SLI "cracked' on older Intel chipsets (P45 / x38 / x48)

D

DeadSkull

Supreme [H]ardness
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Turns out you can run SLI on your older Intel chipsets after all. Also since when is P45 and X48 already old? :p

Expreview exclusive

One reader named Firewings [CCG] at Expreview forum (Chinese version) has figured out the way to get SLI support for its Asus Maximus Formula motherboard based on Intel X38 chipset, with one NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT and one GeForce GTX 260 graphics card.
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From TPU
Firewings_[CCG] successfully ran SLI of GeForce 8600 GT and GeForce GTX 260 cards on his Intel X38+ICH9R chipset based ASUS Maximus Formula motherboard. The feat is headed by software he modified, details of which will surface soon. The mod was validated by Expreview staff, who used the software to run GeForce GTX 260 SLI on a more recent P45+ICH10R based Maximus II Formula motherboard.
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Dont know about you guys but I really pissed of at Nvidia right now. This arrogant move by Nvidia cost them at least two sales on my part; another GTX 280 and 8800 Ultra. Way to go guys!
 
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Hahahahahaha............nvidia, we are owning all your SLi.:eek::eek:

I wonder why the guy used an 8600 and a 260??? No money??? Maybe he's looking to get sponsorship from nvidia.;)
 
magoo said:
Hahahahahaha............nvidia, we are owning all your SLi.:eek::eek:

I wonder why the guy used an 8600 and a 260??? No money??? Maybe he's looking to get sponsorship from nvidia.;)
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He used 2 x 8600GT and 2 x GTX 260. Someone translated it wrong I guess.
 
Very nice, I'm happy with my crossfire setup but more options are always a good thing.

I just hope that this becomes a viable long-term option, not something NVidia kills off the first chance they get.
 
It'll get killed, he probably just figured out a way to fool the drivers into thinking they were on an nVidia or x58 board. Same thing they used to do with the 975 boards.
 
ND40oz said:
It'll get killed, he probably just figured out a way to fool the drivers into thinking they were on an nVidia or x58 board. Same thing they used to do with the 975 boards.
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Yea but remember Nvidia used to say that it was a hardware not a software obstacle with Intel chipsets preceding x58.
 
It's just Nvidia not conforming to PCIe standards, unlike AMD which ironically could run Crossfire on Intel chipsets. :rolleyes:

Go figure, Nvidia.
 
Syntax Error said:
It's just Nvidia not conforming to PCIe standards, unlike AMD which ironically could run Crossfire on Intel chipsets. :rolleyes:

Go figure, Nvidia.
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That's not it at all, it's just nVidia locking their technology down to what hardware it wants to.
 
schizrade said:
Lol, ok.
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Well, their main reason was so that they can sell their nForce chipsets at around $30 or so a pop to the motherboard manufacturer as a means to generate extra income by making SLI "proprietary" rather than making it intercompatible with Intel chipsets alike. It was just an additional layer of BS that wasn't really necessary, and if the SLI limitation is really in fact software-based in the drivers, then that's great. For X58, the point is kind of moot, but for platforms before LGA1366, that's good news for those who want to "hax" SLI on their Intel motherboards, which let's face it, are usually better than nVidia platforms. :rolleyes:
 
Too bad Nvidia lost my business when they decided on rebadging crap multiple times and calling it new.

Although I might pick up a used card for Physx support at some point.... still - Nvidia won't be getting any of my money in the form of new product purchases.
 
cyclone3d said:
snip

still - Nvidia won't be getting any of my money in the form of new product purchases.
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If they cant get their drivers to stop responding, they wont be getting any more of my money either! ive had this issue way too long
 
meh, DSRM under XP is nothing to get excited about yet. Remember NGOHQ's fake PhysX on ATI "news"? :p
 
pxc said:
meh, DSRM under XP is nothing to get excited about yet. Remember NGOHQ's fake PhysX on ATI "news"? :p
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You read my mind on that one.

Also, if its "cracked" that must mean its just software after all, aka Nvidia is full of shiet. This also means that it could be "cracked" pretty much the same way for an AM3/DDR3 system since there's only one AM3/DDR3 SLI solution in existence that I know of (new MSI board, news was dropped on Aug 4 according to google). I've got 4 PCIe slots, and was planning to go to ATI for DX11/Win7 and use my GTX 275 for physx only. If its "crackable" though I may just opt for 2 mid-range G300 cards when they come out. We shall see if this is just BS or not in a few I suppose...
 
cyclone3d said:
Too bad Nvidia lost my business when they decided on rebadging crap multiple times and calling it new.
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They did it because Nvidia announced last year they are going to revamp their naming scheme so it makes more sense. All products that were currently being supported at the time, even the 8800/9800 were renamed to fit their new naming scheme, hense the 250, which falls in line with the 260 275 etc. It had nothing to do with 'rebranding' old as new.
 
