NVIDIA Brings SLI Technology to Intel Bloomfield CPU Platforms

[malware]

PC enthusiasts, manufacturers, and developers around the world have a lot to be excited about today with NVIDIA Corporation’s announcement that it will be bringing the power and performance of its SLI multi-GPU technology to Intel’s upcoming line of Bloomfield CPUs. With this winning combination, consumers will have an SLI platform designed for current and future graphics-intensive games and applications; these platforms can be powered by one, two, or even three NVIDIA GeForce GPUs, including the new, award-winning GeForce GTX 280 and GTX 260 GPUs.


New SLI motherboards will feature the NVIDIA nForce 200 SLI processor, Intel Bloomfield CPUs, and Tylersburg (X58) chipsets. The nForce 200 SLI processor features patented SLI technology for graphics bandwidth management and multi-GPU peer-to-peer communications, both required to optimize graphics performance.

“With GeForce-based visual computing application, our customers are experiencing exciting new ways to interact with their photos and videos while also experiencing the bone-chilling realism from our latest graphics processors,” said Jeff Fisher, senior vice president of GPU business at NVIDIA. “Our SLI technology allows us to combine the power of hundreds of GeForce processing cores in multi-GPU configurations with Intel’s latest CPUs for platforms that are sure to excite our customers.”

What the Customers Are Saying:
“It’s great to see that NVIDIA opted to enable SLI on the future Intel Bloomfield platform,” said Rahul Sood, CTO Voodoo Business Unit, HP. “Make love not war I say… and NVIDIA’s enablement of Intel chipsets to support SLI will make our jobs much easier in offering a better customer experience as we continue to evolve HP’s award-winning Blackbird 002 and Voodoo Omen platforms.”

“Our clients want the best of everything, and it’s our job to package the best technologies into one complete system for them,” said Kelt Reeves, president of Falcon Northwest. “NVIDIA’s SLI configurations have produced the fastest graphics solutions on the market for years, and the ability to pair SLI with Intel’s upcoming processors will deliver a level of overall system performance no one has ever seen before. We can’t wait to equip Falcon Northwest systems with this solution!”

“NVIDIA`s SLI technology is the outstanding feature of high-end gamer PCs,” says Klaus Rüther, Desktop Product Manager at Atelco. “We are very pleased that the SLI technology will be available for the new line of Intel Bloomfield CPUs. With SLI, the gamer can experience the latest PC games as if they were real.”

“Medion is a highly regarded European OEM as an innovator in enthusiast-based PCs,” said Oliver Soellner, CMO at Medion. “By adding NVIDIA SLI with Intel’s next-generation CPU platform, we can offer the most feature rich Medion Erazer PCs with blistering graphics performance, which is sure to satisfy the most demanding users.”

“Fujitsu-Siemens is excited to see NVIDIA SLI technology associated with Intel Bloomfield CPUs. This combination addresses the innovative gaming market and will bring the best experience to gamers worldwide,” said Michael Hilpert, Senior Product manager at FSC.

“What a great, great move, the ability to have 3-way SLI, with Intel Bloomfield CPUs. The combination will break all the existing performance barriers and deliver a whole new user experience. The wait is over,” Elan Raja III Director Scan Computers.

“Over the last four years, NVIDIA has been recognized for its SLI technology innovation and leadership," said Joe Hsieh, General Manager at ASUS. "This technology is an excellent feature that customers are demanding for their new Intel platforms. We are excited about bringing the power of this platform to our Intel customers.”

“Acer congratulates NVIDIA on its nForce 200 SLI technology platform and we are very interested to bring it to market,” said Brian Bogaard, Product Business Manager, Acer EMEA Desktop PC

The pairing of the NVIDIA nForce 200 SLI MCP with Intel’s new Bloomfield CPU and Tylersburg core logic chipset will deliver NVIDIA 3-way SLI technology for an unmatched PC gaming experience, providing up to a 2.8 performance boost over traditional single graphics card platforms. When playing the most cutting-edge games, including current titles such as Crysis and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, 3-way SLI technology lets gamers ratchet up the resolution to 2500x1600, while turning on all of the tasty eye candy, including high-dynamic range lighting, motion blur, and realistic environmental effects.

