World’s Leading Motherboard Manufacturers Turn to NVIDIA SLI for New INTEL BLOOMFIELD Platforms. 3-Way SLI Will Deliver the Fastest Gaming Solution for Intel Bloomfield CPU Platforms

SANTA CLARA, CA—OCTOBER 21, 2008—NVIDIA Corporation today announced that the world’s preeminent motherboard manufacturers, ASUS, EVGA, MSI, Gigabyte, and DFI, have all licensed NVIDIA® SLI® technology for their new lineup of motherboards designed to work with Intel Bloomfield CPUs and X58 chipsets. The addition of SLI to these motherboards and adoption by major OEMs including Dell and others means consumers will be able to harness the power of award-winning GeForce® GPUs in single, SLI, or 3-way SLI configurations for the fastest visual computing experience on upcoming Intel Bloomfield platforms.

“Dell Gaming is known for industry-leading graphics and unparalleled performance,” said Patrick Cooper, Director of Product Planning for Dell Gaming. “With the marriage of NVIDIA SLI and the latest generation of Intel chipsets, we will continue to offer hardcore gamers the opportunity to push their Alienware systems beyond the limits of today’s hottest titles.”
 

New motherboards and PCs designed for SLI technology and Bloomfield processors are currently in final production and are being readied for time-to-market introduction based on Intel processor launch schedules. The motherboards and PC systems coming to market will feature a variety of graphics connectivity options, including more advanced bandwidth configurations using the NVIDIA nForce® 200 SLI processor, as well as those designed to run SLI technology natively through a licensing and certification program.

“ASUS is bringing many motherboards into production with support for NVIDIA SLI technology, and a motherboard worthy of mention is the new ASUS Rampage II Extreme which is based on Intel’s upcoming X58 chipset,” said Joe Hsieh, General Manager at ASUS Motherboard Business Unit. “This state-of-the-art motherboard is specifically designed to serve as the nucleus of the most demanding PC configurations available on the market today, and will be a boon to extreme overclockers and hardcore gamers. We are expecting gamers to take full advantage of the graphics capability that 3-way SLI provides to build a screaming-fast gaming machine. I’m sure our customers can hardly wait to start gaming!”

“EVGA is continuing its tradition of bringing true enthusiast platforms to the market following the success with NVIDIA nForce-based SLI motherboards supporting Intel CPUs,” said Joe Darwin, Director of Technical Marketing at EVGA. “By licensing NVIDIA SLI technology, the EVGA X58 motherboard will deliver the ultimate 2-way and 3-way SLI platform to, once again, meet the enthusiast’s demand.”

“We are excited to be offering a variety of different SLI-certified motherboards for our enthusiast customers,” said Jason Lee, Global DPS Marketing Manager of MSI. “Our new Eclipse product lineup, which includes the Eclipse SLI and Eclipse+ motherboards featuring exclusive DrMOS extension, three x16 PCI Express slots, and the nForce 200 processor will prove to be popular with those enthusiasts who want to run 3-way SLI with full bandwidth allocated for graphics performance.”

“When NVIDIA enabled SLI for the Bloomfield CPU, we knew we would have a hit. Our customers have been asking for this since we started talking about X58. The 3-way SLI performance delivered by 3 GeForce GTX 280s will be amazing on Bloomfield,” said Tony Liao, Director of Marketing at GIGABYTE.”

“Our new DFI LanParty UT X58-T3eH8 has many overclocker-friendly features, including server level PWM, Debug LED, and a switchable BIOS, making it a must-have platform for hardcore gamers,” said Max Chang, Sales Director at DFI. “When coupled with NVIDIA GeForce GPUs running in 3-way SLI operation, end users will enjoy the fastest gaming experience.”

X58-based motherboards certified for NVIDIA SLI technology are on display at the Intel Developer Forum being held on October 20, 2008 and October 21, 2008 in Taipei, Taiwan.