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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."

6 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. I don't know but... by carp3_noct3m · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is pure conjecture, but to me it seemed as if when AMD and ATI became one team and Nvidia and Intel became the other, that it would make sense for each one to offer incentives (read: threats) so that their partner would not bend over for the competition. So its not like its completely up to Nvidia to start improving their standing with AMD because of pressure from Intel. If that made any sense, then I'll drink a couple more beers before posting next time. Out

    --
    "It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
  2. Well... by Evelas · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Looks like no more NVIDIA for me, time to research what ATI has available. I like my AMD chips.

    1. 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?).

  3. Who cares? by Winckle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Dual GPU solutions are so pointless, a waste of money for little performance gain, that doesn't even work in some games.

  4. Who CARES about SLI? by PrescriptionWarning · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The fact is that a very marginally small portion of people actually use more than one video card. And why should anyone really, when modern day consoles cost about the same amount as one would spend on a moderately high end processor + video card, why the hell would most people want to spend an extra 300 bucks or so to have an extra video card at only 25% or less extra benefit in framerate? Only the hardcore ones with the extra wallet is who. As for me, I'm more than happy with my $1000 system with ONE video card, and I know its going to last me at least and extra year or two anyway.

    Anyway all I'm saying is AMD has the ability to tie in their own processor + GPU combo, plus let the consumer buy a separate GPU, thus getting their own "SLI". If they play their card right, they can just give the finger to NVIDIA and provide some real competition that this market really needs to prevent us all from paying $200-300 for a decent GPU these days.

  5. 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.