NVISION '08 almost passed by without any major announcements this year, but NVIDIA has managed to catch us all off guard with a last-gasp bit of news; native SLI support for Intel's X58 chipset.
Cast your memory back a month or so, and you'll recall NVIDIA and Intel coming to an agreement that would see SLI become available on X58 boards via an nF200 bridging chip.
Now, to the dismay of board manufacturers already using the aforementioned bridging chip, NVIDIA has gone on the record and stated that native SLI support will be available after all.
According to Tech Report, NVIDIA has realised that the nF200 solution would limit its SLI functionality to a very niche market. Rather than let CrossFire steal the limelight, the company has decided to allow SLI on X58 - provided board manufacturers meet certain criteria.
It is believed that manufacturers who wish to offer SLI-certified X58 boards will have to submit their products to NVIDIA for certification. That certification won't come free, either, and boards will be required to carry an "SLI certified logo".
If certified, NVIDIA will provide the manufacturer with a key to embed in the system's BIOS. That, then, will unlock SLI support in the GeForce ForceWare driver. Phew!
It'll come as welcome news to those who use SLI, though our reports have shown that SLI remains a highly-niche product. What's important, however, is that X58 will become the first mainstream chipset to offer both SLI and CrossFire support, natively.
On the other hand, it could mean that Lucid's HYDRA engine really is a big threat to SLI.
