X38/X48 hack?

[The_Blood_Raven]

Friend of mine asked me if it is true that you can hack an X38/X48 motherboard to support SLI, as well as the stock crossfire support. I remember reading this somewhere a while back, but I'm quite skeptical and I can not see a single way this could work without getting out the soldering iron and micro cutter! Is it possible, and if so how!? Thanks for answering this undoubtably common question.

 

[Andrius]

IIRC it was a Striker Extreme that got a custom BIOS for CrossFire (PCIE peering or something) in a HP Blackbird.

Not sure I've heard anything about it being the other way around. Sorry.

 

[The_Blood_Raven]

Thanks, I guess he will have to wait until the new cards come out to deside, not sure why that is so hard.

 

[Andrius]

^The fitting quote would be : "School's out for summer."

I've checked a bit and it is as I said.
One would need a NVIDIA PCIE bridge chip for SLI (like on Skulltrail) for X38/X48 to support SLI. Intel would need to change the reference design and that's not likely going to happen. With ASUS' knowhow I guess the only thing that prevents it from happening is loyalty to NVIDIA/Intel.

 

[Scotteq]

^The fitting quote would be : "School's out for summer."

I've checked a bit and it is as I said.
One would need a NVIDIA PCIE bridge chip for SLI (like on Skulltrail) for X38/X48 to support SLI. Intel would need to change the reference design and that's not likely going to happen. With ASUS' knowhow I guess the only thing that prevents it from happening is loyalty to NVIDIA/Intel.

well.. It's not a matter of Intel/AMD changing their reference designs at all. With the exception of the very low volume Skulltrail, nVidia has not licenced SLI for anyone to use with chipsets other than nVidia's own. So while it is perfectly true that anyone with the expertise to build a motherboard could very easily incorporate nVidia's bridge chip into the design. It is also perfectly true that nVidia's lawyers would have a little something to say about it... and it wouldn't be pleasant.

Why is this so?? Because nVidia have decided that SLI is a powerful enough technology that they can keep it to themselves in order to drive sales of their motherboards. This has always been nVidia's position on the matter, and (has) therefore (forced??) Intel (to) continue their relationship with ATI on Crossfire in spite of the AMD aquisition. If Pigs could fly, then Itel would actually have a GPU worthy of competing with nVidia/ATI, then the situation would likely be very different - Intel'd tell both of them to pound sand. But Pigs don't. So the status quo continues to live.

But then again, if Pigs could fly then Hector would also have to buy a steel umbrella and hire crews to continuously wash his car.... :lol:

 

[Andrius]

@Scotteq
Yeah, the "lawyer thing" is what I meant by "loyalty".

I'm not sure how much of a role NVIDIA's chipset has in enabling SLI. I think it's a pure driver lock. However if that is the case I wonder why there are no unoffical drivers for it. The sad part is I'd rather buy a second best graphics card than a bad motherboard. What good is top graphics performance in games when you have to restore your system from backups once a week, can't watch videos, and can't overclock? Might as well buy a games console. But that's just me.

 

[Scotteq]

And - Fully agreed. And my understanding is that the drivers lock the feature out upon 'Non-Detection' of the appropriate bridge chip. Certainly that was the case on the older versions, which could be hacked to work.



Personally, because of issues with all dual card setups (whether SLI or X-Fire) working with some things and not with others, *plus* the fact that individual cards are getting more and more powerful, I am of the humble opinion that the days where SLI/Xfire bring tangible benefits are becoming numbered. After all, my 8800GTX already provides very good frame rates on a 40" HDTV and a 24" monitor at 12 x 16. Does it really matter if I get "only" 90 frames a second instead of 140?? Or a mere 50~60 instead of 80~90 on a more demanding game?? Not to me, it doesn't. Or, more importantly for my own lazy self, does it matter enough to make me deal with the heat/noise/compatibility issues that come with it (No).

In the light of ever more powerful single PCi slot based solutions I opine it is becoming less and less necessary (if it ever really could be called "necessary" in the first place) to run a dual GPU solution.

...at least until Ray Tracing becomes the gaming standard, anyways. I'm sure at that time it'll be my wallet that's the one screaming for mercy.

 

[The_Blood_Raven]

That is what I thought, but some people seem to be convinced that it is possible, yet I can not find anyone who knows how to do it or can prove it, oh well. Got my curiosity up and running, seems to me that even if it did work the drivers would be unstable, but I don't know because I can not find any actual "facts".

 

[Scotteq]

I know there were hacked SLI drivers floating aroung the internet for the Intel 975x chipset. Personally, I see "Hacked" and "Floating around the Internet" in the same sentence?!?!? yeahhh.... Not on *my* computer.


If you want an Intel chipset and dual GPUs, then buy ATI graphics cards and use Crossfire. Preferably cards and mobo from the same vendor, if you can. That way when you call support for one, the call center gnomes on the other end can't blame the other.