ASRock Unveils CrossFire on a nForce 740i SLi Motherboard!
ATI’s CrossFire multi-GPU technology first began with their X800 series on the Intel platform with ATi’s own brand of chipset before AMD acquired them. Since then, AMD has allowed CrossFire and their evolving CrossFireX standards to be supported by Intel chipsets. The only current chipset platform that doesn’t support CrossFire is Nvidia’s nForce series – until now, that is.
According to hardware-aktuell.com, a German language website, ASRock devised a BIOS for its nForce 740i based N7AD-SLi motherboard that enables support for CrossFire. The company is using N7AD-SLi, based on Nvidia’s nforce 740i SLi chipset, flashed with an altered BIOS. AMD’s Catalyst drivers were able to detect the motherboard as a qualified platform and enabled CrossFire between two ATi Radeon GPUs. ASRock is reportedly writing similar BIOS firmware for several other motherboards they make as they want to enable CrossFire and CrossFireX for their other nForce motherboards.
A demonstration in Booth Hall 21, Stand C40 at CeBIT 2009, showed two 9600GT video cards running in SLi configuration on ASRock’s nForce 740i motherboard. Then out with the 9600GTs and in went two ATi HD4850 video cards. AMD’s Catalyst drivers that were installed enabled CrossFireX. They even demonstrated multi-GPU scaling with 3DMark06.
As yet, there is no comment from Nvidia. This is quite an interesting development and we wonder what their response will be. Stay tuned.
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