jmke

Ever since its launch in the fall of last year, nForce 4 has brought us SLI capability. Configurations for PCI Express slots in nForce 4 SLI motherboards must be selected by using a paddle that can be flipped to allow for either 2 x8 connections or full bandwidth for one with the other disabled. There is added flexibility on an nForce 4 SLI motherboard, but this flexibility comes with some limitations. Today, NVIDIA sheds the shackles of the paddle selector and limited bandwidth with the new nForce 4 SLI X16 chipset

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...oc.aspx?i=2493

In addition to the increased bandwidth and ease of use come quite a few extra niceties. Boards based on nForce 4 SLI X16 will have more I/O options on top of the added PCI Express bandwidth. The introduction of a new enthusiast part will also push prices down on existing products and NVIDIA will begin selling its current nForce4 SLI solution at mainstream prices. Aside from cheaper being better, this should increase adoption of the SLI platform giving the mainstream user some reason to care about SLI. With this also comes value for options like 6600 and 6200 SLI. Everything seems to be coming up roses for NVIDIA's dual GPU business right now with ATI's Crossfire still waiting in the wings.

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