|
|
|
|
AMD CPUs get 3-way SLI support from Nvidia, as well as Hybrid SLI and Hybrid Power
After seemingly deserting AMD for the last few generations of its nForce chipsets, Nvidia has today officially announced that it’s supporting AMD’s latest AM2+ chips with its new nForce 750a and 780a chipsets.
Nvidia alluded to the chipsets at CES earlier this year, and Zotac jumped the gun on announcing the details of 750a back in March, but we now have the full skinny on the latest chipsets. One of the main new features is the first 3-way SLI system for AMD CPUs, which is sported by the 780a chipset. This comes via three PCI-E 2.0 graphics slots, one of which has 16 lanes, while the other two cards will be allocated eight lanes each. Meanwhile, the cheaper 750a chipset only allows two-way SLI via two 8x PCI-E 2.0 slots.
As well as this, the chipsets also support Nvidia’s new Hybrid Power and Hybrid SLI technologies. The idea of Hybrid SLI is that you have a basic GeForce 8-series GPU onboard, which you can then link in SLI to a low-powered discrete graphics card for a boost in performance.
Meanwhile, Hybrid Power allows you to use the onboard GPU when you’re doing basic Windows work, to reduce heat, noise and power consumption, while your discrete graphics card is completely powered down. The card is then powered up when it’s required. The new chipsets also support AMD’s new AM2+ socket, with HyperTransport 3 and split power planes, and you can install up to 8GB of PC2-8500 DDR2 memory in a 780a or 750a board.
Several major motherboard manufacturers have now announced boards based on the chipsets, including Asus and MSI. Asus’ Crosshair II Formula features the flagship 780a chipset with 3-way SLI support and room for three dual-slot graphics cards, plus D-SUB and HDMI connectors for the onboard graphics.
Meanwhile MSI’s 780a-based K9N2 Diamond features a PCI-E 1x Creative X-Fi Xtreme Audio card, which the company says will put ‘those useless PCI-E x1 connectors on your mainboard’ to work. The MSI board also features a DVI connector for the onboard graphics, and a new Circu-Pipe cooling system with four heatpipes. MSI has also announced two nForce 750a motherboards; the K9N2 Zilent, which comes with a Zalman NP9500 CPU cooler and a two-pipe Circu-Pipe cooler, and the K9N2 Platinum, which is basically the same but without the Zalman cooler. All of the new MSI boards support any AM2 or AM2+ processor with a TDP of up to 140W.
Looking from results they are performing around the same as the 790FX board, though overclocking seems to have taken a jump. One review stated that they managed to have a 100% stable overclock for a Phenom BE 9850 @ 2.9Ghz. That's quite nice.
Looking from results they are performing around the same as the 790FX board, though overclocking seems to have taken a jump. One review stated that they managed to have a 100% stable overclock for a Phenom BE 9850 @ 2.9Ghz. That's quite nice.
We need some Benchmarks CPC, so come on guys let us see if this may help Nvidia and AMD out at all... we might get the competition back as well if this all goes well, because i think Nvidia do hold the key to who is the best CPU manufacturer, because Nvidia have the best GPUs and now that they own the Physx API then this will only benefit the small time CPU manufacturers even more, because AMD will probably have the upper hand with their next gen budget CPUs and if most of the work is dealt with by the GPU then you wouldn't need a high powered CPU, what do you guys reckon, do you think Nvidia may be holding the key to get AMD back in buisness?
would be nice! I'd like to see how x2's x3's and x4's compare on these boards with AMD's own chipsets. I don't think this is about nVidia trying to destroy the ATi brand. You could still buy an ATi card if you really want it. The Hybrid Power is a useful technology and could save owners a few quid in running costs as well as helping to stop devestation of grasslands in mongolia and the re-election of Mugabe...but please CPC, let us see some benchmarks/power consumption comparisons to see if this does make a real difference. :)
Owns an AMD ???????? ROFLCOPTER ;)
This could be the way forward for Nvidia and AMD, because both of them seem to be in trouble with intel, and if you like the 8x00 series, then this may pay off for you... and ever since the recent bits of news here or there, i have decided to concentrate on competition over performance... because its not like i need a nasa beater like, is it, plus... we'll get faster performance sooner, if we have decent competition... like Nvidia and AMD.
