Introduction
If you were going to pick out the technological buzzwords from 2004, SLI would undoubtedly be right up there towards the top. Although the technology itself may not be in the price bracket of many, it still succeeded in sending a shudder of excitement throughout the industry and enthusiast community, thanks not only to its tip of the hat towards 3Dfx in the naming department, but also the fact that this multi-GPU technology actually worked, and pretty damn well at that.If 2004 was the year of SLI as a buzzword, then 2005 should be the year of SLI as a readily usable, buyable technology, as we see the introduction in volume of compatible motherboards on both the Intel and AMD sides of the chipset market. Unsurprisingly, it has been NVIDIA itself who have led the chase for SLI-compatible boards on the Athlon64 front, courtesy of their quite excellent nForce4 chipset, and more specifically its CK8-04 SLI iteration. Today, we'll be looking at a board based on just this chipset from motherboard-making giants Gigabyte, and their GA-K8NXP-SLI offering. You won't be surprised to hear that such a high-end enthusiast part is brimming with goodies, so let's dip in and see exactly what Gigabyte have served up for us here.
