Since the development of the nForce2 chipset NVIDIA have done well, creating a strong and fairly dominant grasp over the AMD chipset market. Whenever a chipset looked like toppling NVIDIAs best they would quickly come up with an answer and this has been seen time and time again. The latest round between the K8T890 and the nForce4 series is again playing to NVIDIAs favor. Unfortunately, VIA have struggled to pick up support for their last few chipsets and even K8T890 motherboards are scarce. On the other hand, nForce4 motherboards are quite easy to come by and are available in two flavors. The infamous nForce4 SLI is the most talked about variant, though this chipset is quite expensive.
The typical nForce4 SLI motherboard will retail anywhere from $200 US up to $300 US. This is opposed to K8T890 motherboards which can be had for as low as $100~$150 US. However, NVIDIA does of course have a more affordable nForce4 solution known as the Ultra. The nForce4 Ultra is identical to the SLI version in everyway, but of course there is no SLI support. Given that the majority of users out there are not all that interested in SLI, the nForce4 Ultra is an ideal product for the mainstream market.
However, as is often the case with high-end/low-end chipsets that are much the same, there are ways to alter the low-end chipset to make it work just as the high-end chipset does. This was the case with the i865PE and i975P, the latter was the much more expensive high-end version. Motherboard manufacturers found a way to make the cheaper i865PE chipset as fast as the more expensive version by enabling a special memory controller function that was original exclusive to the i875P.
With little surprise, a highly innovative motherboard manufacturer known as DFI has already found a method of turning nForce4 Ultra boards into SLI boards. Of course to avoid being shot down by NVIDIA, DFI have not completely hacked the chipset. Rather, they have done everything bar one final touch that can be easily carried out by the user. Once this modification or 'hack' if you like, has been carried out there is absolutely no physical difference between the LANPartyUT NF4 Ultra-D and the LANParty nF4 SLI-DR.
While owners of the LANPartyUT NF4 Ultra-D are enjoying their ultra cheap ($140 US) SLI enabled motherboards, time is unfortunately running out for the rest of us. Evidently, NVIDIA are not happy that their much cheaper Ultra chipset can be easily configured to operate in SLI mode. For this reason they have set out to prevent nForce4 Ultra chipsets from being able to operate in SLI mode. DFI are now advising that they will not sell the SLI bridge to LANPartyUT NF4 Ultra-D board owners. This means that while some LANPartyUT NF4 Ultra-D motherboards can be modified to work in SLI mode, this ability will no long exist on new motherboards.
Originally the ideal behind the dual PCI Express 16x ports found on the LANPartyUT NF4 Ultra-D was to give the board a Dual Video mode. There is a similar mode which VIA call Dual Graphics featured on their upcoming PT894 Pro chipset. However, the Dual Graphics/Video modes will now only work with NVIDIA 66.75 drivers or earlier. This means the most recent and upcoming NVIDIA drivers will not allow this function and may render NVIDIA graphics cards useless for the PT894 Pro chipset.
This turn of events is quite disappointing for a few reasons. First and foremost those wanting to utilize the Dual Graphics featured for quad monitor support may be unable to, or at least will not gain any performance benefits from doing so. This also means no motherboard manufacturer will be able to offer SLI enabled nForce4 Ultra motherboards. Clearly NVIDIA have done this in order to protect nForce4 SLI sales and those that have already purchased the chipset in large quantities. However, it is disappointing to learn (although it was always quite obvious) that NVIDIA could have just released a single nForce4 chipset.
There is no difference between the nForce4 Ultra and SLI chipsets, except for the exclusive support for SLI in the latter. However, given that the nForce4 Ultra can actually utilize the SLI function with no modification to the chipset, does not really justify the $60 US price premium. NVIDIA have been quite greedy with the nForce4 chipset, but with very little competition there is nothing that can be done. Nevertheless, today I bring you the DFI LANPartyUT NF4 Ultra-D motherboard based on the more affordable nForce4 Ultra chipset.
