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tyspeed29
Premium Member
join:2001-01-04
Simi Valley, CA

1 edit

tyspeed29

Premium Member

Asus Maximus X38 will support SLI X16

This is just an update, I just bought this board 2 weeks ago, I have now completed alot of my testing. I would have to say this board has the most features, and has been the most stable of any board I have owed so far.

I have been testing with Nvidia current drivers, with SLI hack patch, I am running both my BFG 7800GTX video cards in SLI at X16. Its working awesome.

I am running this at a mild overclock, Q6600 at 3.14 4 gigs of reaper at 34415 timings, at over 1350 Fsb, everything has been stable as can be.

This post maybe able to go into the overclocking forum also, just wanted to give those of you thinking of buying it.

Camelot One
MVM
join:2001-11-21
Bloomington, IN

Camelot One

MVM

Great info, thanks.

signmeuptoo94
Bless you Howie
Premium Member
join:2001-11-22
NanoParticle

1 edit

signmeuptoo94 to tyspeed29

Premium Member

to tyspeed29
That is one of the features of the X38 Chipset, having SLI (OOPS, meant Crossfire) at full x16 both slots.

Camelot One
MVM
join:2001-11-21
Bloomington, IN

Camelot One

MVM

said by signmeuptoo94:

That is one of the features of the X38 Chipset, having SLI at full x16 both slots.
Yeah but aside from the Foxcon, none of the X38s officially support SLI at all.

signmeuptoo94
Bless you Howie
Premium Member
join:2001-11-22
NanoParticle

signmeuptoo94

Premium Member

OOPS, I got confused there, I meant Crossfire. I am shocked to see any board support SLI. Doh!

tyspeed29
Premium Member
join:2001-01-04
Simi Valley, CA

3 edits

tyspeed29

Premium Member

Click for full size
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I was suprised also, the hack patch wasn't tested on this board yet, well now it has. Its awesome to finally get some use of my extra BFG 7800 GTX OC video card.

Here are a couple pics, my case is still alittle messy from installing, have to clean it up the wiring a bit. It was worth every penny for this board. Very stable, the bios has more adjustments than any board I have every owned, this will be the overclockers dream board.

pleekmo
Triptoe Through The Tulips
Premium Member
join:2001-09-14
Manchester, CT

pleekmo to tyspeed29

Premium Member

to tyspeed29
said by tyspeed29:

SLI hack patch
Exactly what is this? A quick Google suggests there may be more than one of these, so I'm a little confused.

signmeuptoo94
Bless you Howie
Premium Member
join:2001-11-22
NanoParticle

1 edit

signmeuptoo94 to Camelot One

Premium Member

to Camelot One
I don't see anywhere where it says the Foxconn board supports SLI. It looks like a nice board though:

»www.foxconnchannel.com/p ··· s0000355

EDIT:

Man, the MSI board is freaking sweet, now if the hack makes it's way around this board, man! This board as an *external* CMOS RESET button! Tons of PCI Express slots, tons of USB, eSATA, X-Fi, modem...

»www.cpu3d.com/index.php? ··· &limit=1

»www.msicomputer.com/prod ··· class=mb

But good luck finding a good dealer that sells it!

tyspeed29
Premium Member
join:2001-01-04
Simi Valley, CA

tyspeed29

Premium Member

Not Foxconn, Asus board.

signmeuptoo94
Bless you Howie
Premium Member
join:2001-11-22
NanoParticle

signmeuptoo94

Premium Member

I was responding to what Camelot said, I just wanted to know where the official statement of SLI support of the Foxconn board is that he mentioned. I didn't say it as a challenge, just wanted to see if it is for real.

I love that MSI board, I sure hope the BIOS will be great and hope for a hacked BIOS, that is the board I would want. Man, just imagine, an external reset CMOS! And lots of USB outs! 8 total SATA: 4 on one controller, 2 eSATA on controller, and a third 2 SATA controller, that is perfect, for 4 drive could be a RAID 10 or 5 and host the OSs and installed programs, the other 2 internal could be RAID 1 if it is available and be for storage, and of course 2 eSATA is awesome, especially if it can be RAID.

Camelot One
MVM
join:2001-11-21
Bloomington, IN

Camelot One

MVM

Hmm....I went looking, but can't find where I saw that. (about the Foxcon) But that is what started the "hacked" drivers, the Foxcon was using special nVidia drivers (or was it chipset, not sure) that allowed SLI to work. People got the idea to try the drivers on other X38s, and thus this topic was born.

signmeuptoo94
Bless you Howie
Premium Member
join:2001-11-22
NanoParticle

1 edit

signmeuptoo94

Premium Member

Wow, so that's the deal. I did a brief search for these drivers and haven't found them. Where are they? What chance do you think there is that someone might make one for the MSI board I like?

A separate question: Does anyone know if the Crossfire card bridge is "wired" identically to the SLI and are they interchangeable? Can SLI card bridges be purchased anywhere?

EDIT: I found such a thing, SuperMicro makes it. In the photo it looks like it might be flexible but I can't tell for certain.

Are SLI bridges called any other name?

Somnambul33t
L33t.
Premium Member
join:2002-12-05
00000

Somnambul33t to tyspeed29

Premium Member

to tyspeed29
i may be mistaken but i believe the Asus Maximus has external CMOS clear button as well. even if it doesnt, the promising MSI def'ly isnt the 1st board to add the feature.

anyway, asus looks very nice. hacking SLI might be very beneficial to me, and the rest of the board defly looks good.

