Nvidia's Hybrid SLI technology no longer matters
Posted on 26th Feb 2009 at 13:39 by Tim Smalley with 5 comments
One of those technologies that showed so much promise, but delivered so little last year was Nvidia's Hybrid SLI technology. We covered this in quite a lot of depth even before the actual products arrived. And when they did arrive, they weren't exactly brilliant.
To me, the most interesting part of Hybrid SLI was in fact Hybrid Power, which would essentially allow gamers to switch off their power hungry graphics cards when they weren't being used for gaming or GPU computing and instead use a more power-efficient integrated GPU to drive your display. And it was the one reason to introduce the GeForce 9800-series because a number of the cards in that line up were simply re-hashed G92 based GeForce 8-series products that featured Hybrid Power technology.
Ever since Nvision ended a massive bombshell, where Nvidia announced that it was to open SLI out to Intel's X58 chipset, we've been wondering where Hybrid SLI - and in particular Hybrid Power - stood in the DIY market today. We managed to get some answers that shed a lot more light on Nvidia's plans for the technology than our previous attempts where the water wasn't left quite as clear.
To me, the most interesting part of Hybrid SLI was in fact Hybrid Power, which would essentially allow gamers to switch off their power hungry graphics cards when they weren't being used for gaming or GPU computing and instead use a more power-efficient integrated GPU to drive your display. And it was the one reason to introduce the GeForce 9800-series because a number of the cards in that line up were simply re-hashed G92 based GeForce 8-series products that featured Hybrid Power technology.
Ever since Nvision ended a massive bombshell, where Nvidia announced that it was to open SLI out to Intel's X58 chipset, we've been wondering where Hybrid SLI - and in particular Hybrid Power - stood in the DIY market today. We managed to get some answers that shed a lot more light on Nvidia's plans for the technology than our previous attempts where the water wasn't left quite as clear.
