Intel Licenses NVIDIA SLI Technology For P55 Chips

adeelarshad82 writes "NVIDIA announced that Intel has licensed the company's SLI technology for inclusion in upcoming products — as have a slew of major hardware partners such as ASUS, EVGA, Gigabyte, and MSI. This means the P55 chipsets that power those new socket LGA 1156 motherboards, which are based around the next-gen Nehalem architecture, will let you build systems using two or four NVIDIA-powered GPUs. Specifically, the licensing agreement covers the Core i5 and Core i7 microprocessors."

Comments

Jen-Hsun Huang

[vivek7006]

So this is how the Nvidia CEO intended to open a can of whoop ass on Intel. What a dumb-ass...

Re:Jen-Hsun Huang

[Hal_Porter]

Intel and NVidia have a complex relationship. On the one hand Intel and NVidia are jointly a natural alternative to AMD now it has bought ATI.

Right now of course Intel sell vast numbers of low end GPUs and rely on NVidia for the low volume high end stuff - i.e. SLI for gamers. So Intel pretty much has to support SLI.

On the other they are both hinting they will compete directly. Intel has been talking about CPU/GPU hybrids (i.e. Larrabee) for ages and there have been persistent rumours NVidia will launch an x86 compatible processor. My guess is that any Intel GPU will be low performance and thus not compete with NVidia's flagship products. I also think an NVidia x86 will be low end and aimed at netbooks - i.e. they'll buy Via which has an x86 license and use the Via Nano cores with NVidia graphics rather than trying to challenge Intel's high end stuff with a core that will compete with Core i7/i5.

Not sure who should pay

[hubert.lepicki]

Is it Intel that paid NVidia or the other way around? Having support for SLI is defo good thing for NVidia and for Intel, the question is who should care more.

Is this IP going too far?

[Anonymous Coward]

TFA says that the Intel chipsets will be limited to 8 lanes instead of 16 to give Nvidia an advantage for thier own chipsets.

Why is a license needed to interface with an IC in the first place?

Re:Is this IP going too far?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Because intellectual property is sacred...

Re:Is this IP going too far?

[rsmith-mac]

TFA says that the Intel chipsets will be limited to 8 lanes instead of 16 to give Nvidia an advantage for thier own chipsets.

If that's what TFA says, then it's full of it. The design of Bloomfield/P55 is such that there are 16 PCIe lanes coming straight from the CPU, and then another 4 lanes coming off of the P55 chipset, routed back up to the CPU through whatever interconnect Intel is using (it is in effect just a Southbridge, with the Northbridge integrated in to the CPU). This is because Bloomfield was intended to be used with a single x16 PCIe slot, it's a mid-range product. Nehalem/X58 is Intel's high-end product, and it has a much faster QPI connection coming off of the CPU to interface with a proper Northbridge to feed more PCIe lanes.

So what you have to do is split the 16 lanes in to two sets of 8 lanes, and then use those lanes to make two x16 slots that only have half the bandwidth they're supposed to (something the PCIe standard allows). That's why the Intel chipsets will be limited to 8 lanes.

The NVIDIA chipset mentioned is the NF200, which is a PCIe bridge. It would sit at the end of the 16 lanes coming from the CPU, and in turn offer 32 lanes (2x16) for PCIe slots. This gives you the full 16 lanes of bandwidth to each slot, but it doesn't get you any more bandwidth to the CPU. You still only have 16 lanes of bandwidth to the CPU. The only advantage to using a bridge chip is that it means the full bandwidth of the CPU can be dynamically allocated to a single PCIe slot, and that two PCIe devices can communicate with each other at full speed (the NF200 also has a few SLI commands that make sending data out from the CPU faster by automatically replicating it to the two slots). This does little to solve the fact that you have too little bandwidth in the first place, which is why you won't see the NF200 used too much. Plus bridges add latency and complexity to motherboard designs.

As for why a license is needed at all: because NVIDIA says so. Their products won't work in SLI mode unless they see a license or a NF200 bridge chip (which is an automatic buy-in for SLI). It's a scummy system really, the license doesn't actually do anything. At best it means some token testing was done to make sure SLI worked, when if you build to PCIe spec it would work anyhow.

