Motherboard – Nvidia nForce 100 SLI Bridge for 4 Graphics Cards

The 5400 northbridge doesn’t possess a sufficient number of PCI-Express lanes to provide four x16 PEG slots. For this reason, Intel partnered with Nvidia for the Skulltrail project, using two PCI-Express port switchers. The two nForce 100 SLI bridges split the 32 lanes of the 5400 northbridge into 64 lanes, with each of the nForce chips providing 32 lanes in this manner.

Both the 5400 northbridge chip and Nvidia’s nForce 100 SLI port switchers support PCI-Express 2.0. If the system is equipped with two graphics cards, each can utilize a transfer rate of x16. With four graphics cards installed, each of the cards is still able to take advantage of an x16 connection, although all of them together have to share the bandwidth of an electrical x32 connection. Thus, the four cards cannot take advantage of the x16 bandwidth simultaneously, so the bandwidth is allocated dynamically.

The large heatsink that covers the southbridge and the Nvidia SLI-chips is equipped with a 60 mm fan. It runs at a very high speed and is so loud that a headache is almost guaranteed.

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  1. 1 – Intel D5400XS with Quad-Channel
  2. 2 – Expensive and Large – Intel D5400XS Motherboard
  3. 3 – Expensive and Large – Intel D5400XS Motherboard (Cont’d)
  4. 4 – Motherboard – The Intel 5400 Northbridge
  5. 5 – Motherboard – Active Cooling Required
  6. 6 – Motherboard – Intel 6321ESB Southbridge
  7. 7 – Motherboard – Nvidia nForce 100 SLI Bridge for 4 Graphics Cards
  8. 8 – 1000 Watt Power Supply
  9. 9 – 4 Graphics Cards – Ready for SLI and Crossfire
  10. 10 – Memory – Quad-Channel with FB-DIMMs
  11. 11 – Memory – Memory Interface and Quad-Channel
  12. 12 – Memory – Not Suited for Desktop and Gaming Systems
  13. 13 – Memory – FB-DIMMs Less Expensive than DDR3
  14. 14 – Other Parts of this Article
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