Merom May Usher In Mobile-SLI

In news that truly caught me off-guard, DigiTimes has reported that Core 2 Duo Merom based notebooks will support NVIDIA’s SLI technology. As their post says: Nvidia will soon announce that Merom-based notebooks (Merom is a codename that Intel used for its recently announced T-series mobile Core 2 Duo processors) support its dual-graphics SLI technology, according to sources at Taiwan notebook makers. The sources also mentioned a rumor that Intel has reached licensing agreements with both Nvidia and ATI Technologies to enable Intel chipsets support SLI and CrossFire technologies, with updated drivers. So far, none of the companies have officially confirmed that Intel notebook chipsets can support any of the two dual-graphics technologies. This is a rather disturbing thought. If and when mobile SLI arrives notebooks with 17 and 19 inch screens, which are already tipping the 8 lbs mark, will go beyond 10 lbs. Not only that, keeping in mind that battery life is a premium, the introduction of power hungry SLI does not bode well for the end-user. Even with Merom’s ability to optimize power consumption, expect battery life to drop by a good 30 to 40 percent.