nVIDIA’s SLI technology has taken the industry by storm, with virtually every enthusiast now aware that you can combine two identical nVIDIA PCI-Express cards to almost double your graphics power. Multiple video card solutions are nothing new, and I was the proud owner of twin Voodoo 2 SLI cards way back in the 90’s. Once high end graphics moved from PCI to AGP however, the multi GPU system became extinct… until now.
PCI Express isn’t only designed for video cards so there is a real benefit from installing more than one PCI-Express slot on a motherboard, even if you don’t plan on running an SLI setup. The trouble is, that most motherboards only have the smaller 1x and 2x PCI-E slots rather than the full length 16x slots needed for most cards. Because of this, if you plan on using an SLI graphics card setup, you are limited in your motherboard chipset options. If you are using an AMD Athlon 64 setup, as the majority of enthusiasts now seem to be doing, the only chipset worth looking at is the nForce 4.
Today we have 6 top Athlon 64 compatible SLI motherboards going head to head in our group test:
As well as gaming performance, we will also be testing their overclockability and comparing their value for money, features and layout. Without further ado, let battle commence!
