If you are a long time gamer like me, upgrading to SLI should be one of your top things to  do early this year. What's SLI? If you're new to SLI you can check out www.slizone.com for a quick tech intro. The basic idea is, on a single system you are able to effectively leverage graphics performance by adding together multiple GPUs. Sounds very dual-core like isn't?

This Blog Applies To:

PC Gamers (mostly performance and extreme types)

Philippine setting (as most if not all hardware taken into context are based within the country, or citing more specifically two places: Gilmore and Greenhills where I personally go to outfit my PCs)

Resolution

To build your very own SLI-compliant gaming rig is no easy task. There are several considerations that you should careful weave through before departing with your gold stash. Being just an average player in this evolving technology it is not my purpose to give an in-depth guide of how to set up SLI for anyone in general. Truthfully I was simply going to write down for myself a list of SLI-ready hardware in the Phil. market and cover the stores that sell them.

So what considerations was I referring to? There's the basics of course - like your need and your budget then there's the tech aspect of it.

What you need for SLI: motherboard**, SLI-ready GPUs

**not all boards are created with "scalable link interface" in mind. The least you want is to buy (2) Php15000 PCI-express cards and waste all that because you forgot about the SLI-ready board.

For the SLI video cards, NVIDIA the 'creator' of this technology provides a neat chart for easy reference. (Check this http://www.slizone.com/object/slim_help_gpu.html). GPUs starting with the GeForce 6600 to the mind-blowing 8800 Ultra are SLI-ready. Again, decide based on your need. The simple thumb rule is "SLI PCs must use matching GeForce Models. The manufacturer, clock speeds and memory size can vary."

That wasn't so hard to figure out - just get the same GPU models and plug it into the SLI mobo and bam. For more questions regarding SLI setup (e.g. can I match cards from different vendors?) you can use this FAQ page (http://www.slizone.com/page/slizone_faq).

Finally after all that here's the real purpose of why I wrote this blog - the list of available SLI video cards and motherboards in Manila and the stores that sell them. (This list is very prelimary! Please add to them through the comments section):