Gigabyte’s 3D1 is an interesting product based on nVidia’s SLI technology. While all other manufacturers implementing SLI have done it using two separate cards and bridging them together, Gigabyte decided to skip the two cards process and make one card with two cores and connect them internally. The obvious advantage of this setup is that you don’t need two separate cards inside your PC, however, as per Gigabyte, the 3D1 card will only work with their K8NXP-SLI motherboard as it requires a special BIOS. That’s not much of a problem as currently this card can only be acquired by buying the K8NXP-SLI bundle- Gigabyte doesn’t sell the card separately.

While we didn’t test this card with other SLI boards, [H] did and they managed to have it up and running successfully in SLI mode on the ASUS AN8-SLI board. Another restriction that couldn’t be bypassed so easily is that nVidia never really designed the 6600GT GPU to work in an SLI mode under one card. Thus, Gigabyte’s specifications of 256bit/256MB for 3D1, while true- could be a bit misleading. To simplify, you have two separate 128bit/128MB buses on the 3D1 card permanently linked through an internal SLI bridge.

Besides the fact that you only use one PCI-E slot, the two other difference between the 3D1 and a 6600GT SLI setup is that Gigabyte sets the default memory speeds to 1120MHz which is 120MHz (DDR) higher than your standard 6600GT and that you require an external power connection to the 3D1. Gigabyte uses a large copper heatsink with dual fans- each resting above one of the GPUs to keep the unit cool. The heatsink does not take up the space reserved for the adjacent expansion slot making the 3D1 a true single card solution. Gigabyte includes two games inside their 3D1/K8NXP-SLI- Joint Operations Typhoon Rising and Thief.