SLI

Since man invented the wheel, to facilitate in his journey to the far ends of the earth, he has continuously strived to improvise the way of doing things and reduce time taken to complete his tasks. One such quest lead to the innovation of computers, which revolutionised the way world communicates and shares thoughts, ideas, messages, news, entertainment and even attends weddings, so to say.

The introduction of high-definition multimedia content with high-resolution video displays and six or eight channels of surround sound, has led to an unprecedented quality of personal entertainment. Be it motion pictures or video games, this fast-evolving technology has compelled companies to develop and deliver the next generation, high-performance central processing units and graphics processing units.

These specialised graphics processing units process extreme amounts of graphics data from 3D-intensive computer video games, High Definition audio/video playback and raw graphics data created by CGI animation professionals. With the evolution in computing technology growing by leaps and bounds, one has seen the dawn of processors which are physically a single unit, yet can be two, four or eight units all bound into together into one, blazing silicon chip.

Quite similarly, graphics cards too evolved with the sole purpose of catering to the gaming community. Current generation graphics cards not only contain processing power that by far supersedes the capabilities of certain CPUs but also work in tandem when coupled with one or more of their same kind in a PC.

This technology, known as SLI or Scalable Link Interface, was adopted, developed and implemented widely by the leading 3D graphics processing unit manufacturer ó NVIDIA. Initially, 3DFX Inc. had defined SLI as "Scan-Line Interleave", a way of connecting 2 or more 3D video cards back in 1998. This SLI technology allows installing more than one graphics of the same type on a motherboard that supports SLI to reap the benefits of extreme processing power of two SLI-ready graphics cards. Be it a multimedia enthusiast or a gamer or a 3D graphics professional, the stunning realism and depth reproduced by twin or quad graphics processors far surpasses the visual quality reproduced by workstation-level, CGI graphics-rendering computers.

Basically, one needs to install a motherboard (like the renowned and famous amongst gamers) Asus P5N-E SLI for the Intel processor platform or the Asus M2N SLI for the AMD processor platform for installing the least of two nvidia SLI-ready graphics cards. After installing two units of high-performance graphics cards like the nVIDIA 8800 GT SLI or 8800 GTX SLI edition, a sli bridge connector is used to connect both the graphics such that the operating system recognises them and uses them to their full potential.

A unique 3 way SLI is also possible using top-notch, expensive motherboards that allow using three such graphics cards together for a desktop scorching performance. Most systems built using SLI sets also sport an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 processor, which is essentially a single chip with four processors on a single silicon chip; nothing blazes faster! For professionals on the move, certain laptops featuring SLI technology are available, although they bear a premium on price and, of course, life of the batteries!