- Wednesday, 10 February 2010
- INQ Mobile
- RSS
Litigation is a machine which you go into as a pig and come out as a sausage - Ambrose Bierce, allegedly
Whoop-ass turns to groveling
JEN-HSUN'S CAN of Whoop-Ass was deflated pretty quickly as Nvidia kissed up to Intel and begged for SLI on x58. Without it, Nvidia loses, with it, users lose.
To get SLI on the x58, you need the so-called nforce 200 SLI processor, otherwise known as a second rate PCIe bridge chip. This is the same part that took the excellent PCIe2 on Skulltrail and made it a mediocre higher latency PCIe1 implementation. It is the same part that the pretty broken 780i used to fake PCIe2 as well.
According to Nvidia, it has "patented SLI technology for graphics bandwidth management and multi-GPU peer-to-peer communications, both required to optimize graphics performance." I am not sure how a simple almost-PCIe2 bridge chips does all this, but they sure charge a hell of a lot for it. The requirement part is easier, Nvidia breaks the drivers for those who don't pay up, and pay they do.
Which brings us to the next part, NV is keen on extracting a pound of bills for everything that says SLI, and this is no exception. System makers will pay a bundle to put an inferior PCIe2 solution on their boards. In the end, the users get a vastly more expensive board that doesn't work as well, but has a sticker on it. This is progress?
The most interesting part is how Nvidia backpedaled. As soon as they mouthed off about whoop-ass and all that, they tanked. Now Nvidia is sheepishily begging Intel for some Nehalem loving, but knocking on the back door hoping no one is looking, cap in hand. They don't have the technology to do a real chipset for CSI, so they are spinning their way around it.
At the press conference later today, they will have a love-in without any technical details as usual, telling how great their tech is without answering any hard questions. A quick poll of OEMs shows the count of X58 boards with the n200 at 0, a number backed up by the Computex count, with plans for board vendors to build them also at 0 +/- 0. If this is the huge win, why is no one making them? The first round of boards won't have SLI at this rate, so Christmas is pretty much a loss for NV.
If you are on the call, ask for specific models of boards that are supposedly coming, then check with the manufacturers as to when those projects were started. This isn't an announcement, it is a backpedaling and (whoopped) ass-covering session.
In the Jen-Hsun vs Intel whoop-ass battle, we sure know who wears the jodhpurs in the relationship. And they aren't green. µ
Share this:
ShareBusiness Intelligence Software
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Enterprise Accounting Software
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
Enterprise Systems Management
Intel has NVIDIA beat and with it, no chances of having anything worth buying from the green Nv team. Isn’t it great when big giant like Intel boxes out the competition, all big companies should follow their lead!

Side note: I know NVIDIA were also being stubborn about handing Intel SLI tech but it’s not like it would have crippled the mighty blue giant!? Right!!?
In before the idiots.

Whatever it is, dar conclusion is fanwomen suck. Big.
I propose that Charlie be known as Charlie "Whoop Ass" Demerjian, or perhaps Charlie "Scourge of Nvidia" Demerjian.

Perhaps, like me, Charlie still hasn't forgiven Nvidia for gobbling up 3dfx!
...Then OEMs would just skip it
We don't need the likes of nVidia around right now. The whole point of this article was how nVidia charges a lot for second-rate chipsets. Here's something that should help you out:

AMD is to Intel as ATI is to nVidia

A retard is to SAT scores as travis is to *blank*
thx nVidia [/sarcasm on]I LOVE YOU[/sarcasm off] I wanted a new Intel platform with X58 and 4870, but now i rather choose the whole AMD package, so 9950 and the new 790FX/GX with SB750.. THX again nVidia.. You helped me ALOT to choose.. LOVE YA
Intel will wait until after NV pays out a good chunk of the $200 million to make restitution for failed graphics cards in notebooks, and after RAMBUS rapes whatever is left of NV's wallet, then buy them up ala AMD. Staying as far away from NV GPU's as I can get....
It would be interesting to know why charlie hates nvidia, but either way he seems to use his anger to point out some facts others would end up dancing around so it's not all bad.
Stay away you 8800... I say stay back!!! NOOOOO!!!!!!
Do you really long for the "good old days" where Intel was the lone king of the hill in CPUs and motherboards? 

Do you really want to go back to $1200+ mid-range CPUs and $400+ motherboards because there was little real competition for Intel? 

