ATI/AMD would happly support CF on Nvidia chipsets, problem is that nvidia blocks it, just like they block SLI on non-nvidia/x58 chipsets, nvidia dosnt want anybody to beable to use 2 non-nvidia cards on their boards/chipsets.
No, nVidia doesn't block anything relating to crossfire, AMD blocks Crossfire from being activated on nVidia chipsets just like nVidia blocks SLi from being activated on Intel and AMD chipsets. It has become obvious that you are an AMD/ATi fanboy, which is why you want to try and make it seem like everything is nVidia's fault. Sorry, that isn't the case, ATi is just as much to blame here as nVidia. ATi claimed that Crossfire couldn't work on nVidia chipsets because it didn't support a certain feature(I think it was PCI-E writeback or soemthing like that), they made the same claim about certain Intel chipsets. Surprisingly...they managed to work the problem out on Intel chipsets...but still block Crossfire on nVidia chipsets...
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......
Intel isn't stopping nVidia from marketting any chipset. They will have chipsets available for 1156. Intel didn't stop them from marketting 1336 chipsets either, nVidia caused their own demise there...
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.
Allowing Crossfire on nVidia chipsets is up to ATi/AMD, not nVidia, nVidia has nothing to do with the decision.
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.
What deal with Intel? The deal to make i7/i5/i3 chipsets? That deal just recently existed, it wouldn't explain why they haven't unlocked SLi in the past. Or the deal to make Intel chipsets in general, I doubt Intel would force nVidia to not unlock SLi on their chipsets. It just doesn't make any sense from Intel's standpoint. It would only serve to improve their chipset sales. The only reason nVidia doesn't allow SLi on Intel chipsets is because if they did, no one would buy nVidia based motherboards.