Will Nehalem boards support SLI?

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geok1ng

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After the first X58/Nehalem previews appeared showing (possible) Crossfire support i must ask:

will NVIDIA give us SLI on Nehalem at launch?:confused:

The question is very important since right now i am waiting for a 1GB card that can game at 2560x1600,and i am looking forward to a 4870X2 or a 4870 1gb and future Nehalem Xfire possibilities, so if i pick up a 280GTX right now not only will i be stuck with a subpar solution very soon (mid august for 4870X2) but will also LOSE my SLI possibilities if i change to nehalem (something that i "MUST" do if the previews performance gains of Nehalem over C2D are true:D)

On C2D lauch i was pretty much "forced" to use an ATI solution since it was much easier to find Xfire mobos.

AND since NVIDIA competes with Intel on the mobo market it is logical to assume that NVIDIA will only be alloud by Intel to make SLI capables Nehalem mobos IF they have the 3D performance crow at launch time, something that right now seems like a (very) long shot.
 
The way things are between Intel and nvidia right now, its looking like no. If I understand the argument between the two right now, Intel wants SLI support for their chipsets, which Nvidia doesn't want to give them. So Intel isn't going to let Nvidia make chipsets for Nehalem.
 
The design window has closed, and if it were going to be possible, inside voices would be singing about it. They aren't so no, it's not going to be possible at least during 2008 and the initial wave of X58 boards.
 
I'd be willing to bet that SLI will be coming to Nehalem at some point.
 
According to the info that's floating around, Intel is refusing to give nVidia a license to make Nehalem chipsets unless nVidia lets them use SLI on their own. Whether or not we see SLI on Nehalem boards depends on whether or not nVidia decides to give Intel SLI on their chipsets. I think it would be a fair bet though, since nVidia's current high-end business depends heavily on Intel-based systems, so sooner or later they'll come around.
 
Zero82z said:
According to the info that's floating around, Intel is refusing to give nVidia a license to make Nehalem chipsets unless nVidia lets them use SLI on their own. Whether or not we see SLI on Nehalem boards depends on whether or not nVidia decides to give Intel SLI on their chipsets. I think it would be a fair bet though, since nVidia's current high-end business depends heavily on Intel-based systems, so sooner or later they'll come around.
Click to expand...

Intel has said they aren't using licensing to try to coerce Nvidia into giving them SLI. Nvidia has said that they feel that the first generation of Nehalem chips aren't going to have a significant impact on the high performance GPU market and have no plans to produce an SLI capable chipset for it.
 
ryan_975 said:
Intel has said they aren't using licensing to try to coerce Nvidia into giving them SLI. Nvidia has said that they feel that the first generation of Nehalem chips aren't going to have a significant impact on the high performance GPU market and have no plans to produce an SLI capable chipset for it.
Click to expand...

It's definitely possible the info is false, or both companies could be covering their asses (probably the first option, but who knows). Either way, it's a pretty safe bet that SLI will find its way onto Nehalem boards one way or another in the future.
 
Zero82z said:
It's definitely possible the info is false, or both companies could be covering their asses (probably the first option, but who knows). Either way, it's a pretty safe bet that SLI will find its way onto Nehalem boards one way or another in the future.
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Oh I didn't mean to say that I believed their respective statements. Just that' the official word right now.
 
ryan_975 said:
Oh I didn't mean to say that I believed their respective statements. Just that' the official word right now.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I realise that. I was just making my thoughts more clear(namely that I have no idea whether it's the official word or the rumour that's correct).
 
This whole "multi-GPU" support issue is all BS in my opinion. Not that it's not beneficial, but that it's all really just driver issues. As long as a multip PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots exist on the system design, it's just a matter for the drivers to support the Mutli-GPU support.

This is why so many boards are rated for CrossFireX, but not SLI. However some boards, such as SkullTrail are both CrossFireX and SLI.

I just wish that all the GPU makers would just open up their drivers and support whatever chipset the motherboard makers use. However, I can see this as a primary reason nVIDIA SLI users purchase nVIDIA chipsets, so perhaps from their marketing stand point it makes since to keep it locked up.

Just don't have to like it though.
 
HighTest said:
This whole "multi-GPU" support issue is all BS in my opinion. Not that it's not beneficial, but that it's all really just driver issues. As long as a multip PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots exist on the system design, it's just a matter for the drivers to support the Mutli-GPU support.

This is why so many boards are rated for CrossFireX, but not SLI. However some boards, such as SkullTrail are both CrossFireX and SLI.

I just wish that all the GPU makers would just open up their drivers and support whatever chipset the motherboard makers use. However, I can see this as a primary reason nVIDIA SLI users purchase nVIDIA chipsets, so perhaps from their marketing stand point it makes since to keep it locked up.

Just don't have to like it though.
Click to expand...

