Thursday, August 6th 2009
SLI Hacked on Older Intel Chipsets
NVIDIA's SLI multi-GPU technology served as the biggest selling point of nForce series chipsets, as it was exclusive to it. With the advent of LGA-1366 processors and the Intel X58 chipset, NVIDIA allowed the Intel chipset to support the technology, as it soon became clear that it isn't going to be easy for NVIDIA to come up with an LGA-1366 chipset. Users of the older LGA-775 however still have the option of buying nForce 700 series based motherboards to use SLI, and hence no real attempt was made to ensure the technology is available to Intel chipsets. Until now.
A member of Expreview's Chinese enthusiast community has successfully enabled SLI on an Intel chipset based LGA-775 motherboard, the first feat of its kind since much older attempts on i975 platforms using much older GeForce hardware. Firewings_[CCG] successfully ran SLI of GeForce 8600 GT and GeForce GTX 260 cards on his Intel X38+ICH9R chipset based ASUS Maximus Formula motherboard. The feat is headed by software he modified, details of which will surface soon. The mod was validated by Expreview staff, who used the software to run GeForce GTX 260 SLI on a more recent P45+ICH10R based Maximus II Formula motherboard. "By installing the software that Firewings [CCG] provides us, we managed to enable SLI configuration in Directory Services Restore Mode. Due to some 'small problems' according to Firewings [CCG], the SLI configuration can't be realized in normal mode for now, but he says this will be fixed soon," commented Expreview. With SLI enabled, the multi-GPU setup was able offer performance scaling that proves the mod works.
Source:
Expreview
A member of Expreview's Chinese enthusiast community has successfully enabled SLI on an Intel chipset based LGA-775 motherboard, the first feat of its kind since much older attempts on i975 platforms using much older GeForce hardware. Firewings_[CCG] successfully ran SLI of GeForce 8600 GT and GeForce GTX 260 cards on his Intel X38+ICH9R chipset based ASUS Maximus Formula motherboard. The feat is headed by software he modified, details of which will surface soon. The mod was validated by Expreview staff, who used the software to run GeForce GTX 260 SLI on a more recent P45+ICH10R based Maximus II Formula motherboard. "By installing the software that Firewings [CCG] provides us, we managed to enable SLI configuration in Directory Services Restore Mode. Due to some 'small problems' according to Firewings [CCG], the SLI configuration can't be realized in normal mode for now, but he says this will be fixed soon," commented Expreview. With SLI enabled, the multi-GPU setup was able offer performance scaling that proves the mod works.
69 Comments on SLI Hacked on Older Intel Chipsets
I've said from the beginning, both nVidia and ATi should unlock SLi/Crossfire on any platform that technically supports the technology(any motherboard with two PCI-E x16 slots).I wish this wasn't true, but I know it is.
Hell, they could do it via an unlock - pay $20 more, get an unlock serial key, get SLI.
"Crackers" are the bad guys (malicious hackers).
It is not the chipset manufacturers that are saying no, it is the graphics card manufacturers.(this we agree on)
nVidia is saying no to SLi on Intel Chipsets(except x58) and AMD chipsets.
ATi is saying no to Crossfire on nVidia chipsets.
It would be so much easier if both would just cut the bullshit and allow SLi/Crossfire on any capable motherboard. It isn't just nVidia's fault, ATi does the same thing to cut out nVidia chipsets. The only reason ATi allows crossfire on Intel chipsets is because, if they didn't, there would be no Crossfire on Intel platforms. Which would seriously hurt their sales.
Oh and about the main topic post, nVidia has an i3/i5/i7 chipset, but intel wont let them market it, its nothing to do with nVidia not being able to make one or having trouble making the chipset, Intel just dosnt want the competition in the chipset market and used bully tactics to get nvidia to give in and let them have an SLI license......
If nVidia where smart, they would just unlock SLI on all chipsets and allow CF on their own chipsets, it would make them more money, even if the sale market for sli/cf is pretty small, it would also piss intel off.
Humm, could it be that the deal they made with intel dosnt allow them to unlock SLI on all platforms? wouldnt put it past intel to make that a stipulation.
its childish and stupid, but its how they have done business since the beginning, and its how they will keep doing business till the market forces them to change.
Crackers are people who would additionally modify the code of the game to steal all your web browser passwords and upload them to a server in Latvia. :laugh: