NVIDIA SLI Technology Now Available for Intel Branded X58-based Motherboards

All Intel i7 Platforms, Including the Intel ‘Smackover’ Motherboard, Now Available with NVIDIA SLI Technology

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Feb. 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — NVIDIA Corporation today announced that Intel Corporation has licensed NVIDIA(R) SLI(TM) technology for inclusion on the Intel(R) DX58SO motherboard for the Intel(R) Core i7 processor. As a result, customers with Intel X58-based motherboards and the Core i7 processor can now equip their PCs with any combination of NVIDIA GeForce(R) GPUs, including Quad SLI, for the ultimate visual computing experience.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20020613/NVDALOGO)

“The addition of NVIDIA SLI technology to the Intel DX58SO motherboard has been a welcome addition,” said Clem Russo, VP and General Manager of Channel Desktop Platform Group at Intel Corporation. “The pairing of our new Core i7 processors on our Extreme Series motherboard and NVIDIA GeForce graphics has resulted in some of the world’s fastest consumer gaming PC platforms. For playing any of today’s hottest PC titles, this is one awesome combination that our customers have been asking for.”

As a result of today’s announcement, NVIDIA SLI technology is now available for all consumer PC platforms, including the Intel Core i7, Core 2 Quad and Core 2 Duo processors, as well as those based on the AMD Phenom II CPU. In addition to raw graphics performance, NVIDIA GeForce GPUs also provide gamers with additional capabilities not found on any other discrete graphics solutions, including NVIDIA PhysX(R) technology for deeper gaming immersion, stereoscopic 3D gaming with NVIDIA 3D Vision technology, and support for CUDA(R), a revolutionary new computing architecture that harnesses the power of the NVIDIA GPU to accelerate everyday computing applications including video transcoding, physics calculations, and high-definition video playback.

“The Intel X58 ‘Smackover’ board is excellent, with fantastic build quality and great performance, and now with the inclusion of SLI it is full steam ahead,” said Kriss Pomroy, Commercial Director at Novatech. “We are extremely excited that we can now spec Intel motherboards in many of our systems and capitalize on the awesome performance of NVIDIA SLI technology. It is what we have all been waiting for here at Novatech.”

“Finally, the Intel Smackover experience is complete. At Paradigit we’ve been using this board since launch, but we thought that this may not last long because of the lack of SLI support,” said Niels Van Echteld, Purchasing Manager for Paradigit. “Now this board is ready for the best of both worlds — Intel’s newest Core i7 CPU and the power of NVIDIA GeForce in SLI!”

“The ability to have SLI, PhysX, and CUDA on an Intel chipset is a great move for the market,” said Elan Raja III, Director of Scan Computers. “The combination of technologies will break all the existing performance barriers raising the standard for the power user. The wait is finally over!”

“There’s no doubt about it… our customers love SLI,” said Randy Copeland, CEO of Velocity Computers. “With this announcement, we have the ability to build them any Intel i7 platform they want, and know that whatever motherboard we choose, we can populate it with multiple NVIDIA GeForce GPUs. This gives our customers the greatest flexibility in purchasing the world’s fastest gaming PCs.”

“NVIDIA SLI has proven to be the industry’s only stable, scalable, high-performance multi-GPU platform, and we are excited that customers with Intel branded X58 motherboards will be able to take advantage of this processing power,” said Ujesh Desai, vice president of GeForce desktop business at NVIDIA. “Gamers know that the best way to experience their games is with GeForce GPUs, and now they will be able to harness the power of multiple GPUs for even more performance and immersion features.”

For more information on NVIDIA SLI technology, please visit: www.nvidia.com/sli

About NVIDIA

NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA) is the world leader in visual computing technologies and the inventor of the GPU, a high-performance processor which generates breathtaking, interactive graphics on workstations, personal computers, game consoles, and mobile devices. NVIDIA serves the entertainment and consumer market with its GeForce(R) products, the professional design and visualization market with its Quadro(R) products, and the high-performance computing market with its Tesla(TM) products. NVIDIA is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif. and has offices throughout Asia, Europe, and the Americas.

Certain statements in this press release including, but not limited to, statements as to: the benefits, features, impact, and capabilities of NVIDIA GeForce GPUs, NVIDIA PhysX technology, NVIDIA SLI technology and CUDA; and the impact of SLI on video games; are forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to be materially different than expectations. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include: development of more efficient or faster technology; adoption of the CPU for parallel processing; design, manufacturing or software defects; the impact of technological development and competition; changes in consumer preferences and demands; customer adoption of different standards or our competitor’s products; changes in industry standards and interfaces; unexpected loss of performance of our products or technologies when integrated into systems as well as other factors detailed from time to time in the reports NVIDIA files with the Securities and Exchange Commission including its Form 10-Q for the fiscal period ended October 26, 2008. Copies of reports filed with the SEC are posted on our Web site and are available from NVIDIA without charge. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and speak only as of the date hereof, and, except as required by law, NVIDIA disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances.

(C) 2009 NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved. NVIDIA, the NVIDIA logo, PhysX, CUDA, GeForce, Quadro, and Tesla are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

SOURCE NVIDIA Corporation