SLI gives us a new way to expand the horizons of PC graphics power. By teaming a pair of cards, SLI delivers quite a bit more peak graphics performance than a single-card solution.

I should mention, however, that NVIDIA and Asus have some work to do on system stability. I ran into way too many lock-ups with the SLI test system during my testing. The problems were intermittent but came in bunches and seemed to be related to heat. A pair of GeForce 6800 Ultra cards generates lots of heat, and Asus has placed the nForce4 chip on the A8N-SLI directly between and below the two graphics cards, leaving little room for a heatsink on the nForce4. Asus's solution for this problem is a squat little cooler that's basically a tiny metal cage that houses a fan. This fan spins at upwards of 8,000 rpm and still may not do the trick. I'll have to spend some more time trying to iron out these problems as I work on my review of the A8N-SLI.