Sounds interesting. I'll believe it when its more than a 'Random Reader has discovered a Secret Sauce that he hasn't actually divulged or demonstrated to anyone yet!' rumor.
 
Would be nice if nVidia would just cut the crap and officially support SLI on all Intel chipsets, then I could add a 2nd GTX 260 to my p45 board. :D As it is, the 2nd PCIe slot can only be used for Physx. I confess I have no idea if it is drivers alone that limit SLI to nVidia chipsets or if it's really something special about nVidia's chipsets. My gut says nVidia was just greedy and wanted to force their boards on us rather than just compete toe to toe with Intel. But then again, I'm an idiot.
 
Does Nvidia even make chipsets anymore? The only recent announcements I can think were rebrands of pre-existing AMD chipsets for AM3, and Ion (rebranded Geforce 9400M). What possible reason would Nvidia have for continuing to make SLI propietary when they don't even compete in the desktop motherboard arena anymore?
 
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King of Heroes said:
Does Nvidia even make chipsets anymore? The only recent announcements I can think were rebrands of pre-existing AMD chipsets for AM3, and Ion (rebranded Geforce 9400M). What possible reason would Nvidia have for continuing to make SLI propietary when they don't even compete in the desktop motherboard arena anymore?
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SLI licensing. They get a chunk of money from each license sold for a mobo supporting SLI.
 
I had a DFI ultra-D with the pen mod for SLI a while back its all software lock down on nvidia's part for licensing. Comes as no surprise somebody figured out how to make it work but it wont really be SLI optimized as I recall.
 
bigdogchris said:
They did it because Nvidia announced last year they are going to revamp their naming scheme so it makes more sense. All products that were currently being supported at the time, even the 8800/9800 were renamed to fit their new naming scheme, hense the 250, which falls in line with the 260 275 etc. It had nothing to do with 'rebranding' old as new.
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8800 == 9800 == GTX250 for the most part.... the "GTX250" should really not be in the "GTX" line as it is NOT based on GT200.

9800 was nothing new... still the same architecture as 8800 with a few small differences. Should have been 8900 or something like that... a whole primary number jump was not warranted just like the GTX250 number change is not warranted.

Having tons of different names for essentially the same product is misleading at the very least and very underhanded and deceiving at the worst.

"New naming scheme".. HA.... more like "let's milk all the money we can out of the unsuspecting masses who don't know the difference".
 
cyclone3d said:
8800 == 9800 == GTX250 for the most part.... the "GTX250" should really not be in the "GTX" line as it is NOT based on GT200.

9800 was nothing new... still the same architecture as 8800 with a few small differences. Should have been 8900 or something like that... a whole primary number jump was not warranted just like the GTX250 number change is not warranted.

Having tons of different names for essentially the same product is misleading at the very least and very underhanded and deceiving at the worst.

"New naming scheme".. HA.... more like "let's milk all the money we can out of the unsuspecting masses who don't know the difference".
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at least get the name right...its GTS250. ;)
 
I really want to try this. I have two 8600GT's because my 680i mobo died like many others. But now I have a X38...
 
cyclone3d said:
8800 == 9800 == GTX250 for the most part.... the "GTX250" should really not be in the "GTX" line as it is NOT based on GT200.

9800 was nothing new... still the same architecture as 8800 with a few small differences. Should have been 8900 or something like that... a whole primary number jump was not warranted just like the GTX250 number change is not warranted.

Having tons of different names for essentially the same product is misleading at the very least and very underhanded and deceiving at the worst.

"New naming scheme".. HA.... more like "let's milk all the money we can out of the unsuspecting masses who don't know the difference".
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Here we go again...:rolleyes:

First and as was pointed out already, it's GTS 250...not GTX 250.

Second, NVIDIA was changing their naming scheme and GT200 is the codename of the CHIP. It does NOT have anything to do with the naming scheme. Naming schemes denote performance deltas between cards, NOT chip codenames. Why is it so hard to understand this very, very basic concept ?

Third, who's deceived if the performance is there ? This "argument" of deceiving people is really boring and getting very, very old. If the performance wasn't there, I would agree, but it performs just as it should, so NO ONE is being deceived. Would we like to have something better ? Of course, everyone would. But if they have year old parts that compete with ATI's newest at that price point, why spend R&D money on a new chip ?
 
well once i find a decent intel laptop with ati graphics (doesn't have to be very good, just better than integrated) i'm ditching this dell with nvidia graphics
 
Silus said:
Here we go again...:rolleyes:

First and as was pointed out already, it's GTS 250...not GTX 250.

