I've always been loyal to Gigabyte, this pleases me.

I'd like to see such a work around for other non-SLI boards. For that matter, though, I would prefer to have Nvidia support this through its drivers. It would benefit them the most anyways. Think about all of the Crossfire boards out there that they could tap into if they just allowed SLI on any board.

Ah, I love Gigabyte, even though I don't have one of these boards just yet. When I build a new system later this year, I plan on using a Gigabyte X58.

I don't see why nVidia would raise a big stink over it. It means they are selling more video cards. I'm guessing they make more money off the video card sales than off the licensing of a line of motherboards. If they did make a stink out of it, all it would show was that nVidia is just a whore and all they care about is the $$.

So if they don't care and it increases sales and helps the bottom line its ok, but if they feel that this somehow doesn't help thier bottom line, then they are whores? How does that work?

The thing is, the difference between the two boards stated on the article was JUST the SLI software being enabled. Hardware wise they are identical, and functionality wise they are identical. Somewhere in the bios code, on just has the SLI firmware turned to "off."

Gigabyte, thank you for this gift. My loyalty to your brand has once again been earned.

I never understood why they would make people pay for sli on the mobo. It kind of kills their sales to me when i hear people say get a (ati card here) and cross fire it later if you need more power.

You know what I dont get is why they bother to make them non-sli,,i know they can make a couple extra $$ for every board that gets certified,,but if i want SLI, I need to buy 2 or more NVIDIA cards,,they still make some good coin in the process,,

guy..welcome to the hardware world.

this is actually how the game is playing. Fees, cost or royalty fees whatever you call is all added up in your hardware. A certified hardware cost more then a non certificated device. This is to make sure the product is safe and all the regulation compliance is followed.

I guess somewhere in Nvidia process or ATI, some part of the code has a fees tight to it and they will have to pay the holder certain amount for each device a manufacture is selling.

You won't believe how cheap it can make a router, but after you factor in all the fees, it raise the cost from 10% to 15%..then follow by all other marketing and sales associate cost.

I m in the hardware industrial and always has the latest gadget to play with and knowing their bottom pricing.

That does only work for the UD4P or for other boards like the UD3R aswell?

OMG my dream has come true Xfire and SLI on one mobo

Very true , it will be intersting on what they have to say about this. my guess would be they might of planned this all along. make money off higher priced motherboards and a year down the rd, make money off the graphics cards. cause really there is a diference in functionality but only slight on the different boards like different audio codecs.

gigabyte boards have dual bios - so I suppose if all goes wrong, you could somehow activate the backup one. I do have gigabyte boards, but I've never needed that feature. Dunno how it works. I bet the manual sais though - so it might not be as risky as it would sound.