ASUSTeK Computer on Thursday introduced a new flavour of its first-class mainboard powered by NVIDIA nForce4 SLI core-logic designed to support multi-GPU setups. The new A8N-SLI Premium mainboard is expected to inherit capabilities of the previous product, but will simplify the use of multi graphics cards by the absence of any physical selectors or jumpers.

“We are going to release A8N-SLI Premium soon. Basically we keep all features, specification on A8N-SLI Deluxe is available on A8N-SLI Premium. ASUS added a smart innovation on A8N-SLI Premium without SLI selector card,” an ASUS spokesperson said.

The main difference between previous generation ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe and ASUS A8N-SLI Premium is the so-called AI Selector. ASUS A8N-SLI Premium mainboard incorporate AI (ASUS Intelligence) Selector, which adopted Pericom Semiconductor’s PCI Express Switch IC (integrated circuit) instead of a selector card.

AI Selector enables easy switching between single-GPU and dual-GPU modes by simply clicking on the mouse under Microsoft Windows operating system. Unlike in previous cases, there is no need to open the PC case and physically adjust the SLI selector card, which provides users an opportunity to disable Multi-GPU mode for games that malfunction because of it.

The AI Selector allows users to easily choice different modes they wish to run their two graphics cards:

• Single graphics card mode;
• Dual-GPU (SLI) graphics card mode;
• Two graphics cards operating independently providing multiple display output.

ASUS A8N-SLI Premium and Deluxe mainboards support AMD64 processors in PGA939 form-factor and sports PCI Express bus as well as NVIDIA’s Multi-GPU SLI technology, which allows running two similar graphics cards in parallel to boost performance. The mainboards are equipped with plethora of modern technologies and interconnections, including 2 PCI Express x16 slots for graphics cards, 2 PCI x1 slots, 3 PCI slots, 4 Serial ATA-150 with RAID support and 4 Serial ATA-300 ports, 2 Parallel ATA-33/66/100/133, 2 Gigabit Ethernet connectors, 10 USB 2.0 ports, 2 FireWire ports, 8-channel audio and so on. Additionally, the mainboards feature all the latest technologies from ASUS, including AI NOS, AI NET2, PEG link, as well as plethora of overclocking enhancements.