Board maker Gigabyte is to launch a family of add-in cards containing two graphics chips, following the successful launch of its first dual-GPU card, the GV-3D1, last month.

So claim "market sources" cited (http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20050203A7035.html) by DigiTimes today. They also claim Asustek is preparing similar products.

The PCI Express x16 connected GV-3D1 is based on two Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT chips, each with a 4bn polygon per second fill rate and 375m vertices per second geometry performance. Both GPUs are connected to 256MB of GDDR 3 SDRAM across a 256-bit bus. The two processors jointly render each scene using Nvidia's SLI technology.

However, specifications for the alleged follow-up cards are not yet known. That said, SLI is supported by other members of Nvidia's GeForce 6 family, specifically the 6800 LE, 6800, 6800 GT, 6800 Ultra, so it's a fair bet that one or all of these may appear on future boards in pairs.

When such parts may surface isn't known either, though the sources pointed to an Asustek announcement after the Chinese New Year holiday next week. ®

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