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SLI On Life Support For the AMD Platform

Posted by Soulskill on from the two-for-the-price-of-two dept.

JoshMST writes "For years AMD and Nvidia were like peas and carrots, and their SNAP partnership proved to be quite successful for both companies. Things changed dramatically when AMD bought up ATI, and now it seems like Nvidia is pulling the plug on SLI support for the AMD platform. While the chipset division at AMD may be a bitter rival to Nvidia, the CPU guys there have had a long and prosperous relationship with the Green Machine. While declining chipset margins on the AMD side was attributed to AMD's lackluster processor offerings for the past several years, the Phenom II chips have reawakened interest in the platform and they have found a place in enthusiasts' hearts again. Unfortunately for Nvidia, they are seemingly missing out on a significant revenue stream by not offering new chipsets to go with these processors. They have also curtailed SLI adoption on the AMD platform as well, which couldn't be happening at a worse time."

11 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Well... by CastrTroy · · Score: 2, Informative

    Yeah Intel does make faster processors. But you'll pay for them. The AMD chips cost about the same as the comparable Intel chips, so in the end, the decision just comes down to religion. Unless you want to talk about spending $500 on a processor.

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  2. Re:Who cares? by NFNNMIDATA · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm with this guy. I have SLI and I have yet to find a single game that it actually improves. In fact, in most cases it cuts performance in half. As far as I can tell it's just a way to trick morons like me into buying twice as many video cards.

  3. Re:Well... by SplashMyBandit · · Score: 5, Informative

    ATI is right up there in performance when compared to it's rival Nvidia GPU's. The problem is, Intel's Core i7 blows anything AMD has out of the water. Even the aging Intel quad-cores rival with AMD's brand new Phenom 2's.

    True, but only if system cost is not factored into the equation.

    • At the same price-point the AMDs are actually better performers (which is why many are interested in them again). That is, the AMDs have better performance-per-dollar (or whatever your local currency is, clams anyone?).
    • The high end i7s give impressive benchmarks but they are in the same price range as Xeon or Opteron.
    • Same with the Nvidia cards, great benchmarks but for twice the price they might give as little as a 10% performance increase on the ATI 'equivalent'. If you are counting your pennies (or whatever your local currency sub-unit is, shiny beads anyone?) then the AMD and ATI actually give you better performance, which I found surprising when I started looking at the benchmarks and costs of getting a new system.

    Mandatory car analogy: Yes, the $500k ferrari might win against my $100K porsche, but how many people are gonna pay the extra megabucks for them (or whatever your local currency is, electrum pieces?).

  4. Another weird Slashdot editor failure. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 2, Informative

    Slashdot could have linked to the article the story submitter wrote for PC Perspectives: SLI on Life Support on the AMD Platform: Oh SNAP!.

  5. Re:Well... by Merls+the+Sneaky · · Score: 2, Informative

    Ever since AMD bought out ATI driver support has drastically improved. AMD isolated the problem (drivers) and got it fixed, or prompted ATI to do it.

  6. Unimportant. by Jartan · · Score: 5, Informative

    Really the article makes it sound like Nvidia is abandoning AMD chipsets but it's just SLI support. When they started making this decision it looked like AMD was totally dead in the enthusiast market. Even die-hards were switching to Intel chips. It seemed for a while there that the market for dual graphics cards on AMD was nearly dead. Now that AMD has a good chip again Nvidia will probably be scrambling to get a new chipset out for enthusiasts.

  7. Re:amd by ZosX · · Score: 2, Informative

    I took the liberty of comparing some systems. A Phenom II 940 x4 is about $200 with a board. A Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 is about the same. The Phenom is 2.5 ghz, the Core is 2.2ghz. According to this page, http://www.dexternights.com/2009/05/29/intel-vs-amd-desktop-quad-core-processors-comparison-price-vs-performance-ratio/, They are pretty much equal. It is pretty amazing how much intel has dropped pricing in comparison to AMD. Performance wise, those two parts are pretty similar, so I don't think the performance argument holds water. Also note that on the low end, AMD has some really pretty good offerings and has at least left somewhat of an upgrade path for people over the years. Its funny how anti-intel everyone was until they took the lead again and now they are the new darling.

    --
    zosxavius photography
  8. Single card, Dual GPU by dr_wheel · · Score: 3, Informative

    There are single-slot dual GPU offerings from both camps. If you actually need/want SLI/CrossFire, what's the point of running 2 cards when you can have 1?

  9. Re:Well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Bullshit. Core i7 2.66GHz quad core is $280. Not only is the i7 a lot better at number crunching, it's also a lot faster at memory access than the Phenom II.

  10. Re:Who cares? by hab136 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Maybe he actually meant "I could sloppy", although that sentence no verb.

  11. Re:Who CARES about SLI? by reub2000 · · Score: 2, Informative

    But you don't need any special support for running 2 video cards in a machine. A while back, before nVidia created their implementation of SLI, I had a GeForce 3 with one video output. In order to connect a second monitor, I had to install a GeForce 2. No special link. I'm not sure what any of this has to do with SLI and crossfire other than the physical presence of 2 video cards in one machine.