Running SLI on an AMD board.

[Shadewraith]

I was reading an article in this month's Maximum PC and in it they talk about how AMD boards don't support SLI. This is going to be very disappointing if there's no way around this. I'm planning on getting an AMD 1090T, but I prefer the GTX 480 in SLI over the Radeon 5970.

I've heard of some method of unlocking SLI capabilities on AMD boards, but I don't know how true that is. Could somebody help me out? Thanks!

 

[Knufire]

They're hacked drivers. As their 3rd party modified, I'm not exactly sure how well they will work.

Also, AMD motherboards that have an AMD chipset don't support SLI. There are AM3 boards that use an NVIDIA chipset, which does officially support SLI. I remember reading here on OCF how there isn't any technological difference between the two, just software and licencing stuff.

Here are two AM3 boards that support SLI:
MSI - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130236
ASUS - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131636

 

[QuietIce]

I was reading an article in this month's Maximum PC and in it they talk about how AMD boards don't support SLI. This is going to be very disappointing if there's no way around this. I'm planning on getting an AMD 1090T, but I prefer the GTX 480 in SLI over the Radeon 5970.

I've heard of some method of unlocking SLI capabilities on AMD boards, but I don't know how true that is. Could somebody help me out? Thanks!

I think a lot of confusion on this subject comes from people (and writers) not clearly recognizing/noting the difference between an AMD motherboard (a motherboard with an AMD socket) and an AMD chipset motherboard. AMD motherboards may or may not support SLI, it all depends on the chipset the board has. As Knufire posted, nVidia still makes chipsets for AMD boards and, as you would expect, those boards support SLI - but not CrossFire. And shame on Maximum PC for not making this more clear.

I should also note for completeness that a single card from either company will run on any AMD board regardless of the chipset manufacturer ...

 

[xoke]

I learned my lesson, lol.


It's true though, many "reputable" sources will simply say SLI isn't supported on an AMD motherboard. When they should say SLI isn't supported by AMD chipsets, however, you can still run an AMD CPU and SLI.

I thinks AMD is a marketing genius on this one to be honest. Nobody speaks about motherboards by the chipset manufacturer...it's always Intel or AMD montherboard...that's it. AMD has capitalized well on the acquisition of Ati. My 2 cents...

 

[VoX1090T]

I'm having a hell of a time getting SLI w/ 2x GTX 480s to work properly on my Crosshair IV Formula.

I'm having to roll all the way back to the 257.12 drivers to keep from BSODing and having my screens blank out and having to hard reset. It's really the challenge of making it work, but I'm very tempted to just go drop the 1500 bucks on an Intel chip and board and say screw it.

 

[QuietIce]

I'm having a hell of a time getting SLI w/ 2x GTX 480s to work properly on my Crosshair IV Formula.

I'm having to roll all the way back to the 257.12 drivers to keep from BSODing and having my screens blank out and having to hard reset. It's really the challenge of making it work, but I'm very tempted to just go drop the 1500 bucks on an Intel chip and board and say screw it.

I'm surprised you can run them at all considering you have the wrong chipset for it. And you can't blame AMD or ASUS for that, I'm pretty sure SLI is not listed in the motherboard specs ...

 

[VoX1090T]

I'm surprised you can run them at all considering you have the wrong chipset for it. And you can't blame AMD or ASUS for that, I'm pretty sure SLI is not listed in the motherboard specs ...

So I'm using this well known hack that's been around for quite some time.

http://xdevs.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.30

So it's possible, it works, just not stable.

All I need are updated "modified" drivers in the 259 series of drivers for this to be stable.

Supposedly they're working on it over at guru3d forums.

..and no.. SLI is not listed in the specs, and no one is blaming AMD or ASUS Did I type a completely different post somewhere without my knowledge? Weird, people assuming things makes me want to punch babies!

 

[QuietIce]

...and no.. SLI is not listed in the specs, and no one is blaming AMD or ASUS Did I type a completely different post somewhere without my knowledge? Weird, people assuming things makes me want to punch babies!

You did not specifically say that, no. But posting self-made problems about an AMD system while at the same time saying "I'm very tempted to just go drop the 1500 bucks on an Intel chip and board and say screw it." sure does imply that. You could just as easily have bought an nVidia chipset board and had no problems at all ...

 

[Shadewraith]

Thanks for the insightful replies, everyone. How can I tell if an AMD board will support SLI? The board I'm currently interested in is the MSI 890FXA-GD70 (http://tinyurl.com/28czg9d).

I really don't want to get into the motherboard hacking if at all possible. It's not that I'm against buying Intel products, it's that I don't want to spend a lot more money if I don't really have to.

 

[Knufire]

It depends on the northbridge/chipset. On Newegg, go to AMD motherboards, click on power search, and scroll down to North Bridge, it clearly says which chipsets are AMD and NVIDIA, and allows you to search based on either one.

That board has the AMD 890FX chipset, which is one, if not, the best AM3 chipset, but it sadly doesn't support SLI.

The two boards I linked to in my previous post use the NVIDIA 980a chipset, which I believe is NVIDIA's flagship AMD chipset (at least going by model numbers).

 

[e6600]

You did not specifically say that, no. But posting self-made problems about an AMD system while at the same time saying "I'm very tempted to just go drop the 1500 bucks on an Intel chip and board and say screw it." sure does imply that. You could just as easily have bought an nVidia chipset board and had no problems at all ...

ewww nvidia amd chipsets

 

[Shadewraith]

ewww nvidia amd chipsets

That's what I said when I saw the mobos. Those things are ugly lol. Oh well, guess I'll go with Radeons for now.