Camelot One
MVM
join:2001-11-21
Bloomington, IN

Camelot One

MVM

I haven't gotten my hands on their X38, but a lot of their previous offerings had the "no post reset" option, where all you had to do was hold down the power button after a failed overclock attempt, to restart at default settings.

signmeuptoo94
Bless you Howie
Premium Member
join:2001-11-22
NanoParticle

signmeuptoo94

Premium Member

I'd still want the reset button, because sometimes such features don't work when things get really borked, at least not for me, I think my former ASUS board had that feature but it didn't work. It is a good idea though. I'd want both.

I just really like how MSI makes use of the backplane: 8usb, 1 firewire, optical, mini dins for keyboard and mouse, 2 eSATA, reset button, and the sound stack. I haven't seen many boards make such good use of that backplane in the way I'd want it. Plus the board supports a full 12 usb, some don't. It also has a cool text based system POST status LED array evidently, and on board power and system reset buttons along with the external CMOS button.

The one thing I can't tell about the board is how many fan headers it has, it sure would be nice if it had 5 or more.

tyspeed29
Premium Member
join:2001-01-04
Simi Valley, CA

tyspeed29

Premium Member

This board does have a reset on the board itself and on the back panel, so its very easy to reset the cmos.

signmeuptoo94
Bless you Howie
Premium Member
join:2001-11-22
NanoParticle

signmeuptoo94

Premium Member

Cool for you!
taronga
join:2007-11-11
Denver, CO

taronga to tyspeed29

Member

to tyspeed29
also looking for SLI drivers for the X38

Anyone have a link/ download location?

tyspeed29
Premium Member
join:2001-01-04
Simi Valley, CA

1 edit

tyspeed29

Premium Member

SLI-Patch-NGO.zip
369,509 bytes
Here is the SLI Patch download for anyone looking for it.

super comp
@bellsouth.net

super comp to tyspeed29

Anon

to tyspeed29
how exactly did you get it to work?
it would be great if you could include details, i have the hack patch; now what do i do?
taronga
join:2007-11-11
Denver, CO

taronga to tyspeed29

Member

to tyspeed29
I can't get this to work under either windows xp or vista

Using 8800GT's with the 169.02 drivers

OP, can you provide further info about how you got this to work?
Chrno
join:2003-12-11

Chrno

Member

The simple answer is that you can't. The hack only works for the 7 series cards as far as I know.

tyspeed29
Premium Member
join:2001-01-04
Simi Valley, CA

3 edits

tyspeed29

Premium Member

Before you install the second card, install lastest Nvidia driver, once that is installed apply the patch, then shut down and install the second card with the pci bridge, start up your computer will do the rest from there. You will see when you boot up it installing additional video card, pci bridge, then you are done, enjoy.

Sorry, for not including them earlier.

My system is windows xp pro x64, q6600, asus maximus with dual 7800gtx oc, 2 raptors, 1 500 gig storage, 4 gigs of OCZ reaper, creative Xfi Fatality Platinum.

The patch has worked with my crazy config. Also check out here

»www.ngohq.com or do a search for ngo sli patch.

Camelot One
MVM
join:2001-11-21
Bloomington, IN

Camelot One

MVM

Have you seen or heard anything to confirm Chrno's claim that the patch only works for the 7x series?
taronga
join:2007-11-11
Denver, CO

taronga to tyspeed29

Member

to tyspeed29
I have received confirmation that the patch will only work with geForce 7 series cards.

Apparently, OEM engineers were working on a patch around July when talks broke down between intel and Nvidia. The engineers dropped the project after that time.

Nick
VXPoison
join:2007-11-27

1 edit

VXPoison to tyspeed29

Member

to tyspeed29
I'm Amazed that you made it work.

I have the Asus Extreme Maximus x38 MB, q6600 and 2*7800gtx.
Using Vista x64
And I cant get the patch to work.

Could you/anyone specify how you made it work?

I followed this:
said by tyspeed29:

Before you install the second card, install latest Nvidia driver, once that is installed apply the patch, then shut down and install the second card with the pci bridge, start up your computer will do the rest from there. You will see when you boot up it installing additional video card, pci bridge, then you are done, enjoy.
But no luck.

Camelot One
MVM
join:2001-11-21
Bloomington, IN

Camelot One

MVM

said by VXPoison:

I'm Amazed that you made it work.

I have the Asus Extreme Maximus x38 MB, q6600 and 2*7800gtx.
Using Vista x64
And I cant get the patch to work.

Could you/anyone specify how you made it work?

I followed this:
said by tyspeed29:

Before you install the second card, install latest Nvidia driver, once that is installed apply the patch, then shut down and install the second card with the pci bridge, start up your computer will do the rest from there. You will see when you boot up it installing additional video card, pci bridge, then you are done, enjoy.
But no luck.
I think the bold may be your problem. This is a patch, and from what I've seen it's a patch for the XP x86 drivers. It probably does nothing for Vista 64 drivers.
VXPoison
join:2007-11-27

VXPoison to tyspeed29

Member

to tyspeed29
I thought that it would be the problem. Think that I need to sell my two 7800GTX cards and by some new ATI.

Don´t really want do to that cause I don't like ATI and I know nothing about them.

Probably HD3870 or something don´t really know what´s the difference between them.

Thanks anyway!