Second, NVIDIA was changing their naming scheme and GT200 is the codename of the CHIP. It does NOT have anything to do with the naming scheme. Naming schemes denote performance deltas between cards, NOT chip codenames. Why is it so hard to understand this very, very basic concept ?

Third, who's deceived if the performance is there ? This "argument" of deceiving people is really boring and getting very, very old. If the performance wasn't there, I would agree, but it performs just as it should, so NO ONE is being deceived. Would we like to have something better ? Of course, everyone would. But if they have year old parts that compete with ATI's newest at that price point, why spend R&D money on a new chip ?
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You say naming schemes denote performance deltas. Everyone that knows just a little bit about computers knows a GTX2xx is faster than a 9xxx. Why's is so far fetch to believe that a GTS 250 should fall between the two? I've seen so many people fall for the renaming thing it's not even funny. Intentionally done or not, it's deceptive.

As for spending R&D money, why not just take the existing GT200 architecture and dull it down, there's no research involved. Instead of 112 shader, make one have 96. Then drop the core speeds a bit and disable some the memory bus' width (320-bit 640MB) . Call that the GTS 250. No, what they want is to keep selling the technology they already have on hand that costs absolutely nothing to make anymore.

You say naming schemes denote performance deltas. Everyone that knows just a little bit about computers knows a GTX2xx is faster than a 9xxx. Why's is so far fetch to believe that a GTS 250 should fall between the two? I've seen so many people fall for the renaming thing it's not even funny. Intentionally done or not, it's deceptive.

As for spending R&D money, why not just take the existing GT200 architecture and dull it down, there's no research involved. Instead of 112 shader, make one have 96. Then drop the core speeds a bit and disable some the memory bus' width (320-bit 640MB) . Call that the GTS 250. No, what they want is to keep selling the technology they already have on hand that costs absolutely nothing to make anymore.


As for SLI being cracked, I sure hope it's true. I'd throw another GTX260 beside my current on on this P5Q Pro in a heartbeat.
 
bigdogchris said:
They did it because Nvidia announced last year they are going to revamp their naming scheme so it makes more sense. All products that were currently being supported at the time, even the 8800/9800 were renamed to fit their new naming scheme, hense the 250, which falls in line with the 260 275 etc. It had nothing to do with 'rebranding' old as new.
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as a business aspect you are correct.. as a consumer aspect.. its more of a trickery on uneducated buyers.. which they are the majority in the consumer world.. and it worked with the GTS 250.. if you take a look at most of the posts about the gts 250 in this forum.. you relize just how well it worked..

the 2 8800GT's i currently own will be the last nvidia cards i ever own unless for some odd reason ATI goes belly up and disappears.. ive had it with nvidia's drivers.. and im done dealing with their rebadging of cards..
 
nvidia: ALL YOUR SLI ARE BELONG TO ME

community: U SAY WHAT?!?!

nvidia: WE HAVE GREAT DISASTER MOBOS, YOUR PC IS ON THE PATH TO DESTRUCTION

community: MOVE ZIG

Ending: All is peaceful. But it is incorrect. Nvidia is still alive. Must fight with Nvidia again and down with them completely.

oh wait I have ATI

i pity people that bought headache-mobos just to get SLI
 
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This can be very big for Intel Chipset users with Core2's, but I have a bad feeling it'll get blocked in future updates. I wonder if this works with a P35 board too...might not be a bad idea to find another 8800GT for dirt cheap somehow. For now I'll just watch and see how this plays out...

Edit: wait a second - pardon my lack of knowledge on this, but with SLI, don't you need the bridge connector to pull it off? I checked both of the OP's articles and I don't see it mentioned.
 
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Kaiyoko-Desu said:
This can be very big for Intel Chipset users with Core2's, but I have a bad feeling it'll get blocked in future updates. I wonder if this works with a P35 board too...might not be a bad idea to find another 8800GT for dirt cheap somehow. For now I'll just watch and see how this plays out...

Edit: wait a second - pardon my lack of knowledge on this, but with SLI, don't you need the bridge connector to pull it off? I checked both of the OP's articles and I don't see it mentioned.
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A bridge connector can be easily obtained..
 
Kaiyoko-Desu said:
Ahh. That's what I get for not keeping up with hardware anymore =P
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well, if you think about it, there's only so many ways to layout PCIe connectors and still have slot usable when using two dual slot cards. Plus the spacing between slots is standardized. So, you just find an SLI motherboard that a similar PCIe layout as the one you have, and order a replacement bridge or get it off of ebay. Or you can just get a fliexible bridge, if those are even made for SLI (I know they are for Crossfire).
 
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