SLI showing its flex, finally

AS YOU might expect, Nvidia always claims SLI works just perfectly. Of course, with every new technology come teething problems, which are more or less fine tuned in a period of around half a year. So, after more than six months of SLI on the market, the time has come that some wonder-driver spills some pixie-dust on the hardware and make things miraculously work.

In nV's case, the name of the tooth-fairy bears a name Rel 75, or just Dets' 75, if you consider yourself an 3D oldtimer. Besides better SLI support, it brings improvements across the range, from games to video and back. No word about PureVideo VPE in 6800GT/Ultra, though.

Now, if you don't have "Safari-in-Kenya" style of graphic card(s) and have a gene-stealer board inside your computer, you'll be happy to learn that supposedly, performance of TurboCache and lower-ranged boards should improve in many games, such as FlightSim 2004, Tiger Woods Golf and so on. It reduces number of SLI profiles for OpenGL titles, and enables SLI by default in a lot of apps. The Green Goblin even promises you on-line updates of those 60-70 profiles inside drivers, but I was unable to find that feature in those nice and shiny drivers.

But, the pixie-dust isn't over with Rel75. 75th Tooth-fairy even has an evil twin brother, Rel 80. What Rel80 brings to the table should satisfy even the hardest SLI critics, such as yours truly - dual core CPU support ("optimisations", that is) and improved performance are just one of the features. "Seamless SLI switching" sounds even more promising, and independent overclocking support and SLI working even when combining boards from different vendors. It will be interesting to see the boards clocked to their maximum, and that maximum not being the same clock on both boards... I guess we'll see some heavy usage of that SLI bridge atop of each card. TV/HDTV support is also on the menu...and "more freedom when hooking up displays to boards". Since every other slide mentioned "freedom", I guess that the driver is roadmapped to come out on July 4th, although I doubt it.

The need for the same video BIOS is gone, and although the Green Goblin spinners now claim that this same VBIOS was never needed, I just can't forget that nasty "SLI Combo", which some distributors offered in Croatia, Slovenia and Austria. Back in late February 05 the offer was starring ASUS A8N-DeLuxe with two 6600GT cards that actually, would never work in SLI. Can't remember the name of the company which made those cards, perhaps mercifully for all concerned. But I do remember nasty e-mails from consumers, some of whom even bought five combos and not even getting a decent explanation of the problem.

Just in case you can't wait for the WHQL'ed version coming out at the day of GF7800 arrival, you can just download ForceWare 75. And yes, I know its number starts with 77. I woudn't be surprised if Rel80 comes as a revision 88.88, since it should go head to head against R520. µ

L'INQ
Reviewers Driver (you'll see this one in every review of 7800, including ours)