I think that alot of you guys should go back and read the article again. It is very clear that the DFI Ultra board that Wesley Fink tested was modded to be an exact duplicate of the DFI SLI marketed board. The Ultra was tested at x8 x8 and not just the x16 x2 that is stated here several times. And make no mistake the performance is identical. Here is a quote from the article stating as such "We first confirmed that test results were the same on the LANParty UT modified to SLI and the LANParty nF4 SLI, which is a native SLI chipset board. There was no difference in performance after the SLI modification to the Ultra chipset, so results are reported as SLI and relevant to either SLI or Ultra modified to SLI" The x16 x2 results were included just to see what the penalty would be for that configuration. Of course, probably no other manufacturer will release an Ultra board with two x16 PCIe slots and the x16 x2 results would represent the performance of those other Ultra boards with the mod. Hell, DFI probably won't release this one if Nvidia has anything to say about it. I'm curious to see how this plays out. Any bets on Nvidia putting the sqeeze on manufacturers that try to use an "Ultra" chipset on a SLI pcb with two x16 slots?
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Ultra turned SLi!!!
- Thread starter mickey987
- Start date
If they do it it's possible we may never actually know about it. There's very many ways of doing it that aren't instantly evident (such as giving them chips slower than other manufacturers, etc.) and it's not in the manufacturer's interest to reveal it either. Same stuff happens with manufacturers that produce both ATI/NVidia cards, etc.
http://www.dfi.com.tw/Upload/Product_Picture/nF4_UltraD_B&A1.jpg
look on the left side of the packaging materials....SLI CONNECTOR.
OK /me is really confused. Why would an sli connector be there if you need matched pair of GPUs to use it? Here is my theory!!!!
1) DFi was mad that they were not one the the BIG 3 that could initially help design/qa/troubleshoot NF4 chipsets (ASUS, MSI, GIGABYTE).
2)DFI finds that driver hacks work to enable x16 + x2 with NF4UD
3)NVIDIA disables said driver hack
4)DFI is mad
5)DFI finds said exploit.......instead of engineering separate PCB for the NF4UD, they throw NF4UD on the same pcb as the SLI...the lego-block connectors are still there on the NF4UD to turn it into X8-X8
soooooo this begets another question.....HOW DID THEY ENABLE X16 = X2?
My theory is that they selected slot 2 to be x2 through bios (or how it is normally) AND USED sli connector...this will make that card2card bandwidth avaliable that wouldnt be availalble in other configs that claim x16 + x2 compatibility...i remember that other board manufacturers are using the pcie BW exclusively and no sli connector for dual GPU configs.
Either I am awash in BS or I am onto something.....knowing me....sadly...it's the former
M
look on the left side of the packaging materials....SLI CONNECTOR.
OK /me is really confused. Why would an sli connector be there if you need matched pair of GPUs to use it? Here is my theory!!!!
1) DFi was mad that they were not one the the BIG 3 that could initially help design/qa/troubleshoot NF4 chipsets (ASUS, MSI, GIGABYTE).
2)DFI finds that driver hacks work to enable x16 + x2 with NF4UD
3)NVIDIA disables said driver hack
4)DFI is mad
5)DFI finds said exploit.......instead of engineering separate PCB for the NF4UD, they throw NF4UD on the same pcb as the SLI...the lego-block connectors are still there on the NF4UD to turn it into X8-X8
soooooo this begets another question.....HOW DID THEY ENABLE X16 = X2?
My theory is that they selected slot 2 to be x2 through bios (or how it is normally) AND USED sli connector...this will make that card2card bandwidth avaliable that wouldnt be availalble in other configs that claim x16 + x2 compatibility...i remember that other board manufacturers are using the pcie BW exclusively and no sli connector for dual GPU configs.
Either I am awash in BS or I am onto something.....knowing me....sadly...it's the former
M
MeanieMan said:Rob,
I don't expect everyone to know everything here, thats what a forum is for. But when the answer is the first link in a google search or on the manufacter's website, thats just laziness.
Before you made your comment, in case you hadn't noticed, the pic on page 1 of the DFI board was made by myself. I answered my own question, so much for laziness.
Getting back to the topic, is DFIand MSI the only ones offering a non SLI with 2 16x? I guess from a cost standpoint it makes it easier to make one board and just disable the SLI.
MeanieMan said:
Here you go. Did the research for you.
http://www.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/News/News_605.htm
Arvig said:
Gotme, sort of.
Its not on the product page yet, so I'm guessing it not out yet. I'll look that up in a sec.
EDIT:
I guess I was looking in the wrongarea , he made it sound like it was already out, but I'm not seeing that as the case
MeanieMan said:Gotme, sort of.
Its not on the product page yet, so I'm guessing it not out yet. I'll look that up in a sec.
EDIT:
I guess I was looking in the wrongarea , he made it sound like it was already out, but I'm not seeing that as the case
No, I don't think it's close to out yet, news article was put on their site 12/29/04, haven't seen anything else yet personally. Only other non Xeon Intel based SLI board I've seen is the eVGA that you mentioned, a NForce 5 board....
EDIT: Okay, I THINK I remember it being SLI. Okay, I'll go look...
Okay, I assume this board is SLI, it has two video slots anyway:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=20607
The smart use of this would be for something like the gigabyte graphics card with 2 gpu's on one card. That still needs an sli enabled motherboard, but only uses the single *16 slot. You buy one of those cards, and an ultra mainboard, mod the mainboard to sli and off you go. Doesn't matter if the second slot is *1 because you never have to use it.
Incidentally I know the gigabyte card only works for the special gigabyte board at the moment, but I am hoping more manufacturers come out with these, preferably using at least 6800's, without the motherboard restrictions.
Incidentally I know the gigabyte card only works for the special gigabyte board at the moment, but I am hoping more manufacturers come out with these, preferably using at least 6800's, without the motherboard restrictions.
sbuckler said:
I'll admit I'm feeling lazy and thus don't want to look it up...plus I don't remember where I read this other then it MAY have been a week or two ago on www.theinquirer.net, but I heard that ASUS will have a dual GPU 6600GT sooner or later too.
As an aside, even if my memory is wrong, I can see why Gigabyte might be pushing a P4 SLI board, even ignoring NForce 5 coming out sooner or later...should be obvious, the dual GPU Gigabyte video card. Why only restrict sales of the card to AMD owners?