Extreme Gamers, Celebrate: Nvidia Launched 3-Way SLI

There are three categories of gamers in the world: the occasional ones, the hardcore ones and those who can squeeze the life out of any video card. This latest category is comprised of extreme gamers, always dissatisfied with the video card performance, no matter if they already have the latest card on the market.

Nvidia challenged them today with the newest multi-GPU downgrade, 3-way SLI technology, that can "deliver the highest frame rates at the highest resolutions known to man". The technology can be unleashed via an nForce 680i powered motherboard � or the later 780i and 790i models � and three GeForce 8800 GTX or Ultra cards installed inside the computer.

"The new crop of PC games offers stunning visuals. And for truly immersive game play with all the eye candy you need to play on a PC with a lot of graphics horse power", said Ujesh Desai, general manager of GeForce desktop GPUs at NVIDIA. "3-way SLI produces stunning visuals, pristine image quality, and a truly awesome gaming experience."

Triple SLI configurations deliver a 2.8x performance increase over a single GPU system. But beware, as the Triple SLI link is only supported by high-end video cards to bear high-end price tags. Top system builders have already crowded in offering triple SLI solutions at "decent" prices.

Apart from the financial aspect, there is another issue that needs solving before enjoying the SLI rocket ride. Triple SLI links don't work under Windows XP, since the old Forceware driver 169.18 is so far not supported. It takes a Vista upgrade until being able to get the FPSs, but you would need it anyway, since I bet that anybody who gets their hands on this gear would like some 4+ Gigabytes of RAM in the house.

Yet another word: think twice before jumping on the offer, 'cause there's a short way ahead until GeForce 9 series kick in.