By now it's common knowledge that Nvidia won't be making a chipset for the Bloomfield processor and instead the company will offer its nForce 200 chipset as a solution to board partners that want to add SLI to their X58 motherboards.

What isn't such a well-known fact is the little matter of Nvidia's pricing strategy, as if a motherboard manufacturer wants to have an X58 SKU without the nForce 200 chipset, then the chipset will set them back US$30 a pop, while those that will go exclusively with an nForce 200 based X58 line-up will only have to pay US$20 per chip.

To further complicate things, there are two different implementations possible. Motherboard makers can choose to use one nForce 200 chip and split 16 PCIe lanes with it, as the nForce 200 chipset only has a x16 PCIe interface towards the chipset. This would mean that the graphics card interface won't be as fast as it should be, just as with Nvidia's own 780i chipset.

However, from our understanding, it's possible to use two nForce 200 chips, at twice the cost, to get full x16 bandwidth per slot, just like on Intel's Skulltrail motherboard. Either solution adds cost above the chipset as well, as the motherboard manufacturers not only have to re-design their X58 boards to accommodate the extra chip(s), but also provide a different type of chipset cooling solution that caters to the extra heat produced by the nForce 200 chip(s).

We can't see a lot of motherboard manufacturers jumping in bed with Nvidia on this one, but the rumor is that Asus is working on a board using the nForce 200 chipset, but most of the other companies we've talked to seem to be quite a lot less enthusiastic about this solution.