NVIDIA Announces SLI LED Bridges
by Jarred Walton on September 23, 2014 1:25 PM ESTFor those that just can't get enough bling in their cases, NVIDIA today announced the availability of SLI LED bridges, available for the time being exclusively through the NVIDIA Store. Besides the obvious addition of LED lighting to the bridges, it's also worth noting that these are rigid bridges so the cards need to be in specific slots. There are three bridges available, two for 2-way SLI, one for systems where the cards are two slots apart and one for systems where the cards are three slots apart, with a third bridge for 3-way SLI with the cards spaced two slots apart.
The new LED SLI bridges were recently on display at NVIDIA's Game24 event, but this is the first time the bridges have been made available to the public. There are some caveats, unfortunately: for the time being the LED bridges are only available in the US/Canada at the NVIDIA Store. I suspect there will be some enterprising individuals that buy the bridges and then put them up on eBay or similar sites, but the other drawback is that the cost of the bridges is rather high already, so paying extra for non-North American markets will simply add to the price.
Speaking of which, the 2-way SLI LED bridges are priced at $29.99 while the 3-way SLI LED bridge will cost $39.99. That's not really very different from EVGA's existing illuminated 2-way SLI bridge and there's now a 3-way LED offering, but it's over four times the price of a normal 2-way or 3-way SLI bridge. Such is the price of bling.
As far as compatibility, the bridges are designed to work with all modern GTX cards with SLI support. NVIDIA specifically mentions the following products as being supported: GeForce GTX 770, GTX 780, GTX 780 Ti, GTX TITAN, GTX TITAN Black, GTX 970 and GTX 980. These are for NVIDIA reference designs, so the bridges may not work on cards with custom cooling solutions. GeForce Experience 1.7 or later is also required for the LED Visualizer, which allows control of the LEDs.
Source: NVIDIA
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TiGr1982 - Tuesday, September 23, 2014 - link
So no 4-Way SLI then?(presumably, because 4-way is the least common setup used)
Goty - Tuesday, September 23, 2014 - link
Don't those setups still use staggered 2-device connections or am I just several years behind the times?The Von Matrices - Wednesday, September 24, 2014 - link
In 4-way SLI, you connect cards 1-2, 1-3, and 3-4. You would need three 2-way bridges, and one of them would have to be 4-slots long, which isn't offered here.The Von Matrices - Wednesday, September 24, 2014 - link
As a supplement, you aren't behind the times, you're just mistaking SLI with Crossfire because Crossfire bridges are connected this way.spencer.p - Tuesday, September 23, 2014 - link
Probably because the 4-Way SLI is lit with natural fire already.ZeDestructor - Wednesday, September 24, 2014 - link
4-card SLI was never an official thing. Consequently, no quad-card bridge from Nvidia.vred - Wednesday, September 24, 2014 - link
4-way SLI is official with Titans.MrSpadge - Tuesday, September 23, 2014 - link
If I wasn't completely uninterested in multi-GPU setups for games I wouldn't mind bridges, as long as they provide an advantage due to massive bandwidth. But, as we've learned from AMD, this does not really seem to be the case with PCIe 3.MrSpadge - Tuesday, September 23, 2014 - link
Oh, and don't ask about spending 30$ for a few LED.. there's got to be a reason these are sold in North America first!TiGr1982 - Tuesday, September 23, 2014 - link
I guess, California EVGA community and the likes will be happy."Look! Just $30 and these are shining!" :)