NVIDIA SLI On The Intel X58!

After NVIDIA was snubbed by Intel who chose to include native support for the competing ATI CrossFireX technology in the Intel 4 Series Express chipsets and the soon-to-be-released Intel X58 Express chipset instead of NVIDIA's SLI technology, they had to come up with a quick solution to the problem.

That initial solution was the NVIDIA nForce 200 SLI processor. This was really nothing more than a PCI Express bridge chip that would allow motherboard manufacturers to add SLI support to the Intel motherboards. However, it appears that even this "SLI processor" is not even necessary to add SLI support to Intel motherboards.

With the release of the Release 180 driver, NVIDIA will directly enable SLI support on select Intel X58 motherboards. Yes, not all X58 Express motherboards will support SLI. Manufacturers who wish to add driver support for SLI on their X58 Express motherboards must pay NVIDIA for the license to do so.

NVIDIA will be controlling this feature using an "SLI certificatïon code" in the BIOS. The R180 ForceWare driver will check the BIOS and enable SLI support for motherboards that have this code/string. Motherboards that are licensed for SLI will have an NVIDIA SLI logo on their box.

NVIDIA claims that most major OEMs and ODMs have already licensed SLI for their X58 Express motherboards. They include :

• ASUS : Rampage II Extreme, P6T Deluxe
• MSI : Eclipse SLI, X58 Platinum SLI
• Gigabyte : GA-EX58-UD5P, GA-EX58-Extreme
• DFI : LP UT X58-T3eH8, LP DK X58-T3eH6, LP JR X58-T3H
• ECS, Foxconn and EVGA to follow soon...

They also made a point of telling us that they offered Intel the same terms. However, Intel has yet to sign up on NVIDIA's offer.

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