Nvidia has begun shipping its nForce 680a SLI chipset for AMD's Quad FX gaming-oriented dual-core, dual-processor platform. Boards based on the part are capable of hosting four graphics cards, eight displays, a dozen 3Gbps SATA drives and four Gigabit Ethernet connections.

Phew.

The chipset can also handle four parallel ATA drives and up to 20 USB ports. It can host up to ten standard PCI slots, though with its in-built networking technology - including TCP acceleration and the ability to combine Ethernet connections into a single, fatter pipe - it's hard to know what folk will want to add into those slots.

The 680a SLI suport 7.1-channel HD audio, and a variety of RAID configurations to protect gamers' valuable data.

Nvidia highlighted Asus' L1N64-SLI WS motherboard, based on the company's new chipset, for its Quad FX compatibility and immediate availability. ®