If you own an Nvidia motherboard read this.

[joefriday]

Apparently due to licensing issues, Nvidia might have to force mobo makers to issue new BIOS code to deactivate PCI prefetch in virtually every motherboard that has carried an Nvidia chipset in the last couple years. That cannot be good. Read the whole story on Fudzilla.

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10222&Itemid=1

 

[br3nd064]

Depending on how much the suit is for, it's probably more cost and time effective for nvidia to just pay up the money.

 

[aevm]

1. First of all, Fudzilla is not a reliable source.

2. Also, I can't believe nVidia would do something that stupid. It would kill their motherboard business. Once that is gone, enthusiasts who want multi-GPU setups will have to look at ATI video cards. Then all their less informed relatives and friends will imitate them when they buy mainstream cards.

3. Plus this opens them to lawsuits from motherboard buyers.

No way, it can't possibly be true.

 

[joefriday]

I did some more digging. It's already happened, starting in Jan. 2007. At least this is Nvidia's official statement on the issue.

http://www.dvhardware.net/article30967.html

 

[Kraynor]

2. Also, I can't believe nVidia would do something that stupid. It would kill their motherboard business. Once that is gone, enthusiasts who want multi-GPU setups will have to look at ATI video cards. Then all their less informed relatives and friends will imitate them when they buy mainstream cards.
No way, it can't possibly be true.

I thought the X58 was going to have SLI support?

 

[spathotan]

Nvidia has already killed their own chipsets by simplying making them, they dont even need the help of ATI/Intel, or licensing issues to help them.

Nvidia chipsets have been trash for the most part since the 600i's. The nForce5 boards were great.

 

[themyrmidon]

Oh, darn, my TV tuner will have to suffer for this. What a tragedy. Guess I just have to go out and get a nice USB HD one to replace my crappy MSI. Oh, darn. [sarcasm]

1: I'm not going to patch my 680i.
2: PCI-reg? This is no big deal.
3: Does it really matter?

 

[dragonsprayer]

nah
they will settle that does no one any good

 

[dragonsprayer]

Nvidia has already killed their own chipsets by simplying making them, they dont even need the help of ATI/Intel, or licensing issues to help them.

Nvidia chipsets have been trash for the most part since the 600i's. The nForce5 boards were great.

nf5 where better since the lower fsb - they ran hot too
the reliability was not as good as intel and raid was not as stable especially exotic raid

high fsb killed nvidia and the nb can not handle it - nvidia big mistake is they did not offer a good cooling method the nb heat sink was crap even with the fan. water cooling did not help that much either since the mobo's can not put out the wattage (amp -voltage) need for quad

 

[WR]

This is old news.

Opti has sued AMD, Apple, and Nvidia for the same group of patents. The only chipset manufacturer not to get sued was Intel, who paid $13.5 million a while ago.

I'm just wondering what, if any, performance delta can be attributed to these patents and whether they apply to AGP/PCI-e/PCI-X.

Other links:
http://moneycentral.msn.com/news/ticker/sigdev.aspx?Symbol=OPTI
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3644786

 

[jimmysmitty]

nVidia hasn't had a good past 2 years have they.

 

[bobbknight]

Thats one of the reasons I like intel chipsets for intel chips.

 

[jimmysmitty]

I like Intel chipsets for Intel chips because they OC better, more stable and ar normally giving better memory bandwidth than nVidias do.