Page 16

The Verdict

Quite honestly I was surprised how well SLI actually worked in terms of compatibility. Once you have SLI activated basically anything that is supported will run properly under SLI. We did not see any form of graphics corruption or anything weird like that. We did have a few small issues though. The supplied driver ForceWare driver (71.24) refused to activate this card in SLI mode, quite annoying especially if you are new to this SLI thing. When we loaded up the beta 71.80 driver instantly SLI became activated and started working where possible.

Performance wise SLI absolutely makes an impression that lasts, it really does work well IF your game is supported. We had a few weird results though. UT 2004's score was way off and lower then expected. That however was all there is to it problems wise. Not at all bad for a new technology.

Now SLI is all about scalability, you can expand your system with extra performance with a small update. When your graphics card runs out of power, seat another similar card next to it and increase that performance again. That is why I have a little problem with this product. For roughly the same money you can buy one GeForce 6800 GT, which right now will offer roughly the same performance and simply is better with AA and AF, the difference is like 50 bucks. Since that 6800 GT is SLI capable in the future you can expand your rig with another 6800 GT that would be a way faster solution then today's card. The 3D1 is a one time buy, you can not seat another 3d1 card in there and have 4 GPU's running.

So you see despite the fact that I totally dig this new technology I could only recommend it if you do not plan to do any further SLI stuff with your system. But wasn't that the essence of SLI? Upgrade your system with another card when you need that extra performance?

That of course is a question you need to ask for yourself.

The x-factor of this dual-gpu solution is however stunning. The performance is staggering. I mean the the first time that the card reported a 14,400 3DMark 03 score back to me I was like... what the? .. isn't that higher then a Radeon x850 XT PE? And yes, it is.

Staggering technology, by far not 100% supported in all games just yet, but definitely stable enough to make it a valid buy. Remember, you have to pair this product with the GA-K8NXP-SLI mainboard (it is sold as a kit). Apparently, the mainboard BIOS specifically needs to detect this card to make it operate in SLI mode. I can only assume there will be more mainboards compatible in the near future, yet they will all carry that Gigabyte logo. It's a wicked mainboard though, and there is nothing that should prevent you from choosing this one.

The combo is less than 500 USD, which in all honesty is not bad at all for a bunch of mid-range cards performing in the high-end range.

Congratulations go out to Gigabyte for making one of the most innovative products to date (with the help of NVIDIA of course), this has to be one of the coolest and what I like to call 'x-factor' products of 2005.

Special thanks to Gigabyte for living with my endless annoying hails of: where's our card?!

Seek the best price here.