Motherboards and PC systems featuring support for the NVIDIA nForce 200 SLI processor, NVIDIA GeForce GPUs, and NVIDIA SLI technology will be available from the world’s leading motherboard manufacturers, add-in card companies, and major system builders including: Acer, ASUS, Atelco, Coolmod, Dell, Ditech, Falcon Northwest, Founder, Fujitsu-Siemens Computer, Gigabyte, Haier, Hypersonic PC, Iqon/Commodore, K&M, Komplett, Komputronik , Legend, Maingear, Medion, MSI, Multirama, Next, Scan Computers , Sky Electronics , Tongfang, TS, Velocity Micro, Vigor Gaming, and more.

Source: NVIDIA

[petepete]

so it's now officially a tag team of Intel + nVidia vs. AMD/ATI. oh boy

[Squirrely]

Well, glad Intel and Nvidia got over their sissy fight a while ago, mudslinging each other saying spending more money on their own product will give better overall performance.

Should be interesting to see what type benchies the x58 chipset, Bloomfield, and 3 way SLI can churn out.

[phanbuey]

"award-winning GTX 260 gpu..." - the Award for 'Best way to price yourself out of the market".

[yogurt_21]

Originally Posted by Squirrely

Well, glad Intel and Nvidia got over their sissy fight a while ago, mudslinging each other saying spending more money on their own product will give better overall performance.

Should be interesting to see what type benchies the x58 chipset, Bloomfield, and 3 way SLI can churn out.

more like nvidia saw their stocks droippong like a brick and swallowed their pride. it was never intel that was putting a halt on sli. it was nvidia. they only wanted sli to run on their own chipsets.

[[I.R.A]_FBi]

they can keep it.

do not want.

[evil bill]

Just to clarify - the X58 will support both CrossFire AND SLi? This doesn't mean Intel have bumped ATI does it?

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by yogurt_21

more like nvidia saw their stocks droippong like a brick and swallowed their pride. it was never intel that was putting a halt on sli. it was nvidia. they only wanted sli to run on their own chipsets.

Well their chipset department has to make money somehow.

I wish nVidia would just get over their pride and just let SLI run on any chipset. It would hurt ther chipset devision(but it might make them start churning out better chipsets), but it would definitely help sell more graphics cards.

I think it is stupid that motherboard manufactures need to rework their boards to include the BT200 chip that does absolutely nothing other than allow the motherboard to say "Yes, I have an nVidia chip on me, so I can do SLI."

[btarunr]

Originally Posted by evil bill

Just to clarify - the X58 will support both CrossFire AND SLi? This doesn't mean Intel have bumped ATI does it?

No, it will run both. Remember how you could do 4-way CFX on a Skulltrail? When we first broke news on this issue, I put this up:

[acperience7]

AMD better up their game, and fast too.

[Nkd]

NO it does not mean intel is dumping ati, it means that nvidia has gotten of their asses and admitted that they were stuck up before, they have no way out, intel was not going to give them a license to make bloomfield chipsets as it was the rumour earlier, and now they have given in to allow sli on x58, intel benefits from them all, whether sli or crossfire the consumer benefits the most, I just think that nvidia might slowly be going away from motherboard market, I am sure they will make them still because they probably have a fan base that would buy nothing but nvidia, but most high end consumers will buy x58 knowing that it will support both sli and crossfire, and trust me when I say this, intel knows how to make chipsets, I have had nothing but bad luck when I tried to jump on 680i and boy I will never do it again, intel chipsets are the way to go for me.

[newtekie1]

Actually, Intel did give nVidia a license to make Bloomfield chipsets. However, it took them so long to work out the deal, that nVidia didn't have enough time to get a full fledge chipset out for Bloomfield, since the x58 is due out so soon. So they went with this option instead, I wouldn't be surprised if we see full Bloomfield chipsets come out from nVidia eventually.

[btarunr]

Yes, Newtekie is right, it's just a makeshift thing, eventually they'll come up with a NForce 880i SLI? and then start a "SLI runs better on NForce than X58 + BR 04" thingy.

