Dual GPUs are so yesterday...
Why have two when you can have three? That's what NVIDIA is telling us with its 3-way SLI announced last week.
Not wanting to rest on its laurels, the California based graphics giant has today unveiled its NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI MCP, the first motherboard solution to support the aforementioned 3-way SLI technology.
Kelt Reeves, president of Falcon Northwest says in an official press release, "Our customers aren't going to bed with visions of sugar-plums dancing in their heads. They're dreaming of playing games like Crysis in their entire splendour, running on NVIDIA SLI technology."
"With nForce 780i and an Intel Yorkfield CPU under the hood, those visions will quickly become a reality. We're excited to offer our customers fully-equipped rigs with not one, not two, but three of NVIDIA's most extreme gaming GeForce graphics processors, the perfect platform for experiencing the most advanced games ever developed."
The nForce® 780i SLI media and communications processor (MCP) base specification is as follows. These specifications may vary dependant on motherboard manufacturer.
| NVIDIA SLI Ready | True 3 x16 graphics 3-way SLI technology support with three NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra or GeForce 8800 GTX graphics cards SLI technology support with two identical SLI Ready graphics cards |
| System Performance Tools | ESA certified motherboard NVIDIA Control Panel NVIDIA System Monitor |
| Expansion Slots | PCI Express 2.0 support 62 lanes, 12 links: 3 x16 or 4 x8, 1 x16, 1 x8, 6 x1 2 x16 are PCI Express Gen 2.0, 1 x16 is PCI Express Gen 1.0 Up to 5 PCI Slots |
| CPU | Intel Socket LGA775 Full support for Intel Penryn (Yorkfield & Wolfdale), Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo, Pentium |
| Front Side Bus | 1333/1066/800/533 |
| Memory | Dual channel memory architecture DDR2 1200(EPP1.0)/800/667/533 |
| Storage | NVIDIA MediaSheild™ Technology Up to 6 Serial ATA 3.0 Gb/s drives Up to 2 PATA drives (Ultra DMA 133/100/66/33) RAID configurations 0, 1, 0+1, 5 |
| Networking | Dual native Gigabit Ethernet connections NVIDIA FirstPacket™ technology NVIDIA DualNet® technology |
| USB | Up to 10 USB 2.0 ports |
| Audio | HDA (Azalia) |
We can expect all the major motherboard partners to begin offering NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI MCP-based products. It's safe to say that one of these boards, three 8800 cards and Bioshock are now on my Christmas wanted list.
Useful links
Official press release: Santa's Elves Agree: New NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI MCP is The Must-Have Gaming Platform for Intel Yorkfield CPUs
3-Way NVIDIA SLI Takes Extreme Gaming To A Whole New Level
Buy nForce 780i SLI boards at Scan.co.uk
