NVIDIA Announces SLI LED Bridges
by Jarred Walton on September 23, 2014 1:25 PM EST
For those that just can't get enough bling in their cases, NVIDIA today announced the availability of SLI LED bridges, available for the time being exclusively through the NVIDIA Store. Besides the obvious addition of LED lighting to the bridges, it's also worth noting that these are rigid bridges so the cards need to be in specific slots. There are three bridges available, two for 2-way SLI, one for systems where the cards are two slots apart and one for systems where the cards are three slots apart, with a third bridge for 3-way SLI with the cards spaced two slots apart.
The new LED SLI bridges were recently on display at NVIDIA's Game24 event, but this is the first time the bridges have been made available to the public. There are some caveats, unfortunately: for the time being the LED bridges are only available in the US/Canada at the NVIDIA Store. I suspect there will be some enterprising individuals that buy the bridges and then put them up on eBay or similar sites, but the other drawback is that the cost of the bridges is rather high already, so paying extra for non-North American markets will simply add to the price.
Speaking of which, the 2-way SLI LED bridges are priced at $29.99 while the 3-way SLI LED bridge will cost $39.99. That's not really very different from EVGA's existing illuminated 2-way SLI bridge and there's now a 3-way LED offering, but it's over four times the price of a normal 2-way or 3-way SLI bridge. Such is the price of bling.
As far as compatibility, the bridges are designed to work with all modern GTX cards with SLI support. NVIDIA specifically mentions the following products as being supported: GeForce GTX 770, GTX 780, GTX 780 Ti, GTX TITAN, GTX TITAN Black, GTX 970 and GTX 980. These are for NVIDIA reference designs, so the bridges may not work on cards with custom cooling solutions. GeForce Experience 1.7 or later is also required for the LED Visualizer, which allows control of the LEDs.
Source: NVIDIA
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TiGr1982 - Wednesday, September 24, 2014 - link
He is dead serious, I suppose (see my post above about communities).Just go and see EVGA forum - there are tons of these guys there. It's kinda "Gucci in computers". First time I knew it was kind of a cultural shock :)
Alexvrb - Wednesday, September 24, 2014 - link
I'd rather have function and features over flash and bling. But I guess if money is no object...Subyman - Thursday, September 25, 2014 - link
It's a hobby and a fun one to customize your PC. I've done it many times. Check out MDPC's gallery (million dollar PC.) For those that like to tinker and fabricate, its good times.HisDivineOrder - Wednesday, September 24, 2014 - link
Curious, isn't it?AMD makes a HUGE deal out of getting rid of bridges while nVidia pimps them out.
Somehow, I think nVidia may still have its hand on the pulse of PC gamers with this one, but never underestimate nVidia's savvy for selling something you'd think preposterous. After all, they did take a bunch of Tegra 4's that weren't selling and slapped them into a controller with a poorly sized screen with poor resolution and somehow sold decent numbers of it.
Elsewhere, AMD can't sell an APU to an eskimo in winter.
ol1bit - Wednesday, September 24, 2014 - link
That is way cooler than the ribbon cables!Etern205 - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
I think it's still a ribbon cable on the inside of that hard shell.vred - Wednesday, September 24, 2014 - link
No 4-way bridge? Nooo!Etern205 - Friday, September 26, 2014 - link
Them LED SLI bridges gives a massive boost to FPS!Ozminer - Thursday, October 2, 2014 - link
SLI has always been cooler to meAntronman - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
If you looked at the Parvum Systems Magnus project in RoG, you'd know that Nvidia has had prototypes for a couple of years.