If this rumour is indeed true, then this looks like a potential cash cow for Nvidia, as the motherboard makers will supposedly pay US$5 per motherboard with a software SLI license to Nvidia. Although the X58 platform will have a limited appeal, it's still a lot of money we're talking about here.

We'd expect just about every motherboard maker out there that isworking on an X58 motherboard is going to get their boards verified for SLI by Nvidia, and considering that we've seen quite a few X58 boards already, Nvidia might not be too bad off in the long run.

Considering that making chipsets isn't really a money maker as such, since the R&D costs are fairly high and the margins aren't what you'd call fat, unless you're Nvidia and charge silly money for a chipset that in the end no-one really likes. In this case, Nvidia can make money off the back of an Intel chipset without having to do anything.

On the other hand, $5 a board is pretty cheap compared to the $20-30 deal we were told that the NF200 would be going for, depending on what deal the specific motherboard maker got form Nvidia. If this is a successful business we might get to see more of this type of licensing from Nvidia in the future, since we highly doubt that the company will bother making a P55 contender.

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