ATi is working on delivering a new Catalyst driver to support Crossfire on Intel 965 Express Chipset but of course, the chipset only allows x4/x16 dual graphics capabilities. ODMs and press have already gotten hold of the beta Catalyst 6.10 drivers but the public will still be able to download the official WHQL Catalyst 6.9 drivers that support Crossfire this coming Friday. ATi will release the official WHQL Catalyst 6.10 drivers somewhere in October. MSI has jumped the gun a little and made an official announcement on their P965 Platinum supporting Crossfire but the rest will follow suit very soon. Any Intel 965 boards with two x16 slots will be able to support Crossfire using the new Catalyst drivers.
yeah GF slipped up here… its x16 physically only…the total PCIe lanes on 965 are like 24 I think making x16 x 2 impossible, ditto x8, because the first slot only works in x16 mode, and doesn’t have a share bandwidth
The second PCIe lane is physically limited to deliver anything more then 4x speeds… So what Chaos says is correct.. The only thing which interests me is that as of now how many GPU’s uses more then 4x bandwidth of the 16x lane…
I know AGP 4x or 8x… Dosent actualy made a difference… So does the 4x and 16x make a difference… Also does the 4x slot gets enough power from the mobo to fire up the GPU… I tried my X1900XT in the second slot with X300 in the first slot and it could not boot into windows… Just hung on the windows loading screen… So was it the 4x bandwidth or was it that mobo wasnt able to supply enough power to the GPU…
Welll that did struck my mind and for the sole resone i will try a 7600GT on the same slot with similar settings … But then again 7600GT wont require that much bandwidth as a X1900XT will require…
Anyways… Lets just sit and wait for some Xfire numbers on a 965 setup…
But my basic question still remains unanswered… Wont a 4x slot be capable of handeling a card such as a X1950XTX…
^^^Ad1… I would like to see some facts before you say that… There was virtually no performance difference between a A8n Sli dlx Mobo and a Sli 32 Mobo… Though in one the lanes worked at 8x at sli mode and in the other the lanes worked at 16x in the sli mode…
I am just trying to find out that weather a 4x slot is capable of handeling a High end GPU or not… And i am sure the a high end GPU will run just about fine on a 4x lane… Maybe a little bottle neck but nt that much that scores dip by 50%…
Isn’t the 4x PCI express almost the same speed as the 8X AGP???
Then it wouldn’t really be a bottleneck with midrange cards…with a X1900XTX however…it would be…but just a little
… But then again 7600GT wont require that much bandwidth as a X1900XT will require…