Nvidia sells 9 million SLI graphics processors

Nvidia for the first time released sales figures for SLI-capable graphics processors during a technology update briefing for journalists. According to Ujesh Desai, general manager of desktop GPUs at Nvidia, the company has sold nine million SLI GPUs and three million nForce SLI chipsets. The firm also claimed that there are more than 200 certified SLI products available on the market with more than 200 applications that support SLI.

A major new product will a quad-SLI offering that was demonstrated in a Dell desktop system at CES and that the company intends to offer to consumers in the near future. Quad-SLI is expected to become available in Dell’s XPS system as well as other computers soon. "It’s right around the corner," Stam said. According to a spokesperson the technology will debut in late Q1 for both AMD and Intel platforms.

Quad-SLI will be using an nForce x16 chipset with two slots for graphics cards carrying two graphics processors each. The solution demonstrated on the Dell XPS was based on four 512 MB 7800 GTX cards integrating 1.3 billion transistors, 96 pixel pipes and a claimed performance of 41 Gpixels/s and 5.2 TFlops. Pricing has not been announced, but sources indicated that Dell’s Quad SLI system may cost between $5000 and $7000 when it launches.