Feature Articles

NVIDIA Announces Hybrid SLI Technology

By Vijay Anand - 7 Jan 2008

GPUs need to be Hybrid SLI Compliant too!

GPUs need to be Hybrid SLI Compliant too!

Requiring the correct motherboard support is to be expected of a technology like Hybrid SLI, but apparently, even the GPUs need to be designed for this and that sort of put a damper on our high spirits for this new technology. According to NVIDIA's recommendation list, only the 'next generation' GPUs are capable of supporting Hybrid SLI in full swing (GeForce Boost and HybridPower). While NVIDIA was not yet ready to comment on 'next generation' graphics cards, they did hint that these cards will be available in the first quarter of the year. From the grapevines, we hear that these are the new GeForce 9 series of GPUs based on the 55nm process technology. Since we are already in the first quarter of 2008, expect official announcements and launches coming up quite shortly.

Oddly, the GeForce 8500 GT and GeForce 8400 GS are the only currently qualified GPUs to support GeForce Boost to increase graphics rendering power in combination with a qualified NVIDIA mGPU board. However they do not support HybridPower and thus do not support the full capabilities of Hybrid SLI. Stay tuned for more updates in the coming days and weeks as NVIDIA reveals more information.

** Updated on 17th January 2008**

After more email exchanges with respective NVIDIA managers, we obtained more information on why only low-end cards like GeForce 8500 GT and GeForce 8400 GS will officially support GeForce Boost. If you recall, we mentioned that GeForce Boost hedges upon the driver intelligence to adequately support two unlike GPUs for SLI performance boost. However, it seems that further email exchanges with the NVIDIA managers revealed that Hybrid SLI via GeForce Boost will scale best when the mGPU is paired with a performance comparable dGPU. As such, GeForce Boost is able to compensate for some imbalance, but not for a complete imbalance when pairing a high-end dGPU like a GeForce 8800 Ultra with the mGPU. If such a scenario does happen, NVIDIA further commented that the drivers will automatically detect the system platform to disable GeForce Boost.

This certainly explains why NVIDIA has only qualified low-end cards like GeForce 8500 GT, GeForce 8400 GS and equivalent next generation cards. So while the common DIY gamer isn't able to enjoy GeForce Boost for Hybrid SLI, a mainstream desktop PC and quite a bit of the mobile computing audience are likely to benefit from some performance increases when combining the appropriate mGPU with a dGPU of this class (which is quite common these days in several notebooks).


Closing Remarks

Hybrid SLI is truly an extension of the original SLI concept and we're certain that it will only further rally users to support the SLI ecosystem (or more specifically, the Hybrid SLI ecosystem). No doubt that this is yet another blow to the AMD graphics group, you have to realize for NVIDIA's new Hybrid SLI ecosystem to work, you'll need to hop on to a new system altogether with a new motherboard and graphics cards. This is indeed an expensive proposition and not merely a platform upgrade as we initially suspected. Needless to say, it will take a while before a sizeable user group is formed with Hybrid SLI ready platforms and it is anybody's guess if AMD might seize this pie as well. Already, NVIDIA's nForce 780i platforms are slow to penetrate the enthusiast market space and this might be a concern as to the perceived consumer's confidence.

NVIDIA's new Hybrid SLI platform for the performance and Enthusiast folks finally offers more performance as well more power savings. A hard to resist proposition, but it comes at the price of renewing your system.

Still, new technologies must start somewhere and this concern of needing to literally hop on to a new system would diminish in time to come. After all, this requirement is nothing new to the DIY world where embracing new technology to its best would mean disbanding an existing system for a new one. Now if NVIDIA continues to innovate and push out new products in time to keep the pressure on ATI as it has been doing for quite a while now, NVIDIA can certainly stay in the lead. Their execution for the graphics card market has been met with great success, but it hasn't been followed through the same extent in the motherboard market, but we hope NVIDIA does buck up in this new year and better coordinate with motherboard manufacturers. Hybrid SLI's GeForce Boost (though only for low-end, mainstream users) and HybridPower has something for everyone to look forward to and we can't wait to take it to try it out firsthand.

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