i'm glad nvidia is finally making some chipsets for amd, they make good chipsets and excluding amd from the action was definetly not helping amd out. btw, i totally agree with msi on the uselessness of those pci-x slots, except; even with a device that uses them they are useless. i have an x-fi xtreme audio pci-e 1x card, and puting it in one of the normal 1x slots is nearly impossible, if you have it right by the GPU your temps go up a fair bit, i just managed to get mine in the 4x(?) slot above my first 16x slot (had it in my second 16x slot for a while actually) and i'm not too comfertable about that, being so close to the gpu (it is REALLY close) may cause interference, and my tuniq tower is right next to it, pinty side of the fins because my dfi board rotates the mounting mechanism 90*, so plugging it in and mounting it is painfull and finnicky. going back to amd: i know they are behind intel for performance, but i want to see a full on spider platform (the dfi board, black edition phenom, LOW LATENCY ram, and four 3870x2's) set up and tested in comparison to intel's closest system.
This chipset has the same abilities as the 780G / 790GX from ATI that is already on the street. Hybrid Crossfire can switch between the IGP and the discrete GPU on desktop AND will also do this with the upcoming PUMA mobile platform coming out 6/1. I think everyone should take a cold hard look at nVidia right now. Compare the reviews from the ATI HD 4xxx series to the new 9xxx series from nVidia. You'll see that it's nVidia that is sweating in their shoes right now. They have put themselves on the rocks with Intel with their spoutings over the last few weeks and they also have VERY competitive products coming from the only other CPU manufacturer out there. If they piss off Intel AND AMD, who will they build chipsets / GPUs for? Via? BT
This chipset has the same abilities as the 780G / 790GX from ATI that is already on the street. Hybrid Crossfire can switch between the IGP and the discrete GPU on desktop AND will also do this with the upcoming PUMA mobile platform coming out 6/1. I think everyone should take a cold hard look at nVidia right now. Compare the reviews from the ATI HD 4xxx series to the new 9xxx series from nVidia. You'll see that it's nVidia that is sweating in their shoes right now. They have put themselves on the rocks with Intel with their spoutings over the last few weeks and they also have VERY competitive products coming from the only other CPU manufacturer out there. If they piss off Intel AND AMD, who will they build chipsets / GPUs for? Via? BT
This has been on the cards for some time...the feud between nvidia and intel will probably result in intel denying nvidia a license they need to be able to run their chipset with intels forthcoming nehalem processor. They are just making sure that the can still produce chipsets for one of the cpu manufacturers latest cpu's even if it is only AMD's. Probably the reason they have been dissing the role of a high powered cpu as compared to a high end GPU in their recent press releases.
I think that this could be the beginnings of a merger between ATI, AMD, and Nvidia, or at least the relisation that if the Intel Graphics card is good, they are all in trouble!
I don't really see the benefit of this move. The crossfire chipsets have been far better over clockers for a long time now. But more than that, I don't see that many people are going to be building 3-way SLi on any typre of rig, let alone one with mediocre CPU's...
This is very sneaky on Nvidia's part. They really are truly trying to destroy the name ATI once and for all. Maybe they are scared about the upcoming 4000 series.
I think this could be the first very small step to help AMD get through this very difficult period. We have all read here in detail about the problems with AMD. I know AMD have ATI to promote but to get a helping hand by the competition should be great news for them. Hopefully, they will get off their ass and release a more competitive CPU against what Intel have to offer with performance to match. Although, I can't see them releasing anything that we haven't already seen on this site. In that case, they need to lower the price of their CPU's to try and get joe public to buy a system with this configuration. At the moment I just don't see the benefit of doing just that.
Make a Comment
