NVIDIA prepping power-saving Hybrid SLI technology

X-bit Labs reports that NVIDIA is working on some new SLI technology that'll not only cut power consumption, but boost performance (sort of) as well. Key to this so-called Hybrid SLI technology are two different operating modes that kick in depending on the application: a Power Saving mode that switches off the discrete graphics core when it's not needed, and a Max Performance mode that turns on the juice for games or other demanding applications. In addition to desktops, NVIDIA also sees this solution as a boon to laptops, which could take advantage of the low power mode when on battery power, and kick into high gear when plugged in. Unfortunately, NVIDIA isn't sayin' too much else at the moment, but it is promising that the first Hybrid SLI-based systems will be available "late this year."

[Thanks, Mack S]

[thanox2 @ Jun 25th 2007 4:39PM]

misspelled Hybrid on the tittle. :(

[Eric @ Jun 25th 2007 4:47PM]

Hahaha nice catch.

[Andrew H. @ Jun 28th 2007 2:12AM]

misspelled title in your commmments

[Traveler @ Jun 25th 2007 5:46PM]

They should have done this a long time ago.

[Zach @ Jul 10th 2007 5:23PM]

Late this year? Oooh, can we speculate this will launch with the G92 chips!?

[StandardAI @ Jun 25th 2007 9:37PM]

Don't graphics cards already use less electricity under lower loads? Or is it not a big difference?

[icingdeath88 @ Jun 25th 2007 10:43PM]

They do, but of course it would be a lot better if they could just turn off one of the cores altogether. Independent power management is something Intel and AMD are working on for their multi-core processors as well. See http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2992&p=2 for more on that. Also, hybrid SLI is a silly thing to call this. It's just turning on and off SLI as needed to conserve power.

[Miles @ Sep 11th 2007 1:37PM]

Actually graphics cards for the desktop usually don't clock down very far, and the ram usually not at all.

Voltage doesn't usually go lower either, even though most PCB's offer Voltage control, the circuits aren't populated. More energy would probably be saved with on-demand voltage and clock-speeds across their entire range of products, regardless of 2d or 3D modes, especially with Vista Aero becoming more popular.

@ icingdeath88

"They do, but of course it would be a lot better if they could just turn off one of the cores altogether. . . Also, hybrid SLI is a silly thing to call this. It's just turning on and off SLI as needed to conserve power."

I think this is in regard to the integrated graphics included on most motherboards, I would love to see the integrated chipsets be able to add their shader power into the fray while doing intense calculations, and using only the integrated while browsing around, do your part for global-warming and get hybrid SLi.

It is Hybrid because it combines the on-board graphics into the Sli. This wasn't done before because of the load-balancing of Sli, graphics needed to be matched, and because of the added pressure to lessen mean energy usage of the video card when performing word-processing and web-browsing tasks.