SLI FOR ALL so said the green ones!!!!

[W1nTry]

This is possibly the BEST news to come out of Nvidia in some time.... esp after the FX line blunders. Now alot of ppl were looking at SLI as a great upgrade path but so far has proven to be a lil tricky. Things like having to buy identical cards from the same manufacturer PLUS making sure that 8 months later the card has the same BIOS otherwise SLI would look at u like some cheap taiwanese whore for not buying them at the same time.

Those days are apparently coming to a abrupt but VERY welcomed end. Nvidia is also (apparently to give ATI a REALLY hard time) going to open up its SLI stamp of approval to other manufacturers once their offerings meet Nvidia's performance standards (which for SLI is 30% and up I believe). With the onset of the latest 77.72 drivers from nvidia u can now for all intents and purposes use different manufacturers cards, different bioses and heck forget that bloody bridge chip!!! YOU HEARD ME, you no longer NECESSARILY need it!!! this falls into the OMFG catergory for Nvidia. Also, let me clarify the above mentioned point of Stamp of approval. Basically once its opened up, Intel (which atually is working on its own 2x 8x PCIe capable board, or Gigabyte which has a 16x1 + 4x1 PCIe SLI type offering could very well get the SLI stamp. Heck technically even ATI could get the Nvidia stamp (similarly Crossfire should technically work on an SLI board, but we won't get into that).

Here's the article I got some of the info from:

SLI becomes available for everybody

77.72 drivers open SLI to 6200, 6600

By Theo Valich: Friday 24 June 2005, 06:51
WITH THE launch of ForceWare 75, people's attention was turned to 7800GTX and its incredible availability "at-the-day-of-the-launch". Imagine if Kelloggs launched a new breakfast cereal and it wasn't available the day it was announced. Spinners for breakfast foods, watch how semiconductor companies do things and fall on your knees with shock and awe.

New drivers also brought better SLI support, but not just in the world of application profiles.

The latest buzz you'll be hearing about any second now is "bridgeless SLI", or SLI for two boards without a board connector. Although you will get a warning flag from the "Nvidia System Sentinel", implying that someone inside the Green Goblin's driver department is really a diehard Matrix fan. The warning implies reduced performance - but there is no problem in running your 7800/6800GT or Ultra/6600GT with no bridge applied, I've just checked with 7800GTX and 6800 Ultra.

But, those babies aren't the only ones that can do SLI. You see, you can actually use the NV43 chip in all its variations, and those are 6600GT (old news), and 6600 Plain Vanilla Edition and its castrato brother, the 6200.

This is the procedure, if you want to get a 16 pipe monster, but have no serious money for it: SLI motherboards are quite affordable, especially Albatron's baby. Get two dirt-cheap 6200s, make sure you're getting 128-bit ones, mod them into 6600. Install Riva Tuner and check your GPUID, it's NV43 in the vast majority of cases - then just unlock the pipeline quad, pixel pipeline 0, and voila, you have a 16-pipe SLI baby for around €250.

So, with SLI of today, there is even an option to plug in two low-end cards and get them working in pure software SLI mode, while CrossFire "lost" its mainstream support, with X700 support going MIA, and still unavailable? Don't forget upcoming Detonators 80, and independent AIB SLI support.

Now, the real spinner-machine question is actually: Is Nvidia preparing us for Quad-GPU configurations with two Dual6600GT or Dual7800GTX's boards?

[Czar]

I had read about this when it was just in the rumour mode...glad to see it's becoming a reality...could be quite a blow to Crossfire.

[Crixx_Creww]

*single tear drop falls from Crixx's eyes*

Complete and utter shock and awe.
Getting goose bumps and everything... drooling an all that!

Thank you oh greattttt Nvidia gods for being so good to your loyal followers

Of course this means complete and utter ownage for ati, but then again.. whats new


I seriously believe ill be selling my uber 1337 dell  when these drivers realease.

Hope to be snatching up two 6800 non gt non ultras

Get a nice sli boad and then weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[Kaizen]

My Prayers Have Been Answered!!!!
now i can buy another 6200 and run the byatch!
HOOOORAY FOR NVIDIA!

[W1nTry]

Good to see crixx rejoice over something I post... that being said, u said sell ur *coughs* d3ll and buy an SLI rig.,.. now I know intel has its nforce 4 as well but as I recall, the benchmarks for that are ABISMAL compared to the A64 version... does this mean u'll bite the bullet and buy the better platform and processor? or salt with ur Intel version and get totally PWNed by AMD as usual? 

[Crixx_Creww]

*yawn*
come on give up winny boy

never gonna happen.
Intel has and always will be good to me and the rest of the SANE world.

me saying that ill buy an sli rig does not in anyway suggest ill go gets me some amd nonsense
eww

alien ware has its uber 1337 alx dual core intel rigs
and there are great intel sli mobos so stop trying to spread that divisive propaganda.

INVIDIA all the way baby w0000t

[TriniXaeno]

lol @ propaganda towers

I still waiting to see an "april fools" message from nvidia.

This is just too good to be true I tell you!

[Kaizen]

now that is a Dedicated intel man one of the few boy
on the topic ...the older 6200 pci-e  work well not older i
just have to buy another one? 1
if so i will test this out this week Blotoy!\e

[Kaizen]

crap >.< sorry for the double post now do my reasearch gonna test this week
all i need is 3dmark05 and so on and ill post lata!