Intel Licenses NVIDIA SLI Technology For P55 Chips 63
adeelarshad82 writes "NVIDIA announced that Intel has licensed the company's SLI technology for inclusion in upcoming products — as have a slew of major hardware partners such as ASUS, EVGA, Gigabyte, and MSI. This means the P55 chipsets that power those new socket LGA 1156 motherboards, which are based around the next-gen Nehalem architecture, will let you build systems using two or four NVIDIA-powered GPUs. Specifically, the licensing agreement covers the Core i5 and Core i7 microprocessors."
Jen-Hsun Huang (Score:2, Interesting)
So this is how the Nvidia CEO intended to open a can of whoop ass on Intel. What a dumb-ass...
Not sure who should pay (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it Intel that paid NVidia or the other way around? Having support for SLI is defo good thing for NVidia and for Intel, the question is who should care more.
There's no technology here (Score:3, Interesting)
This is just a weak form of DRM. Nvidia's drivers check the motherboaïrd against a whitelist and if the mobo is on the list the driver allows SLI. Naturally, chipset/motherboard makers have to pay protection money, er licensing fees, to get on the list.
I doubt Intel pays much (Score:4, Interesting)
nVidia does charge for SLI licenses. Reason being that they are also in the motherboard chipset market and want you to buy theirs. Intel wasn't all that pleased with the situation and so refused to license QPI to nVidia, which would mean no Core i7 chipsets. Well, that got all resolved and licensing started happening both ways. My guess is neither side is paying the other all that much.
Intel has failed us again (Score:5, Interesting)
Frankly, I've been less than pleased with the whole SLI vs CrossFire debacle. It's a friggin PCI-Express bus! This is nothing more than software and/or firmware enforced lock-in, and it stinks. I would have preferred for Intel to reject the SLI tax entirely. NVidia is the small player here, they're the ones who should be bending over backwards to get the big guys to promote their products. I don't want to pay an SLI tax on my motherboard, NVidia should be plenty glad that I'm buying two expensive GPUs instead of one, and they should consider a partnership with Intel like a divine blessing because Intel is 10 times larger and has far greater reach into every single market.
The situation is simple: right now, I own a perfectly fine motherboard that doesn't support SLI (Intel P35). I also have a perfectly fine Geforce 8800 and would have loved to add a second, but I can't because my board isn't on the SLI whitelist. My options are:
A. buy the second card, and replace my motherboard with an overpriced unstable NForce 750 board
B. fuck NVidia and buy two brand new AMD cards
Assuming equal performance, option B would cost me far less, even though I would prefer the NVidia GPU. Their SLI lock in has thus resulted in a lost sale.
Now I'm just one guy, but here's the funny part: I used to sell gaming rigs... lots and lots of 'em. When people heard about SLI, all the hardcore guys wanted it, but when they found out they had to taint their lovingly assembled systems with an NForce board, most of them backed off. It wasn't even about the money, it's about NVidia's awful track record in the chipset biz. They make even SIS look good. They never really fixed the NF2/3/4 disk corruption glitches, and they trashed the one good thing they had going for them: Soundstorm. That was a long time ago, but the way they handled those very public screwups left a bad taste in everyone's mouth.
Re:Jen-Hsun Huang (Score:3, Interesting)
Intel and NVidia have a complex relationship. On the one hand Intel and NVidia are jointly a natural alternative to AMD now it has bought ATI.
Right now of course Intel sell vast numbers of low end GPUs and rely on NVidia for the low volume high end stuff - i.e. SLI for gamers. So Intel pretty much has to support SLI.
On the other they are both hinting they will compete directly. Intel has been talking about CPU/GPU hybrids (i.e. Larrabee) for ages and there have been persistent rumours NVidia will launch an x86 compatible processor. My guess is that any Intel GPU will be low performance and thus not compete with NVidia's flagship products. I also think an NVidia x86 will be low end and aimed at netbooks - i.e. they'll buy Via which has an x86 license and use the Via Nano cores with NVidia graphics rather than trying to challenge Intel's high end stuff with a core that will compete with Core i7/i5.