Author Topic: Nvidia Licenses SLI to AMD, Did Hell Freeze Over? (Read 2116 times)

Lupin · « **on:** April 28, 2011, 01:46:28 PM »

http://blogs.nvidia.com/2011/04/you-asked-for-it-you-got-it-sli-for-amd/

Quote

With new DX11 games coming out, lots of you guys (and gals) are building new gaming rigs and trying to decide what CPU to use. When you’re deciding what to build, finding the best CPU price performance ratio is key. After all, PC hardware doesn’t grow on trees!

Long term gamers probably remember that for a long time AMD offered great high-end CPUs, but in recent years, AMD’s stature as the preferred gaming CPU fell by the wayside and Intel CPUs have been the gamers’ choice. For this reason, we’ve only licensed SLI for motherboards with Intel chipsets. However, we’ve been recently hearing chants of “SLI for AMD CPUs”, and figured that now is a great time to do it. After all, we want to make sure gamers can benefit from the new CPU competitive landscape and ensure they have NVIDIA SLI – the highest performance, most stable multi-GPU solution - to game on! According to Steam, 93% of all multi-GPU systems in use today use SLI.

So today, we are pleased to announce that SLI has been licensed to the world’s leading motherboard companies for integration onto their upcoming motherboards featuring AMD’s 990FX, 990X and 970 chipsets. ASUS, Gigabyte, ASRock, and MSI are among the first motherboard manufacturers to offer this new capability, with more coming on board shortly.

We hope you enjoy GeForce GTX gaming in SLI on motherboards featuring either Intel or AMD CPUs.

Let us know what you think by responding below.

Thanks, and happy gaming!

HiddenJumper · « **Reply #1 on:** April 28, 2011, 01:55:55 PM »

This is a good thing. Now I can think about getting an AMD processor like I've always wanted and still get what I like out of Nvidia SLI

kureshii · « **Reply #2 on:** April 28, 2011, 01:57:52 PM »

About time, too. Techreport had a short article on this (through VR-Zone) almost a month ago, though it seems there'll still be the usual restrictions (again, no surprise). With the death of their chipset business, I guess they're finally starting to feel the pinch. I doubt they'll earn very much revenue through SLI licensing and NF200 sales, considering AMD's market share isn't really large (and the AMD enthusiast market is even smaller), but it should help them out reputation-wise, especially with the recent spate of GPU releases.

Meomix · « **Reply #3 on:** April 28, 2011, 02:16:51 PM »

Always remember folks.

AMD CPU = Dead Torrenting.

kureshii · « **Reply #4 on:** April 28, 2011, 02:47:51 PM »

Lupin: If you think that's hell freezing over, wait 'til you see this:

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/20851

Wintereise · « **Reply #5 on:** April 28, 2011, 02:57:13 PM »

Quote from: Meomix on April 28, 2011, 02:16:51 PM

Always remember folks.

AMD CPU = Dead Torrenting.

Always also remember this folks, Meomix doesn't have a clue about what s/he's blabbering on about.

Go take a look at my profile, what if I told you that 14TBs of it was achieved through a Phenom x4 processor?

Lupin · « **Reply #6 on:** April 28, 2011, 03:09:49 PM »

Quote from: kureshii on April 28, 2011, 02:47:51 PM

Lupin: If you think that's hell freezing over, wait 'til you see this:

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/20851

I read about the EEtimes article about that yesterday

Too bad AMD sold off their division that had an ARM license.

[OT] Some analysis about ARM-AMD http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4215519/Analysis--Why-ARM-AMD-makes-sense

Cuan · « **Reply #7 on:** April 28, 2011, 03:10:25 PM »

Finally. Now my old AMD Socket 939 mainboards with nVidia chipsets (from around 2005/06) are no longer that anachronistic.

kureshii · « **Reply #8 on:** April 28, 2011, 03:18:53 PM »

I do think the release of Windows 8 ARM will be one of the turning points that might lead to us seeing some exciting developments in the desktop market. Frankly, x86 development has been pretty boring ever since Bloomfield’s release.