We NEED companies like AMD/ATI and Nvidia to succeed. Most of us don't have deep pockets and don't want to once again be stuck paying thousands for mediocre performance. Rabid fan-boyism like this will only wind up costing everyone MORE whilst they are receiving LESS.
Just saying what no one else is saying: Nvidia has a crappy tech that they have rushed out the door. Without it SLI won't work. AMD has a better technology for multi GPU, but still not great!
Do it right the first time or don't do it at all.
Intel are such A-holes, and no not just to nvidia. Just saying their A-holes in general and if anyone can't figure out why then their even bigger A-holes with chunks of stuff.....

pffff..... :-/
Well by the time NVidia SLI might appear on a X58 motherboard Hydra will also be out.

The nice thing is it doesn't seem to require a extra chip to complicate / make more expensive / slow things down + you can pair your old 8800GT with your new 4870x2. Sounds interesting now doesn't it?

http://lucidlogix.com/news/pr_2008_07_14.html
The R&D at both of these companies is led by very skilled engineers and researchers who've pioneered many techniques and standards for the industry, at great expense. Many of the people here cannot even spell. Take some perspective. You talk about technology like sports or wrestling commentary. Respect that you have the privilege to take part in what they've created, and shut up.
that Charlie be given the slugline:

Charlie "fanboy of DAMMIT" Demerjian

or

Charlie's Opinion: DAMMIT rocks NVDA Sucks

for his articles. This certainly fits as his pages have devolved into a little technical info with a TON of speculative commentary. Speculative commentary, I might add, that his commentary is almost never critical of DAMMIT. The exact opposite is true for Nvidia. I'm curious if Charlie thinks Nvidia poisoned his dog / cat / other pet / relative or something.

Reality dicatated Nvidia would stay on top forever. Constantly predicting this (for the last couple of vid card generations a pair of Inq writers have gone on this particular tack) failure is not true prediction skills or a show of special knowledge, but simply the cycle coming round.
It's annoying. I bought an SLI motherboard but now I can't upgrade to ATI. If I buy a Crossfire motherboard then I can't go NVidia SLI in the future.

It's annoying. Please come up with a solution where we can plug in 2 cards without needing the motherboard and graphics cards to have chipsets from the same manufacturer.

It puts me off upgrading my motherboard/gpu because I think I should wait until there is a really big increase in performance. They are losing out, I am losing out in terms of gaming speed, but I'm financially better off.
seems the best part of this article was not Charlie....

http://www.lucidlogix.com/

I can go back and offer to juice up all the onboard rigs i built in the past......
Hmm... i wonder where the Cyrix guys are these days... can we dig them out of the grave (i mean, Cyrix)?
Why isnt Nvidia seeing that its core bussiness is GPU products and not (overheated) chipsets? It would benefit them a lot to open up SLI for all chipset makers, including Intel and AMD, specially if the need for additional chips is no longer there. let the customer decide what processor and chipset they wanna combine with the GPU(s) of their choice. That will surely make them more money in sales then the few boards that will surface with an extra overpriced Nvidia chip?
probably is that Nvidia wanted to be able to get the fastest CPU's available and since DAMMIT has been sucking wind for so long there's only one game in town. While you may call Intel Chipzilla it's irrelevant because they beat the snot out of every DAMMIT proc out. Nvidia had to give up something as part of the deal, and that's SLI this time around.

Congrats Charlie, you've completely missed the obvious. Nvidia is giving Intel what they want (sort of anyway) so they can get what they want, namely rights to produce motherboars for the fastest chips out. You might want to slow down on the Kool-Aid Charlie, you're starting to miss the obvious.

/snicker
//the only people buying "performance" AMD Phenom CPU's for gaming right now are fanbois
///kinda like those fanbois that bought Pentium D's instead of X2's
"Joe Servov" Intel GPU's stink and as for their super "expensive" high-end chipsets are too hot. If you take AMD on a platform bases it still offers good bang for buck.

Yea you could say I’m just being a fan boy but you are just another on of those self screwing consumers who couldn’t give two shits about big picture.

It’s suck that people like you continue to live.
USA is THE ONLY country where software may be patented. In all other it is copirited only. And this allows nVIDIA to get dowble money - one for driver, another - for patent.

I'd preffer the board w/o SLI - AMD latest cards are no worse.