nVidia brings back SLI for PCI Express - Two is always better than one

Introduction

Users who have only just entered the personal computing realm over the past couple years did not have the privilege of experiencing the rise of the enthusiast computer user and the resulting and exciting new market segments, especially in the graphics card department.

Back in 1998 when 3DFX were in their prime, the then strong company released the VooDoo2 graphics chip with the option of running two 3DFX based PCI graphics cards in one system with the aim of increasing gaming performance. This method is called Scan Line Interleave or SLI for short. Back then, if you had an SLI enabled system, you were the most popular geek on the block, no questions asked. For many, it sparked a strong interest in the internals of the personal computer and as a result helped create a new generation of computers users: the enthusiast.

nVidia has stepped up the graphics performance of person computers in a big way today for the enthusiast and graphics professionals with the introduction of their own PCI Express 16x graphics cards with support for "Scalable Link Interface", or again SLI for short. Unfortunately we don't have an nVidia PCI Express SLI test system here today but we do have all the latest information on the technology for you.

We flew up to Sydney last week to hear nVidia's claims for SLI. Read on as we document everything we learned during the press conference.