Is Intel LGA775 Platform Dead? From SLI to Intel X48 - hardly!

As you know, SLI is a technology that combines several video cards in one system in order to improve performance in graphics applications. Already in its second incarnation from the company NVIDIA, it entered the world of computer games for a long time, but did not achieve popularity. The technology did not receive wide support because of the game developers themselves, who do not want to optimize their creations, and also because not everyone can afford to buy several video cards in one computer at once, and with the release of a new generation of GPU, this is often not necessary . Also, the stumbling block in the development of SLI has become highly politicized requirements for chipsets, and more precisely to their licensing for technology support. For example, only the chipsets of NVIDIA itself fully supported SLI, and the first Intel chipset that received widespread support for SLI was only Intel X58, which appeared only about a year ago. And the fact that at first not all motherboards on the X58 supported SLI, again, NVIDIA’s reluctance to share the market with Intel had an effect. But life has shown that NVIDIA lost the technological race in chipset construction, and the consumer finally got the right to choose. But only in the latest generation of the Intel platform (LGA 1366) - very expensive and not at all unambiguous, because even after a year, the need to change coolly welded systems based on Intel X48 is still in question.
But then the plot developed unexpectedly ...


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Suddenly, the "included" SLI support on X58-based motherboards, on which at the time of release, it seemed not to be supported (And here you are! Press releases, driver updates ...) clearly showed that the chipsets were ready at the hardware level to work with SLI initially, and gave hope that it will be possible to modify the video card driver to work with other Intel chipsets (of previous generations). And it did happen! Enthusiasts spread the revised driver versions and SLI inclusion instructions on the LGA 775 platform. After that, for many users of Intel X48-based systems, the question: “To be or not to be?” - was definitely not in favor of the over-expensive LGA 1366 platform. - more than alive!
We conducted a detailed study, tested the performance of the SLI technology on the Intel X48 chipset. Let me remind you that this chipset does not have official support for SLI.

Tricky trick

But for a start, I consider it right to acquaint you with the original source of information and the actual instruction on how to enable SLI - xDews.com , and in a few words to tell you what enabled SLI to be included on any Intel chipsets. With the release of the Intel X58 platform, a special file with SLI support was added to the NVIDIA video card drivers specifically for this chipset. The main task that confronted enthusiasts is to make the driver believe that our motherboard bears exactly the Intel X58 chipset. To do this, the file containing information about the Intel X48 chipset is forcibly replaced with a file containing information about the Intel X58 chipset. Then a modified driver is installed, which considers our manipulations to be true and is installed without errors. After rebooting, the system finds several installed video cards, and the tab responsible for enabling SLI appears in the NVIDIA Control Panel. After fairly simple manipulations, the system, according to the assurances of GPU-Z, states that the SLI technology is active. In order to finally verify the performance of the SLI on the Intel X48, we conducted independent testing.

What you need to work SLI

The SLI technology requires a motherboard with SLI support or a motherboard without official SLI support on the Intel chipset, but with more than two PCI-E expansion slots and two NVIDIA video cards of the same model and preferably one manufacturer. Using video cards from different brands is also possible, but difficulties may arise due to different BIOSes that are embedded in video adapters. Many brands prefer to overclock their video cards by flashing higher core / shader domain / video memory frequencies. Different frequencies for cards of the same model can become a problem in the SLI mode. In addition to motherboards and video cards, an “indispensable” attribute of the SLI system is a flexible or rigid SLI bridge connecting the video adapters to each other. Cards can work in SLI mode without it, but the capacity of PCI-E slots for transferring and exchanging data between them is not enough. This is where the SLI bridge comes to the rescue.
And now it's time to move on to testing!



We put together the following testbed configuration:

• Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 processor (3GHz)
• cooling SVO (water cooling system) SiD Pro v.1.1
• Asus Rampage Extreme motherboard (Intel X48)
• 2x1Gb Kingston HyperX 1333MHz CL7 RAM
• video cards: Leadtek GTX285 and Zotac GTX285
• power supply: Enermax Revolution 1050W
• hard drive Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500Gb

Testing method

Testing took place according to the following algorithm:
1. Studying system performance with default settings with a single video card;
2. Study of system performance when overclocking a processor up to 4500 MHz with one video card, frequency 648/1476/1242 MHz (respectively, for the core / shader / memory);
3. Study of the system performance at overclocking the processor up to 4500 MHz with one video card, frequency 740/1560/1380 MHz (respectively, for the core / shader / memory);
4. Study of system performance when overclocking the processor to 4500 MHz with two video cards in SLI mode, frequency 740/1560/1380 MHz (respectively, for the core / shader / memory).

As test applications were selected:
3DMark'05 is a popular graphic benchmark from the Finnish company Futuremark.com, graphics quality settings are set by default, the resolution is 1024x768.

