ECS Scalable Dual Graphics Engine (SDGE) with KN2 SLI Extreme 3/3
Bluetooth 5 Sep 2005

Conclusion

The slide above gives you a clearer picture of the main board with the Elite S Upgrade Bus and the two PCIe x 16 slots (when the upgrade card is installed).

Although what we have seen is based on the NF4 SLI + C51D solution. The solution can be achieved using the M1695 solution as well. For example, it is possible to replace the C51D with a M1695 chipset. In this case, it is possible to have Dual 16x slot as well provided the NVIDIA drivers do not cripple such a combination.

The same applies to the NF4 SLI chipset, it could be replaced by another M1695 or even M1697. This would serve the same purpose too. The more interesting solution would be a 3 chipset on the same board. M1695+M1567+M1697. That would mean Dual PCIe x16 + AGP 8x.

While we are skeptical of such a combination of using a NVIDIA (mainboard) + ULI m1695 (upgrade card) though it works in theory, it is still dependent on whether ECS can get both chipset makers and NVIDIA especially to release drivers that will work with both chipsets in such a configuration. What if there are incompatibilities, whose chipset is at fault? Both will probably deny their chipsets having issues. ECS should foresee this kind of problems arising. Another possible issue is latency. Would it be slower as trace lines gets longer.

On the other hand, ATI might not want to license CrossFire to work on non ATi chipsets since they are also have RD400/480.

It is good to see innovative ideas and solutions. Dual 16x seems to be future proof in a sense as this mainboard allows you to "upgrade" to Dual 16x as and when necessary. Do we need it now? Yes, maybe.

A board using such a chipset would appeal to gamers and 3D renders needing higher graphics throughput. For the gamers, they would want a lot more than just a board with Dual 16x. Is ECS able to cater to the community, releasing BIOS that allows them to tweak voltages and the hypertranport speed? What would be the costs of the upgrade card?

Discuss in Forum

(C) Copyright 1998-2009 OCWorkbench.com