X58 gets SLI bridge

Not surprising. Intel was a little miffed by the problems they've had with SLI licensing. That is perhaps the reason why they said they wouldn't license nVidia the Quickpath technology their new chips are going to use.

Wouldn't surprise me that nVidia was willing to give Intel what they wanted to get the license. After all, nVidia probably isn't interested in going to produce chipsets exclusively for the processors of AMD especially since AMD is their competitor now.

I had a feeling that refusing to license Quickpath was just a tactic on Intel's part to get an ALI license from nVidia. Even though Intel would like you to buy their chipsets, they'd even more like that everyone buys their processors.
 
Nvidia seemed like they were going to take the "mac" route there for awhile. Sorry NVDA, Intel isn't going to conform around you. Their goth.
 
"The chip BR04 is as expansive as $30 USD, and secondly a reference X58 can not add BR-04 by not changing the PCB layout, that means if a mobo maker want to make SLI and non-SLI X58, they need two different PCB layout."

So it's a conditional surrender, still a good start though.
 
It was bound to happen anyway. I'm pretty sure that NVIDIA doesn't want to be left out in the cold without any of the new CPU's to support their chipsets.
 
This is still not a great solution for SLI. The increased cost of the extra chip and the fact that it needs a different layout means that we're still not going to see any affordable SLI solutions that can compete with the relative low cost of Crossfire on Intel chipsets.
 
This also likely means no tri-SLI on X58, as all current BR04 implementations only support 2x16 links. (Short of the x16/x8/x8 config used on MSI's 750i, that is...)
 
So now that nobody is going to buy 1 Nvidia card let alone 2 this year, they're letting Intel use SLI. How ironic. They could have made a killing on this last year. I would have probably had 2 8800GTs right now. But instead I'm getting a 4870 and probably another one down the road. Great thinking Nvidia.
 
The reason why peoples buy NVIDIA motherboard lies with the video card they own. Who will buy a NVDIA mb if everybody gets ATI video cards?
 
DaNotoriousDOM said:
So now that nobody is going to buy 1 Nvidia card let alone 2 this year
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nvidia sold a ton of FX5000 series cards when it was very inferior to the Radeon 9800/9600 series in DX9 performance, and the current generation isn't as bad as that. :p Of course nvidia probably wont sell as many high end chips as it did when it was in the lead (and priced competitively). No web sites have previewed the new mid-range and low end cards yet, where both companies get the bulk of their sales.
 
John Vuong said:
It was bound to happen anyway. I'm pretty sure that NVIDIA doesn't want to be left out in the cold without any of the new CPU's to support their chipsets.
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yes but intel was in the position of having to make motherboards that supported the dual gpu solution of its only competitor. nvidia should have held out.
 
vanilla_guerilla said:
yes but intel was in the position of having to make motherboards that supported the dual gpu solution of its only competitor. nvidia should have held out.
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Why should they have held out? If nVidia loses their Intel chipset license, the only platform that would support SLI would be AMD boards. AMD processors are inferior to Intel's current offerings, so that would force anyone who wanted an ultra-high-end nVidia GPU solution to use lower-end AMD parts, which in turn would drive people to buy ATI cards instead which they can use in high-end Intel systems. If nVidia didn't cave and lost their chipset license, they'd lose a lot of sales from the high-performance enthusiast crowd.
 
amen to that brother.

Nvidia is in a losing position if they have not made this move. Sometimes companies have to swallow their own pride too
 
NVIDIA used to make good motherboards. nForce2 was where it was at. Definitely their best chipset ever. If they can get their heads out of their asses and start churning out good boards again, they wouldn't have to worry about losing MB market share to Intel SLI boards.

If the news is true, my next board will most certainly be X58, along with a pair of GTX 280s if nothing else is out by then. That is unless NVIDIA has something better in mind (ahem, SoundStorm please).
 
pxc said:
nvidia sold a ton of FX5000 series cards when it was very inferior to the Radeon 9800/9600 series in DX9 performance, and the current generation isn't as bad as that. :p Of course nvidia probably wont sell as many high end chips as it did when it was in the lead (and priced competitively). No web sites have previewed the new mid-range and low end cards yet, where both companies get the bulk of their sales.
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HD4850 is mid range, at least in term of the price.
 
Makes me want to buy an AMD platform next time, intel snubbing out motherboard competition isn't good, even if all nvidia intel solutions have been flaky. Anyone actually remember nforce 3/4/5? on the AMD platform? well with the exception of 5, it was the best chipset going on either platform for 2 solid years, and nforce2 was pretty good as well.

When Nvidia switched from the AMD platform, to having to produce memory controllers for the intel platform, that's where the problems started to come, data corruption and so forth. But with QPI, nvidia doesn't need to produce a memory controller, and so it can go back to producing bulletproof motherboards without worrying about the memory controller since its on the CPU just like AMD chips.