[erocker]

Bah, I don't like it one bit. the Inquirer wrote an article on this, and I actually agree with them. If Nvidia could produce a better chip than sli 200 mabye it would be nice.

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

About damn time. Ive been wanting to run SLi on my Intel boards for 6 months now. Gives me yet another reason to upgrade.

[EastCoasthandle]

Many are concerned that they have to pay extra for the x58 MB (AKA tax) do to the nforce chip. Some already know that you don't need this chip in order to get SLI working on a Intel chipset. Unless they changed something with SLI requiring this NForce 200 chip/bridge (or whatever it's called).

People just want a Intel MB that can do SLI without the added hardware, just like CF.

[btarunr]

Exactly. Didn't the BR-04 puke all over the PCI-E system of Skulltrail and 780i SLI in terms of latency?

[evil bill]

Originally Posted by btarunr

No, it will run both. Remember how you could do 4-way CFX on a Skulltrail?

cool - I thought that was the case but just wanted to be sure.

[EastCoasthandle]

If it's true that the nforce 200 cost $30 and the x58 costs $70 then that alone is $100!!!! . x58, SLI boards may cost in the neighborhood of $350+

We will have to wait and see what the final cost will be though.

[Morgoth]

Originally Posted by btarunr

No, it will run both. Remember how you could do 4-way CFX on a Skulltrail? When we first broke news on this issue, I put this up:

i'm not sure if your chard is right
i got this one

[EastCoasthandle]

From the look of things it appears that we may have 2 different versions of the X58. One will come with the nforce 200 chip and one without (among other things I am unaware of).

Unless, I missed something I do not see a nforce 200 on the boards posted above. From what I've read the cost of the nforce 200 bridge/chip is paid by the motherboard manufactures and not Intel.

[Ketxxx]

Ohh boy.. Abit are putting the X58 in their "MAX" series... its doomed to be a POS.

[btarunr]

Originally Posted by Morgoth

i'm not sure if your chard is right
i got this one

It was the same thing albeit I didn't realise the Ibex Peak is a single chip. The concept stays the same, wherein they plop these BR-04 chips (1 chip each x16 slot) across those x16 PCI-E 2.0 lanes.

It will run both SLI and CFX, just that CFX on a virgin X58 board will perform better than boards with these BR-04 chips. How? These chips jack-up latencies, proved on the Skulltrail. Also, the Ibex Peak and Lynnfield comes later (close to H2 2009), by that time NVIDIA will be ready with their chipset, I doubt they'll use BR-04 chips on LGA 1160 boards.

[candle_86]

Originally Posted by Nkd

NO it does not mean intel is dumping ati, it means that nvidia has gotten of their asses and admitted that they were stuck up before, they have no way out, intel was not going to give them a license to make bloomfield chipsets as it was the rumour earlier, and now they have given in to allow sli on x58, intel benefits from them all, whether sli or crossfire the consumer benefits the most, I just think that nvidia might slowly be going away from motherboard market, I am sure they will make them still because they probably have a fan base that would buy nothing but nvidia, but most high end consumers will buy x58 knowing that it will support both sli and crossfire, and trust me when I say this, intel knows how to make chipsets, I have had nothing but bad luck when I tried to jump on 680i and boy I will never do it again, intel chipsets are the way to go for me.

personally intel has hit and miss always has.

Hits would include

H30HX
440LX
440BX
i815
i845
i865
i965
P35
X38
P45
x48

As for miss
430TX
440 (any besides LX and BX)
i810
i1820
i840
i850
i910
i915
i945

so it seems they are getting better

[Wile E]

Originally Posted by candle_86

personally intel has hit and miss always has.

Hits would include

H30HX
440LX
440BX
i815
i845
i865
i965
P35
X38
P45
x48

As for miss
430TX
440 (any besides LX and BX)
i810
i1820
i840
i850
i910
i915
i945

so it seems they are getting better

945 isn't really a miss. Maybe on desktops to a degree, but it has powered many a laptop until the 965 finally released to the lappy market.