X38 Officially supports Crossfire and SLI

Kamrooz

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According to a news report on Digitimes, Intel is busy working on two enthusiast features for the X38 chipset before the launch next month. Not content by having two x16 PCI Express 2.0 slots with CrossFire support, Intel is going to take on Nvidia’s SLI memory technology with what it calls Extreme Memory.

This is the same concept as Nvidia’s SLI memory, although Intel is only going to certify DDR3 modules, DDR2 won’t be considered. According to the news report, Intel is already working with Kingston and OCZ and samples should be available in late September.

The good news is that the Extreme Memory modules should also be compatible with the P35 chipset, as long as your board supports DDR3 modules, as well as Intel’s next generation mobile performance chipset.

Intel is also working on a software application similar to Nvidia’s nTune, which is called Extreme Tuning. This enables you to adjust BIOS settings from with in the OS and this makes for easier overclocking for those not familiar with the BIOS. However, Extreme Tuning is only for the X38 chipset, but hopefully Intel will release it for other chipsets as well. It will be customizable by the motherboard partners to fit with their choice of colour and design.

You can read the Digitimes story here

Here's the link to the article..

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/7953/index.html

I would of posted it to the other thread talking about this same topic..But I believe it deserves its own thread for confirmation.

found another article from hothardware. Here's a link for my confirmation ^_^

http://www.hothardware.com/News/X38_To_Sport_2_New_Technologies/
 

croc

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I see no confirmation of this chipset supporting sli, just references to the x38 having capabilities similar to nvidia's mem mgt capabilities and a tweak similar to ntune....

When I see an announcement from Intel that they have signed a cross-license agreement with Nvidia, I'll start to believe. Until then, I'll remain a sceptic.
 

Kamrooz

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Well that is indeed true. But it is a major step to know that X38 will support 2 simultaneous Nvidia cards. It may not be an official Nvidia SLI solution but it will be workable on x38 boards. But hopefully intels solution can provide similar performance to nvidia's SLI...

We'll just have to wait and see how everything turns out. But it does seem that nvidia's SLI will not be part of x38...They have their own version from the phrasing in the first and second article...Hopefully intels solution will be up to par.
 

Kamrooz

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Well it's still a dual card solution. Who knows it might turn out to perform slightly better...maybe slightly worse...or quite comparable...

Or it might even be SLI with a few changes?...We'll just have to wait for more information. But at least we know that the x38 supports Crossfire and a dual card nvidia solution.
 

nicolasb

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No it isn't! (slap) That article doesn't even mention video cards. "SLI memory" has nothing whatever to do with "SLI graphics". They are two completely independent phenomena. This announcement has nothing whatever to do with video cards, okay?
 

Crashman

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You're the SECOND person who's been posting this garbage about X38 supporting two nVidia cards, so I'm going to put you in charge of assisting everyone else who jumps to the same assumption: All dual-x16 boards support two nVidia cards, including those using Intel's old 975X chipset and even those using ATI's RD600.

SLI mode is up to the driver, nVidia has blocked it from working on non-nVidia chipsets. They came out with a driver patch to make it work on ULi chipsets after they bought ULi, and people hacked the patch to make it work with 975X.

So it's really up to nVidia and has little to do with Intel. Intel might be able to make certain concessions to nVidia, to bribe nVidia into making SLI work with Intel chipsets, but otherwise nVidia is using this technology to hold the market hostage.