This was once true but is no longer. In order to support SLI nForce MCP's are REQUIRED. This was confirmed by NVIDIA when we spoke to them about Skulltrail and 3-Way SLI support. We started the dialog with Intel and NVIDIA on the matter when I was unable to make 3-Way SLI work with three 8800GTX cards. That's when NVIDIA told us that the D5400XS motherboard is incapable of supporting 3-Way SLI because you need nForce 200 series MCPs or an actual NVIDIA 680i SLI chipset based motherboard to do 3-Way SLI. Though the D5400XS motherboard has plenty of PCI-Express lanes and you could technically even run four cards on it at full speed, you can't run more than 2 cards in SLI because the board doesn't have the appropriate MCP's onboard to do it. However the D5400XS motherboard does have two NVIDIA nForce 100 series MCP's onboard. NVIDIA's claim is further supported by the fact that the dual nForce 100 MCPs do not require any drivers what so ever to perform their function. The nForce 100 MCP's do not show up in device manager and no drivers need to be loaded (or are even optional) when setting up the system. So the nForce 100 MCP implementation appears to be a pure hardware solution.

It would seem at some point NVIDIA changed how SLI worked and they require the nForce MCP for something. I'm not sure if this can ever be worked around via software at some point or what the technical reasons behind this are but at the time of this posting NVIDIA's SLI technology requires hardware (from NVIDIA in the form of nForce MCPs) on the motherboard to make it work.
 
HighTest said:
This whole "multi-GPU" support issue is all BS in my opinion. Not that it's not beneficial, but that it's all really just driver issues. As long as a multip PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots exist on the system design, it's just a matter for the drivers to support the Mutli-GPU support.

This is why so many boards are rated for CrossFireX, but not SLI. However some boards, such as SkullTrail are both CrossFireX and SLI.

I just wish that all the GPU makers would just open up their drivers and support whatever chipset the motherboard makers use. However, I can see this as a primary reason nVIDIA SLI users purchase nVIDIA chipsets, so perhaps from their marketing stand point it makes since to keep it locked up.

Just don't have to like it though.
Click to expand...
So many boards support XFire vs./ SLi b/c Intel's chipsets are more reliable and stable than nVidia's (which is the root of why we all want SLi on Intel chipsets).

SullTrail was a one-time deal between Intel/nVidia to make a monster - we may get a refresh, but until nVidia gets their head out, Intel is going to be AMD only (strange to say, no?).
Zero82z said:
According to the info that's floating around, Intel is refusing to give nVidia a license to make Nehalem chipsets unless nVidia lets them use SLI on their own. Whether or not we see SLI on Nehalem boards depends on whether or not nVidia decides to give Intel SLI on their chipsets. I think it would be a fair bet though, since nVidia's current high-end business depends heavily on Intel-based systems, so sooner or later they'll come around.
Click to expand...
I really hope that's the case!
 
Dan_D said:
This was once true but is no longer. In order to support SLI nForce MCP's are REQUIRED. This was confirmed by NVIDIA when we spoke to them about Skulltrail and 3-Way SLI support. We started the dialog with Intel and NVIDIA on the matter when I was unable to make 3-Way SLI work with three 8800GTX cards. That's when NVIDIA told us that the D5400XS motherboard is incapable of supporting 3-Way SLI because you need nForce 200 series MCPs or an actual NVIDIA 680i SLI chipset based motherboard to do 3-Way SLI. Though the D5400XS motherboard has plenty of PCI-Express lanes and you could technically even run four cards on it at full speed, you can't run more than 2 cards in SLI because the board doesn't have the appropriate MCP's onboard to do it. However the D5400XS motherboard does have two NVIDIA nForce 100 series MCP's onboard. NVIDIA's claim is further supported by the fact that the dual nForce 100 MCPs do not require any drivers what so ever to perform their function. The nForce 100 MCP's do not show up in device manager and no drivers need to be loaded (or are even optional) when setting up the system. So the nForce 100 MCP implementation appears to be a pure hardware solution.



It would seem at some point NVIDIA changed how SLI worked and they require the nForce MCP for something. I'm not sure if this can ever be worked around via software at some point or what the technical reasons behind this are but at the time of this posting NVIDIA's SLI technology requires hardware (from NVIDIA in the form of nForce MCPs) on the motherboard to make it work.
Click to expand...

Or it could be that the drivers scan the system for devices with specific IDs and if it doesn't find them it doesn't allow SLI. Without a specific driver, the system would just see a generic PCI bridge device.
 
eh, who knows what will eventually happen. Me, personally, I hope not as it will encourage multi gpus on one card which to me is a much more elegant and if engineered properly a better solution as die shrinks continue to advance. It just seems to me that two or more gpus could "talk" better on one card if some interface/buss work was done, that little ribbon cable connecting the cards just makes me wonder at interface speeds but I admit I know little about the actual engineering of the SLI interconnect buss. It could be fine. I guess the the PCI-e 2.0 interface could become saturated too but .....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCIe#PCI_Express_3.0

http://www.pcisig.com/news_room/08_08_07/

It makes me wonder why all that bandwidth for a single slot is needed. 2010 is still a ways out there but coming fast.

All and all it looks to be an interesting 2009 but lets see...

INTEL vs Nvidia

Who do you think will come out on top in the end ?
 
ryan_975 said:
Or it could be that the drivers scan the system for devices with specific IDs and if it doesn't find them it doesn't allow SLI. Without a specific driver, the system would just see a generic PCI bridge device.
Click to expand...

Well we know there is some kind of driver check, but what we don't know is if that's truly all that the drivers do in regard to using the nForce MCPs.
 
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