Intel blocks Nvidia from running SLI on Conroe platforms Prefers ATI, it seemsBy Fuad Abazovic: Tuesday 27 June 2006, 14:08WE GOT some interesting input on Intel not supporting SLI on its Conroe-supporting motherboards. Up until now, we, and our, sources have blamed it all on Nvidia but it turns out we might be wrong about that. There is a big chance that Intel doesn't want to allow Nvidia to run SLI, as it doesn't want to make a big thing about SLI on its own Conroe machines. Intel is in the bed with ATI and signed a cross-licensing agreement quite some time ago, the upshot of which is that it officially supports ATI's Crossfire on Intel 975/965 boards. We hear that Intel doesn’t want to let Nvidia's SLI to run on its boards, at least not officially. There will no-doubt be a leaked driver that will allow such a scenario, but even if the high-end tweakers society might be happy about it, none of the system integrators or OEMs will make such a machine as the driver would never be official and WHQL. It is a funny old game but we will try to get to the bottom of it. µ
This little SLI bridge seems a little out of place. What more, Gigabyte even offered a bracket to hold the SLI bridge in place during operation. Looks like Gigabyte is aiming for the hardcore g33ks who run hacked SLI drivers for day to day operation.