Far Cry 2 - the continuation of the acclaimed game from the studio CryTek. Graphics Modes:
1280x1024, directX9, low;
1280x1024, directX10, high;
1680x1050, directX9, low;
1680x1050, directX10, high.

“Anabiosis” is a popular game with a simple and demanding graphics benchmark. Schedule graphics:
1280x1024, medium;
1280x1024, high;
1680x1050, medium;
1680x1050, high.

Crysis Warhead is one of the most popular games that has brought to the knees with the quality of its graphics very powerful modern computers. Modes:
1280x1024, direct 9, AA off, gamer;
1280x1024, direct 9, AA 16xQ, gamer;
1280x1024, direct 10, AA off, gamer;
1280x1024, direct 10, AA 16xQ, gamer;
1680x1050, direct 9, AA off, gamer;
1680x1050, direct 9, AA 16xQ, gamer;
1680x1050, direct 10, AA off, gamer;
1680x1050, direct 10, AA 16xQ, gamer.

Tom Clancy`s HAWX is a popular simulator that has a built-in benchmark with aviation themes and support for DirectX 10.

results

3DMark'05 showed excellent scalability from overclocking the processor. With the overclocking of a video card, the performance increase, although it is observed, is not as huge as the increase in the CPU frequency. The inclusion of SLI technology gives a noticeable performance increase - 2500 3DMarks from above. 3DMark'05 is very sensitive to CPU performance, so for him it is a lot.



In “Anabiosis” the situation is identical, although there is no tangible gain from overclocking the processor. But I, on the contrary, would refer it to the advantages of this game, since here the main emphasis is placed precisely on the graphic. SLI gives about 25 percent performance increase compared to the single-card mode, which is a lot.



Improving the quality of graphics sags fps just a few frames, which indicates a sufficiently large stock of graphics card performance to ensure a comfortable game at higher resolutions.



Increasing the resolution to 1680x1050 somewhat worsens the result, but, nevertheless, the indicators are at a high level, and it can be said with confidence that with such graphics settings you can play without problems. SLI - apart from the competition!



By setting the quality of the graphics to the maximum, we observe an almost imperceptible deterioration in the results. The difference from using one or two video cards is almost 20 frames, which is undoubtedly an excellent indicator of technology performance!



Far Cry 2 demonstrates a high dependence on processor performance, its overclocking by 50 percent gives us an almost directly proportional increase in the result. But optimization for the SLI mode is not observed.



With the inclusion of the DirectX 10 API suite, the situation becomes absurd. Two video cards in SLI mode lose even to one unperformed video card.



With higher resolution and the inclusion of DirectX 9, the situation becomes familiar, two video cards become faster, but the gain from using SLI is very weak.


DirectX 10 again and SLI failure again. Who are we going to throw stones at - game developers or NVIDIA driver developers?



Crysis Warhead was created by the same development team as Far Cry, so it comes as no surprise that the game again depends heavily on the processor clock frequency.



Surprisingly, the inclusion of the AA 16xQ mode gives a very small increase in fps, although it would seem that it would have the opposite effect. May be too low resolution?



With the transition to DirectX 10 and the quality of graphics to the maximum, the alignment of forces and frames does not change at all!


I would like to separately note that the gain from SLI in DirectX 10 mode is small, but it means that the problem is still in Crysis Warhead itself?


Increasing the resolution does not change the balance of power. Is it really only in HD resolution that the difference will be visible?


The inclusion of 16xQ anti-aliasing as a result of our testing does not impair the results at all. It seems to me that this is at least strange.



What we need for a comfortable game is a processor with a higher clock speed and a modern vidyushku. Here it is the key to success!


Crysis Warhead confirms by results that the SLI technology is active and is being used.



HAWX shows us not too noticeable gains from overclocking components. Installing an additional video card is almost not noticeable: three frames of an increase is very small.

findings

Well, now you can activate the SLI mode on any Intel chipset - as long as you have enough PCI-Express slots for your “green cards”. Without any difficulties, we managed to activate the SLI mode on the motherboard on the Intel X48 chipset - Asus Rampage Extreme. We spent about ten minutes on this, and in fact it turned out to be quite easy. I consider it fair to say thanks for the work done by the Ukrainian TiN enthusiast, thanks to which many computers will be able to catch up on the performance of modern games just by buying another video card. But still, it’s necessary to ascertain that the manufacturer didn’t succeed fully: the effect of using SLI depends not only on the manufacturers of the hardware part, but, even more, on the optimization of the drivers and software code of the games, and here it’s not so well, and many of the games tested today have demonstrated a greater dependence on the processor than the gain from the second video card. Game developers are more interested in shifting the problem to users and forcing them to acquire new, more productive platforms than in spending time and money on optimizing the program code :) But still I would like to hope that at least some of them will cooperate with video card manufacturers and optimize their creations.

Testing conducted - Vladimir Kitz SiD
Written by - Vladislav Zakharov slamms