Crossfire, SLI, are these really manufacturer chipset only??

[W1nTry]

Yuh gotta read this:

Crossfire runs on Intel 975X chipset

CeBIT 2006 ATI claimes it could run on SLI boards as well


By Fuad Abazovic in Hannover: Wednesday 15 March 2006, 08:31

MSI is showcasing a 975 motherboard that runs two Crossfire cards. As of this show MSI even gives technical support for 975 boards running the two ATI cards.
All you need to do is to plug the two cards and install them. Otherwise it should run. An ATI marchitecture chap told us that you could run two Crossfire cards on an SLI motherboard. It is all to do with software. Some Nvidia elements confirmed the claim that Crossfire could run at SLI and vice versa.

There is a famous ULI chipset patch that can let you drive SLI on pretty much anything but we haven't tried it so far. An MSI chap told us that you can unofficially run two SLI even on Intel's 975 chipset.

So, dual cards are pretty much possible each way if they want it. µ

Makes yuh wonder why we paying SO much for dese damn boards...

[Spazosaurus]

Hmmmm....So all u need to run SLI or Crossfire is a board with 2 PCI-E slots then...Interesting. Have a link to that site?

[W1nTry]

Ask and thou shall receive:

Article about said chipset

Link to product

[Spazosaurus]

Hmmm this is realy interesting. I wonder why there are very few boards with this chipset because this seems to be something that can potentially catch on wildly among users on a budget.

[W1nTry]

Yes folks its now available!!!!!
CHEAP SLI

[W1nTry]

Although I could have started a new thread for this i'll put it here to show something. Imagine with all the SLI and crossfire frenzy going on Nvidia THEMSELVES won't allow you to use your low end 7300 in SLI, hmm crixx this is poor, why is your great Nv doing this whist ATI will happily allow their low end X1300s to Crossfire???
Here's a link to the Nvidia site showing that it will NOT: NO low end SLI for NVU

[Czar]

I pity the man that wants to SLI 7300's...they'd be much better off picking up a single 7600...but I do see your point win.

[Spazosaurus]

64Bit interface? 4 Pixel pipelines? 3 Vertex shaders? DDR2? Sounds mighty close to a NV6200 to me. Indeed it really would be dumb to SLI those...even if it were possible.

[W1nTry]

Ok HOW ABOUT QUAD SLI THIS BABY (by XFX):

And it comes at the 'REASONABLE' price of 500Euro or maybe it was Pounds... ah well it AIN'T cheap

[W1nTry]

Well... how about CROSSFIRE TOO? this thread is old, but this is damn good news to use to update the thread:

Epox will support Crossfire and SLI

GLi motherboard can support both camps... Conroe as well.

By Theo Valich: Thursday 03 August 2006, 10:56
 
IF YOU THOUGHT that the only Intel chipsets that support Crossfire are i955X and i975X, then you're in for a bit of surprise.

While even ATI technicians are telling folks that, there is a small motherboard company which has produced multi GPU supporting products for quite some time. Thanks to our Slovakian friend, we managed to get our hands dirty with information hidden in various test dungeons in Eastern Europe, and the company's product web site, of course.

Epox manufacturers several products which unofficially support SLI with their GLI marchitecture. However, with the new BIOS revision - EP-5P945C GLI and EP-5LDA+ GLI officially support Crossfire too.

Although both ATI and Intel are claiming it will not work on a i945P chipset, we have seen two X1900s working in Crossdire way back in Taipei, during the Computex show. It seems to us that "GLi" motherboards are "pretending" to be i955/i975X chipset and CrossFire works like a charm. Or it could be that just Intel does not want something to be known in public, and Epox is just using it.

So, there you have it - an i945P motherboard supporting Crossfire. And with Nvidia opening up SLI support for Centrino platform - which is none other than a i945P or i945G chipset with power management enabled, there is no reason for SLI not to officially work on GLI motherboards. µ

For those that didn't quite catch the just, those ULi Epox mobos that currently 'unofficially' support SLI (otherwise known as GLI) will support Xfire as well. Coincidentally, I heard Nvidia is opening up SLI to work on any 2x 8x PCIe mobo... so hey why not right. Oh... ULi is owned by Nvidia... to put the whole picture in perspective.

So just in case you're interested in a REALLY affordable dual card (regardless of brand) mobo on a 939 platform (sorry no conroe YET, soon though) you can get them:
here here and here