I think intel is scared of nvidia producing motherboards, not in the short term, because nvidia still has the bad reputation for that, but down the line. QPI motherboards just like hyper transport, is going to make them much cheaper to produce, so the two would be in a price war (which intel doesn't like), and if you go further down the line, Nvidia would be a threat to produce chipsets with integrated graphics, intels bread and butter even though their integrated graphics solutions are usually inferior to what ATi or nvidia have produced in the past in terms of graphics horsepower,

I know all you guys are hooting and hollering on this news, but I hope you realize that intel effectively is creating a monopoly, and last I checked, monopoly's are bad for the end user.
 
I still don't like the idea of the chipset needing the nVidia bridge chip when it doesn't really need to be there. The ONLY thing stopping SLi from working on Intel Chipsets is driver checks. There have been hacked drivers that have gotten around this, having that bridge chip there when it doesn't need to be is stupid.

It's not a big deal at this point anyways, since ATi has a competitive product out there.
 
Savoy said:
http://www.nehalemnews.com/

According to that blog 3 way SLI should be possible as well.
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I didn't see 3-way SLI mentioned anywhere in that post(although I may have missed it), but regardless, 3-way SLI is definitely not possible through using NF200. It's a two-slot bridge chip. Check out the current Skulltrail platform if you want more info; it's the exact same implementation and is also limited to only two-way SLI.

Simpson5774 said:
Makes me want to buy an AMD platform next time, intel snubbing out motherboard competition isn't good, even if all nvidia intel solutions have been flaky.
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You're complaining about the wrong company. The reason Intel supposedly strongarmed nVidia is because nVidia has been holding out on SLI tech for years. Intel has been playing along with nVidia's bullshit tactics for a long time, but they apparently decided they weren't going to any longer. ATI allows Crossfire on Intel chipsets, and the only reason nVidia doesn't want to do the same is because they're trying to force people into using their substandard chipsets. They're the ones who have been snuffing out competition, not Intel.
 
Particleman said:
I still don't like the idea of the chipset needing the nVidia bridge chip when it doesn't really need to be there. The ONLY thing stopping SLi from working on Intel Chipsets is driver checks. There have been hacked drivers that have gotten around this, having that bridge chip there when it doesn't need to be is stupid.
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Yep, it's just Nvidia trying to squeeze as much money as possible out of their potential customers. They seem to be doing more and more of that lately.
 
You know I have always wondered why they have to do this. Back in the day, SLI ran on standard PCI, there was no chipset support listed by manufacturer. It just ran. Why is it that now, they have to have either chipset support or a special SLI bridge?


On top of that if you think about it, motherboards typically sell for a few hundred bucks. High end graphics cards sell for 400 plus dollars. Do you think you would make more money, trying to corner folks into using your motherboards (200 dollar range) and a couple of your graphics cards at 400 bucks apiece,

OR

You make your technology useable on the competitions motherboards, which dominate the market, allowing you to sell more of the $400 dollar graphics cards across the board.

It seems a no brainer to me. They should set it up so it works everywhere, and they will sell a lot more of the product which really brings in the money.
 
Interesting. Hopefully this makes SLI a more viable option for a lot of us.

I know a lot of us went away from recent nForce boards due to the horrendous stories we hear about the poor driver support, along with compatibility issues, not to mention the ridiculous prices on them.
 
Zero82z said:
You're complaining about the wrong company. The reason Intel supposedly strongarmed nVidia is because nVidia has been holding out on SLI tech for years. Intel has been playing along with nVidia's bullshit tactics for a long time, but they apparently decided they weren't going to any longer. ATI allows Crossfire on Intel chipsets, and the only reason nVidia doesn't want to do the same is because they're trying to force people into using their substandard chipsets. They're the ones who have been snuffing out competition, not Intel.
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Intel doesn't care about SLi on their chipsets, people who buy them account for about 1% of their CPU sales, even if they are extreme editions, they care about their bottom line, which isn't 300 dollar super motherboards, or a fully decked out skulltrail system. Its on cheap mobos with integrated video, and server platforms and centrino laptops which eventually get sold in retail markets in high volumes, where SLi does not apply. They stand to make more money shutting out NV from making any motherboards at any level, then they themselves producing quality SLi motherboards. Intel said themselves that SLi compatibility was not a prerequisite to a QPI bus license for NV, which is obvious since intel has SLi and NV doesn't have a bus license.

Intel stands to make more money via no competition then to produce a superior product, its really cut and dry. I think this is only going to be something like a 6 month embargo or something like that, disallowing NV to produce chipsets for that period, or intel stands a real chance at having another anti-trust lawsuit filed on them (or atleast have this evidence presented against it in the AMD trial, because this situation is exactly that.
 
Intel has let anyone make chipsets who got a license. The only folks exercising a monopoly in this case is Nvidia.

And by charging 60% of a full chipset's price for this "bridge" chip that is absolutely not needed, they are furthering the monopoly.
 
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