SLI, only possible with nForce chipsets?

I'm not really much into hardware atm, and I'm kinda lost. I'm wondering if SLI is only possible on motherboards with nvidia chipsets, or will it also work on Intel motherboards with 2 PCI-E slots?

you'll want the x38 intel chipsets if you want sli on intel chipset

Warren G said:

you'll want the x38 intel chipsets if you want sli on intel chipset

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AFAIK thats still a rumor

SLI in Nvidia
Crossfire is ATI

but its the same thing

You can actually get some hacked drivers that will allow you to run SLI on a crossfire board. But these drivers aren't exactly widely available and/or updated frequently. So it's really best to have an SLI board to do SLI.

jivetrky said:

You can actually get some hacked drivers that will allow you to run SLI on a crossfire board. But these drivers aren't exactly widely available and/or updated frequently. So it's really best to have an SLI board to do SLI.

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I read about those some time ago and actually just responded to someone else too about this.
The PCIexpress standard is the same whether ATI or Nvidia its the drivers device ID that allows or dissalows the crossfire or SLI function.

Like he says it can be done its just maybe not practicale right now.

Wardog

hibner said:

SLI in Nvidia
Crossfire is ATI
but its the same thing

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You won't belive how different the two technologies actually are. As for PCIe, that's a standard that does not vary across anything.

You can Run SLI and CrossFire on any mainboard that has dual PCIe slots, they just have to be 16x size, you only need 8x signal.
But you'll need hacked drivers to get SLI working on non-SLI mainboards, mainboards that do not use nVidia's chipset.
Crossfire works on INtel and ATi chipsets just fine, you can get it to work on SLI chipsets, but you'll probaly need hacked drivers as well.

nVidia really wants a stick up their *** for now allowing SLI on other mainboards, they would of ended up loosing their chipset market a fait bit and end up with a lot more of the GPU market... but then again, SLI is the HEMI of the computer industry...

ChinStrap said:

AFAIK thats still a rumor

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more like a confirmed rumor. besides for Intel supposedly acquiring a SLI license at computex, foxconn showed some mobos with SLI & CF support:

http://img.hexus.net/v2/internationalevents/computex2007/JARS/Wednesday/DSCF3977_cropped-big.jpg

...you can choose between an ATi CrossFire set up and NVIDIA dual graphics...

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i'm not gonna hold my breath. it would be cool should intel start running SLi - but NV has been very protective of it in the past.

Not that this matters at all, but it never says SLi in the picture, but crossfire is there a couple of times..

maybe they found a work around... "Nv duel graphics" ?

ChinStrap said:

i'm not gonna hold my breath. it would be cool should intel start running SLi - but NV has been very protective of it in the past.

Not that this matters at all, but it never says SLi in the picture, but crossfire is there a couple of times..

maybe they found a work around... "Nv duel graphics" ?

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yeah, I had my doubts about that too, it could just be Foxconn's own proprietary support for both of them. either way, if NV dual graphics != SLI, then that's a pretty low move

shirker said:

yeah, I had my doubts about that too, it could just be Foxconn's own proprietary support for both of them. either way, if NV dual graphics != SLI, then that's a pretty low move

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i guess this fall we will find out - i would really think about switching, should intel actually support SLi. these Nv chipsets can cook the b-fast in the morning. man do they warm up.

ChinStrap said:

i guess this fall we will find out - i would really think about switching, should intel actually support SLi. these Nv chipsets can cook the b-fast in the morning. man do they warm up.

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I think I would get a intel chipset as well, as long as SLI was pos.