To clarify, this does not mean I think Windows 8 ARM will be wildly successful, neither does it mean I think x86 is going to topple (one would have to be wildly delirious at this point to think that). But I do think a change in the perception that consumer software has to be x86-compiled to sell successfully will lead to interesting developments in the direction of consumer hardware. We have seen iPhone app development grow into a lucrative business for some companies/devs; now we just need to see the usual apps we use on desktops/laptops compiled for ARM (eventually).

I, for one, can’t wait to see an RISC desktop processor.

Lupin · « **Reply #9 on:** April 28, 2011, 04:13:28 PM »

Quote from: kureshii on April 28, 2011, 01:57:52 PM

About time, too. Techreport had a short article on this (through VR-Zone) almost a month ago, though it seems there'll still be the usual restrictions (again, no surprise). With the death of their chipset business, I guess they're finally starting to feel the pinch. I doubt they'll earn very much revenue through SLI licensing and NF200 sales, considering AMD's market share isn't really large (and the AMD enthusiast market is even smaller), but it should help them out reputation-wise, especially with the recent spate of GPU releases.

Is it possible that they know something about Bulldozer?

Sosseres · « **Reply #10 on:** April 28, 2011, 04:17:18 PM »

As for the topic, why is it strange that nvidia allows third parties to implement sli support on their motherboards? Since nforce boards have been doing poorly for a while now (due to intel wanting a larger market share). It is not like they sell the sli tech to AMD graphics and says please use it, just to the motherboard part...

kureshii · « **Reply #11 on:** April 28, 2011, 04:39:44 PM »

Lupin, possibly. That NDA sure is tight huh. I'm really itching for that Bulldozer hardware preview now >_< AMD is way overdue on it.

Before Bloomfield, Nvidia licensing SLI to AMD would've been pretty much unthinkable. In the light of post-Bloomfield developments, it's not really much of a surprise anymore.

newy · « **Reply #12 on:** April 28, 2011, 04:53:05 PM »

Now they only have to give them free or access at all to PhysiX.

NaRu · « **Reply #13 on:** April 28, 2011, 05:44:01 PM »

I think the reason for doing this is because more people are getting AMDs as an upgrade from their old system because they are cheaper. There are people that can't afford Intel CPUs

AceHigh · « **Reply #14 on:** April 28, 2011, 06:40:30 PM »

They are doing it as a way to compete with former ATI.

Most likely they didn't want a development where potential customers would choose Radeon cards because their logic would be "made by the same company so they should work better with AMD". As for AMD even if they may lose potential Radeon customers to Nvidia, it pays off for having more potential customers choosing AMD over Intel.

This is how merging ATI and AMD complicated things.

Lupin · « **Reply #15 on:** April 28, 2011, 07:28:38 PM »

Quote from: AceHigh on April 28, 2011, 06:40:30 PM

They are doing it as a way to compete with former ATI.

Most likely they didn't want a development where potential customers would choose Radeon cards because their logic would be "made by the same company so they should work better with AMD". As for AMD even if they may lose potential Radeon customers to Nvidia, it pays off for having more potential customers choosing AMD over Intel.

This is how merging ATI and AMD complicated things.

Then why didn't nvidia do it earlier? Nothing is stopping them from doing it earlier. AMD enabled crossfire on intel products long ago. AMD has been marketing their products (cpu, chipset, video card) as an entire platform long ago.

AceHigh · « **Reply #16 on:** April 28, 2011, 07:34:09 PM »

Because they were dumb? Diverse compatibility is what makes products successful in this market.

tomoya-kun · « **Reply #17 on:** April 28, 2011, 07:51:05 PM »

Maybe I'll buy some AMD cards next/

Pentium100 · « **Reply #18 on:** April 28, 2011, 10:17:46 PM »

So, I guess the motherboard of my main PC is from the future because it supports AMD CPUs (Socket 940, Opteron 2xx) and SLI.

Lupin · « **Reply #19 on:** April 28, 2011, 10:33:22 PM »

Quote from: Pentium100 on April 28, 2011, 10:17:46 PM

So, I guess the motherboard of my main PC is from the future because it supports AMD CPUs (Socket 940, Opteron 2xx) and SLI.

If today was around April 2003 then sure your motherboard is from the future