Wednesday, September 19th 2007
Intel X38 Supports SLI ?
During his keynote today at IDF, Intel's Pat Gelsinger showed off a machine based on the company's Skulltrail enthusiast gaming platform. Skulltrail is a dual-socket platform based on the X38 chipset that supports Intel's upcoming 45nm Quad-Core processors, FB-DIMM memory and offers PCI Express 2.0 support and true dual-x16 PEG slots (or four x8 PCI Express x16 slots). What was interesting about the machine on display was that it used a pair of GeForce graphics cards running in SLI mode, but on an Intel chipset. According to Intel, this is a special version of Intel X38 paired with NVIDIA's nForce MCP to enable SLI support. There's no word on official SLI support with future Intel chipsets, though.
Ed. by W1zzard: You can't pair X38 with any NVIDIA MCP because both are the same: a Northbridge with memory controller. It would be possible to put an NVIDIA southbridge on the board but this wouldn't enable SLI because that many PCI-E lanes are not routed through the SB. Since technically SLI works on ANY chipset, NVIDIA could enable SLI on X38 only if an NVIDIA SB is present.
Source:
HotHardware
43 Comments on Intel X38 Supports SLI ?
Are we looking at an X38 + 680i hybrid?
They'd be insane to take anything from Nvidia and put it with their chipsets.
First of all, Nvidia is using HyperTransport, Intel is not, so their chipsets aren't compatible.
Secondly, what would be the point for Intel to add what would in their eyes be a lesser chipset to one of their motherboards?
And since we know that SLI and CrossFire is done via drivers, why would Intel have to add hardware?
There have been several software hacks for SLI to work, although badly, on the 915 chipset.
The first SLI platform was actually an Intel dual CPU server board, so if it could be done then, why can't it be done now?
This sounds like a load of crap to me and there's absolutley no reason for it to be this way and whoever wrote the initial story doesn't know shit about chipsets or how they work.
There is no difference between nVidia giving their 680i chipsets to ASUS to create the P5N32-E SLi and Striker Extreme, then nVidia giving it to Intel to use WITH it's own chipsets.
Though I know there are people that prefer Intel chipsets, so I see you point.
However, I would imagine the profit loss would be made up by the number of extra graphics cards nVidia sells. Imagine all the people with Intel chipsets that would have two nVidia cards if they could.
It is my understanding that it is infact the SouthBridge (also known as the MCP or Media and Communications Processor) that handles the remainder of the PCIe lanes. Without it, there would be no SLi. Aren't most of the PCIe lanes routed through the SouthBridge?
if they sell just the southbridge nvidia makes little money and intel makes the rest
I'm hearing Xfire a lot more than SLI lately. Maybe Nvidia is too. If they make SLI that much more common it'll be just like Intel dropping prices and kicking AMD while their down. ATI has really made no advancements that have "WOW'd" the end users. I think its Nvidias way of kicking ATI while their down in this whole thing. Besides a lot of people still think Intel chipset = work and Nvidia = gaming performance. Both will still sell fine.
{edit}W1zzard thanked for clearifying original posting{/edit}