Nvidia announced on Wednesday at NVISION08 that Intel's X58 Express chipset will natively support SLI.

The Intel X58 Express chipset has been designed to support the upcoming "Core i7" (Bloomfield) processors for high-end PC/server computers.

The Intel X58 offers two PCI Express 2.0 x16 and 4/3/2-way SLI support (x16x16, x16x16 or x16x8x8, x8x8x8x8, respectively. However, Nvidia said that not all Intel X58 motherboards will support SLI, at least without hardware verification by Nvidia. Upon verification, an apprroval key will be added to the motherboard's BIOS. This key will be essential for the enablement of the SLI driver of an x58 motherboard in order to offer SLI functionality.Nvidia also added that the licensing of the SLI is quite flexible.

Nvidia has already announced the SLI feature for the X58 + nForce 200 systems, which will offer full x16?4 performance.