Re:Monopoly?

[networkBoy]

ATI has crossfile.
and no, this is not an antitrust issue (unless it's against nVidia), as Intel is paying nVidia for the tech.

There's no technology here

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just a weak form of DRM. Nvidia's drivers check the motherboaïrd against a whitelist and if the mobo is on the list the driver allows SLI. Naturally, chipset/motherboard makers have to pay protection money, er licensing fees, to get on the list.

Re:There's no technology here

[BrentH]

Nothing, which is why there is at least one Windows application that does exactly that.

Re:Monopoly?

[verbalcontract]

First of all, it's AMD.

Second of all, ATI is owned by AMD. Because of them, AMD makes graphics cards. AMD also sells technology that allows two AMD cards to be used on one motherboard. Therefore, AMD will probably not pay money for the same technology that lets people purchase and use two competitor's products.

Re:Monopoly?

[sofar]

Unless nVidia will license that same technology to ATI, it sounds like it freezes ATI out of the multi-GPU-on-Intel-chipsets market.

s/ATI/AMD/g

why would AMD promote SLI when they can sell crossover? It seems they would cannibalize their own GPU market by supporting SLI on their chipsets.

I doubt Intel pays much

[Sycraft-fu]

nVidia does charge for SLI licenses. Reason being that they are also in the motherboard chipset market and want you to buy theirs. Intel wasn't all that pleased with the situation and so refused to license QPI to nVidia, which would mean no Core i7 chipsets. Well, that got all resolved and licensing started happening both ways. My guess is neither side is paying the other all that much.

Re:Monopoly?

[snowraver1]

I don't know how a crossover cable would help with GPUs, but ATI could definately promote their CrossFire product...

Intel has failed us again

[billcopc]

Frankly, I've been less than pleased with the whole SLI vs CrossFire debacle. It's a friggin PCI-Express bus! This is nothing more than software and/or firmware enforced lock-in, and it stinks. I would have preferred for Intel to reject the SLI tax entirely. NVidia is the small player here, they're the ones who should be bending over backwards to get the big guys to promote their products. I don't want to pay an SLI tax on my motherboard, NVidia should be plenty glad that I'm buying two expensive GPUs instead of one, and they should consider a partnership with Intel like a divine blessing because Intel is 10 times larger and has far greater reach into every single market.

The situation is simple: right now, I own a perfectly fine motherboard that doesn't support SLI (Intel P35). I also have a perfectly fine Geforce 8800 and would have loved to add a second, but I can't because my board isn't on the SLI whitelist. My options are:

A. buy the second card, and replace my motherboard with an overpriced unstable NForce 750 board

B. fuck NVidia and buy two brand new AMD cards

Assuming equal performance, option B would cost me far less, even though I would prefer the NVidia GPU. Their SLI lock in has thus resulted in a lost sale.

Now I'm just one guy, but here's the funny part: I used to sell gaming rigs... lots and lots of 'em. When people heard about SLI, all the hardcore guys wanted it, but when they found out they had to taint their lovingly assembled systems with an NForce board, most of them backed off. It wasn't even about the money, it's about NVidia's awful track record in the chipset biz. They make even SIS look good. They never really fixed the NF2/3/4 disk corruption glitches, and they trashed the one good thing they had going for them: Soundstorm. That was a long time ago, but the way they handled those very public screwups left a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

Re:Intel has failed us again

[coxymla]

Even if you had a SLI board already, buying another 8800GT is a horrible idea. Far more cost effective would be to sell the 8800GT you already have and upgrade to a better card (probably a 4870.)
A single new card draws less power, makes less noise and heat, takes up less space, and probably runs faster in almost every game (but maybe not synthetic benchmarks.) SLI is a bust.

Re:Monopoly?

[Chabo]

You have it backwards. Crossfire works on pretty much any motherboard with multiple PCIe slots, provided they have sufficient bandwidth between them. SLI requires the motherboard manufacturer to purchase a license from Nvidia to support SLI on the board.

If I'm not mistaken, Intel's X58 board was the first Intel-made board to support SLI, and I don't think anyone made a P45 board supporting it.

Re:Monopoly?

[m50d]

Perhaps they could team up with WWE and promote their Crossface product.