i would think that Nvidia would get their act together....

screwtech02 said:

I have tried the 66.75's and 2 BFG 6800gt's in the whole "SLI" thing on this board. Upon boot and into windows, the sli is recognized, and you can check the box to enable it, and reboot. Upon reboot the dual cards are listed, but once you try and run any games/mark03/05 ect, you get the ever-turning hourglass, and just when you think its gonna go, BAM! The instantanious reboot thing....

The only thing cool is that the chipset can see dual cards for SLI, which means that Nvidia has the means to impliment it on the 945/955 chipset...

I certainly hope so, i just went through 3 Nforce4 Intel SLi boards that were ALL JUNK..... (Biostar,Asus,MSI) None would hold a overclock once in the OS.. (I actually blew the centers out of 4 mosfets on the Biostar board)

With the coming release of Crossfire, i would think that Nvidia would get their act together....

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Cool that it actually can be done. We need the drivers to work and also a bios update probably. I'm currently using an Abit NI8 SLI (nforce 4 IE) and max I can get is 242 Mhz fsb, I do 280+ with the P5WD2. So my cpu overclock is almost 800 Mhz short on the Abit Nforce 4 IE.

I'm just waiting for confirmation that crossfire will work on P5WD2. This is one topic that I have not seen alot of discussion about. I don't see why Intel would release a board with 2 PCI-E if there was not pland for SLi and crossfire to work on them.. SLI has been out for quite sometime and still a no go on the P5WD2 premium. If Crossfire does not work on P5WD2 then I won't be buying another ATi product untill R520 or better comes out.

Well, it's all a matter of will to get or give "certification" as far as I have understood the situation. At the moment Nvidia claims it's up to Intel to get certification for the 955x chipset, rather than them providing driver support. According to recent statements from Nvidia regarding how shortage on Intel chipsets was good for them and their nforce4 chipsets sales, it's easy to get the impresion that they don't really care about intel SLI. The poor quality and performance of their Nforce 4 IE chipsets doesn't seem to be of any concern to them what-so-ever. So I'm really not sure just how credible thay are on this matter

According to some Asus engineers SLI will work just fine in the P5WD2 (955x chipset), and they do actually provide an SLI connector with the motherboard, but they're "not allowed" to provide bios support. Now who it is exactly that are not allowing them to do so is a good quuestion. I don't know. I'm sure they do, but they keep quiet about it.

Yesterday I read (Anandtech I believe it was) that ATI announced official support for CF on Intel's own 955x retail boards, so I certainly expect the P5WD2 to support CF as well. What I am really looking forward to, is whether CF will allow the user to swap between dual (or more) monitor mode and CF mode without a reboot. Because that is really a royal pain in the *** with SLI

Turbo said:

What I am really looking forward to, is whether CF will allow the user to swap between dual (or more) monitor mode and CF mode without a reboot. Because that is really a royal pain in the *** with SLI

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I would also like to know this. For those of us running 3 or 4 screens it is a big waist to have two graphics cards and not be able to activate SLI on the fly. If ATI allows CF to be enabled/disabled on the fly in windows I will be seriously considering a switch to ATI.