ASRock Crams CrossFire and SLI in One Board
As if giving Nvidia the middle finger or slapping the graphics company in the face, ASRock managed to make ATI CrossFire cards run on Nvidia SLI motherboards.
A flyer straight out of CeBIT 2009 shows what must be a sign of the apocalypse, or as Bill Murray described in Ghostbusters, "dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!" And honestly, by the looks of ASRock's freshly distributed flyer, Nvidia employees may actually be seen running for cover on the convention floor, breaking out holy talismans. Why? ASRock hasn't created a monster or resurrected demons, it did the unthinkable.
It managed to run ATI CrossfireX graphics cards on an Nvidia SLI motherboard.
It's no monstrosity, an at this moment, ASRock is sporting the incredible configuration in Booth Hall 21, Stand C40. The company is using the N7AD-SLI, based on Nvidia's nforce 740i SLI chipset flashed with an altered BIOS update. To show the motherboard's versatility, the company kicks off the demonstration with two EEN9600GT cards running in the SLI configuration. Then, as if by magic, ASRock representatives removed the cards and replace them with two ATI 4850 graphics cards running in ATI CrossFireX mode.
So what does this mean for the average Joe? Not a whole lot, but gamers and power-hungry consumers not wanting to be locked into one technology may very well be liberated by ASRock's "secret weapon." Stay tuned as more info regarding this revelation seep out of CeBIT!
Still it would have been much nicer if it came before the x58 which runs both already
Well, available is perhaps the wrong term. More like 'in existance' Ive searched high and low and this doesnt seem to have proliferated beyond that specific model until now.
It was the Blackbird afterall.
Yeah i remember that too, so theres no actually nothing new here. The innovating thing here is that a mobo maker is starting to make this working defacto and available to anyone, a trick that once was reserved to geeks with the vast pc/programming knowledge to hack a bios config.
Something i would really impressed to see is a nvida carded slied/xfired with an ati one. (of course that might be impossible since ati and nvidia have huge difference in the architecture of their cards... but who knows!)
I agree
SLI CF mother bards have been around for quite a long time. asua rampage 2 for example can support both.
I'm more surprised that ATI allows cross-fire to be run on an Nvidia chipset, I would think the display drivers would prevent this.
Remember, the only reason SLI didn't work on old Intel chipsets was because Nvidia locked everything but Nvidia chipsets out of their drivers. Once they worked out a licensing deal for the x58, it only required a driver update (and possibly some tweaks to Intel's BIOS).
bustapr, I believe the ASRock motherboard is a Core2 motherboard. Intel licensed SLI tech for their x58 Core i7 boards (that asus rampage 2 you linked).
This new board is really only applicable to old Core2 duo/quad users who apparently need a new motherboard and want to keep their GPU upgrade options open in the future. But really, how far are you going to stretch that Core2 before upgrading your GPU isn't the problem anymore? I mean, with single-card solutions like the GTX295, 9800X2, 4870x2, 4850x2, etc..., is your single-PCIe motherboard really whats holding you back?
I could not see myself buying this board for that feature.
Anyway, guess this means no more flaming on the newbs in the forums that ask if they can crossfire on an Nvidia board