18
ASRock X79 Extreme3 Motherboard
English
2.5 SLI
TM
, 3-Way SLI
TM
and Quad SLI
TM
Operation Guide
This motherboard supports NVIDIA
®
SLI
TM
, 3-Way SLI
TM
and Quad SLI
TM
(Scalable
Link Interface) technology that allows you to install up to three identical PCI Express
x16 graphics cards. Currently, NVIDIA
®
SLI
TM
technology supports Windows
®
XP /
XP 64-bit / Vista
TM
/ Vista
TM
64-bit / 7 / 7 64-bit OS. NVIDIA
®
3-Way SLI
TM
and Quad
SLI
TM
technology support Windows
®
Vista
TM
/ Vista
TM
64-bit / 7 / 7 64-bit OS only.
Please follow the installation procedures in this section.
Requirements
1. For SLI
TM
technology, you should have two identical SLI
TM
-ready graphics
cards that are NVIDIA
®
certified. For 3-Way SLI
TM
technology, you should
have three identical 3-Way SLI
TM
-ready graphics cards that are NVIDIA
®
certified. For Quad SLI
TM
technology, you should have two identical Quad
SLI
TM
-ready graphics cards that are NVIDIA
®
certified.
2. Make sure that your graphics card driver supports NVIDIA
®
SLI
TM
technology
(driver version 280.41 and later). Download the driver from NVIDIA website
(www.nvidia.com).
3. Make sure that your power supply unit (PSU) can provide at least the
minimum power required by your system. It is recommended to use NVIDIA
®
certified PSU. Please refer to NVIDIA
®
website for details.
2.5.1 Graphics Card Setup
2.5.1.1 Installing Two SLI
TM
-Ready Graphics Cards
Step 1. Install the identical SLI
TM
-ready graphics cards that are NVIDIA
®
certified
because different types of graphics cards will not work together properly.
(Even the GPU chips version shall be the same.) Insert one graphics card
into PCIE1 slot and the other graphics card to PCIE3 slot. Make sure that
the cards are properly seated on the slots.
Step2. If required, connect the auxiliary power source to the PCI Express graph-
ics cards.
