14 DAY TRIAL // ...to multi GPU setups. And since no one thought about this at first, at the moment integrating power saving features inside the SLI technology seems pretty weird. And if you also add up the fact that in order to obtain the highest performance you need the maximum amount of juice, power saving features are pretty pointless.
If we're to speak freely, Nvidia's SLI technology has little to do with power saving but since power is also related to heat, Nvidia needed to take some security measures in order to keep its cards from burning up. Hybrid SLI is just another way to look at this problem.
Nvidia's new Hybrid SLI technology will have two modes which will function according to two factors: the Power Saving Mode will switch off the graphics core and use only integrated graphics engine when high performance is not required. On the other hand the Max Performance Mode will keep the integrated graphics processor in full load mode but it will also use the graphics processing unit (GPU) in order to maximize framerates.
Nvidia's Hybrid SLI will have no significant advantages when running inside a desktop PC but it will be pretty useful if it is integrated inside laptops since the combination between a low-cost IGP and a high performance SLI setup could result in additional battery time. Regarding this new feature, Jeff Fisher, Nvidia's General Manager (GPU business unit) claimed:
"[In the case of] Hybrid SLI you have a discrete and a motherboard GPU in a system. When you switch between GPUs, you don't have to unplug and plug monitor? What we have [integrated] on the core-logic site is [the capability] to render in all cases through motherboard GPU."
No further details are available at the moment regarding this very subject. Several Nvidia officials said that this technology will be available this fall but might not enter mass integration until the first quarter of 2008.
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