nVidia SLI patch conspiracy?

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superkdogg

Gawd
Joined
Oct 14, 2004
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Here's my conspiracy theory on the SLI patch being leaked to allow SLI on all 2x16 motherboards.....feel free to comment, but don't flame, ok? (This was already posted as part of another thread, but I decided to repost as it's own since it deserves its own topic).

Nvidia has some great timing for allowing this "leak." Right when R580 boards come out. nVidia, having a great foothold in the A64 tweaker community already and knowing that those with SLI boards probably already have the SLI gfx cards of their choice has allowed anybody with a new ATI Chipset motherboard to now run nV cards in SLI instead of only ATI cards.

To me, that sounds like a convenient way to allow for the sale of more graphics cards, even if it costs some motherboard sales, which is not the end of the world to nV because the profit margins are healthier on gfx chips anyway. NTM, it puts pressure on ATI to make their Crossfire driver support other chipsets as well or you'll have nV's cards that run on any 2x16 (physical slot) motherboard and if you buy ATI cards you can only run xFire with an ATI board. This could potentially limit sales of ATI graphics cards because xFire would only work if you have an ATI board but SLI works on all boards.

I smell something funny, but I don't mind because the idea of getting a couple 7800GT's in my current rig after the 7900's come out sounds good to me. Beats the idea of getting a stupid dongle having, bridge-chipped, not-that-great scaling x800 master card.
 
never thought of it that way, guess my mind doesnt work like that. :rolleyes:
 
One problem, though... I have an Intel-based Asus 975X board that has crossfire support. You don't need an ATI chipset to do crossfire. It's only NVidia that had their system locked out... until people decided to hack the ULi (hence NVidia) release. Dunno if it's consipiracy, but good for everyone that has 2 PCIex slots ;)
 
steviep said:
One problem, though... I have an Intel-based Asus 975X board that has crossfire support. You don't need an ATI chipset to do crossfire. It's only NVidia that had their system locked out... until people decided to hack the ULi (hence NVidia) release. Dunno if it's consipiracy, but good for everyone that has 2 PCIex slots ;)
Click to expand...
I guess you're right on that part. So forcing ATI to allow xFire on Intel chipsets is not one of the advantages. But the rest is still true, including that ATI would have to allow xFire to work on NF4 boards (or did I miss that too) in order to compete.

...and you're also right that it's good for consumers. Like the OP said-it would be nice to simply choose which motherboard you want without having to consider that you are then tied to that brand's video cards and vice versa.
 
The only hole in the conspiracy theory is that this hack was provided by a independent enthusiast who supposedly has no ties with ULI or nvidia. If it was a employee then that's a different story. :D
 
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