Introduction

NVIDIA came up with a new generation enthusiast-grade graphics card out of freaking nowhere. The GeForce GTX 580 is touted by its makers to be the single most powerful GPU, and an efficient GPU compared to the previous generation (if efficiency doesn't matter to you, heat and fan-noise just might). Since the GTX 580 is now the best NVIDIA has to offer, the only thing better than a GTX 580 is two or more of them in SLI multi-GPU. If you haven't read our review of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 already, please do so, to understand what the card is worth in its single GPU form.

The GeForce GTX 580 has two SLI bridge connectors, with which you can set up 2-way, 3-way, and even 4-way SLI, if your motherboard and power supply permit. SLI lets you upscale performance beyond what a single-GPU is capable of, sometimes giving you close to twice the performance. It appeals to both enthusiasts with a lot of cash to blow (buying a number of cards at once), as well as value-conscious high-end users, who will buy one of these cards now, and pair it with another one in the future when it's not keeping up with the eye-candy needs of tomorrow's games (when a single GTX 580 would have become a bit more affordable).

In this review we're going to show you what to expect from NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 580 SLI, a multi-GPU configuration of two of these cards, a roughly $1000 solution at present.