SLI & Crossfire on the same board.

[richardd43]

Was reading about the new HP Blackbird computer and ran across this little tidbit:

Voodoo's Rahul Sood told us that he worked with ATI and Asus to make this cross-standard strategy possible. He wouldn't reveal exactly what changes were made, but the good news is your upgrade options are doubled due to this innovation, as this system now support both ATI's Crossfire and Nvidia's SLI dual-graphics cards. That benefit could also trickle down to the average DIYer. Pending approval from the various vendors involved, the tweaks present in the Blackbird could become publicly available via a software download. What's also great about this hybridization is that it lets HP offer both ATI and Nvidia graphics cards, but with only one motherboard to support. Every other vendor out there either forces you to switch to a different board depending on your 3D card choice, or, like Dell, only offers one brand of graphics card to begin with.

This really would be nice if it came about

[NickN]

Actually, you can do both with most newer (about a year or so old) Intel chipsets. Its not sanctioned and you wont read anything about it at official websites but the intel 965 and up chipsets can do SLi and Crossfire if you get your hands on the hacked chipset drivers

intel put the support in the chipsets expecting nvidia to give them a license but they never got that so the drivers simply disable the feature.

[richardd43]

I just found the article interesting in the fact that HP actually had the balls to do it. I am sure they tweaked a few noses with that one.

Well, I bought my first ATI graphics board in years and have never owned an Intel chip so I might be seeing a Intel chip in the future also.

Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

BTW, the BSOD on my wifes computer I asked you about was a corrupt Logitech mouse driver.

[NickN]

Well, that would be the second most popular reason for the problem

Faulty hardware. Stop 0x50 usually occurs after the installation of faulty hardware or in the event of failure of installed hardware (usually related to defective RAM, be it main memory, L2 RAM cache, or video RAM). If hardware has been added to the system recently, remove it to see if the error recurs. If existing hardware has failed, remove or replace the faulty component. You should run hardware diagnostics supplied by the system manufacturer. For details on these procedures, see the owner's manual for your computer.

I dont think you need any of that Logitech software. I buy their keyboards and mice products all the time and I never install any of it. Windows has all the configuration elements built into it, unless you happen to have an odd-ball that needs support way past what a mouse of keyboard does.

Even my multimedia Logitech keyboards are fully functional in Windows without any drivers from Logitech



And I think you would probably like the switch. Partially because its a new toy and something new to learn, but the best part is the results, and, you dont need a wind tunnel and a turbine jet blower to keep the processor cool.

[richardd43]

Even my multimedia Logitech keyboards are fully functional in Windows without any drivers from Logitech

She uses the keyboard shortcuts and they require the setpoint software. The mouse was the problem but it is a mouse/keyboard set so............

And I think you would probably like the switch. Partially because its a new toy and something new to learn, but the best part is the results, and, you dont need a wind tunnel and a turbine jet blower to keep the processor cool.

Well darn, I will have to replace all of my cases also.... ROFL

[Mermaid Man]

With cards now in SLI/Crossfire in a single PCI-E card you can get SLI & Crossfire on any motherboard

[richardd43]

With cards now in SLI/Crossfire in a single PCI-E card you can get SLI & Crossfire on any motherboard  

Not sure what you are saying. Was that a question or a statement?

An Nvidia SLI chipset will currently not run Crossfire.

HP came out with a modified 680i board that will run both.

Nick pointed out that the newer Intel board are capable of both SLI and Crossfire but you need the modified chipset drivers that are not available to the general public.

[Mermaid Man]

ATI 3870X2 and Nvidia 9800 X2 are two cards strapped into one. So to get SLI/Crossfire you only need a single card. Afaik the motherboard chipset isn't important. At least I think it is.

With two physical PCI-E cards then yes you need to match Nvidia chipset with Nvidia cards, and ATI chipset with ATI cards.

[richardd43]

ATI 3870X2 and Nvidia 9800 X2 are two cards strapped into one. So to get SLI/Crossfire you only need a single card. Afaik the motherboard chipset isn't important. At least I think it is.

With two physical PCI-E cards then yes you need to match Nvidia chipset with Nvidia cards, and ATI chipset with ATI cards

The 3870X2 will require a Crossfire motherboard to run in Crossfire and the 9800X2 will require the Nvidia chip set to run in SLI.

Some of the earlier Nvidia motherboards allowed you to run a 7950GX2 in SLI on a board that had a single PCI-E slot. I don't know if the newer single slot boards allow that or not.