NVIDIA SLI Multi-OS Technology

Professionals, such as digital artists, designers and earth scientists, can have complex workflows that require a combination of graphics-centric applications running on a variety of operating systems concurrently. In the past, this required managing multiple workstations in their work environment.

The latest generation of Intel-based workstations, with VT-d technology, enables the deployment of system virtualization technology to these workflows. When system virtualization is combined with the incredible performance boost of today’s workstations, opportunities for improved productivity and more efficient manageability of system resources are realized.

With the introduction of NVIDIA® SLI® Multi-OS technology, a user now has the ability to fully virtualize all resources in the workstation, including NVIDIA® Quadro® GPUs. An SLI Multi-OS enabled workstation operates in conjunction with workstation virtualization software. Through SLI Multi-OS technology, a user can directly assign a dedicated Quadro graphics board to both the host operating system and a range of optionally loaded guest operating systems.

Using an SLI Multi-OS virtualized workstation, a designer, artist, or engineer, can simultaneously run multiple, business critical 3D or compute applications using different operating systems, each taking full advantage of the processing power of Quadro professional graphics cards - reducing the need for a multiple system work environment.



Minimum System Requirements*
  • SLI Multi-OS capable workstation with Intel VT-d technology
  • Parallels Workstation Extreme
  • Dual Quadro FX 5800, 4800, and 3800 professional graphics boards
  • NVIDIA SLI Multi-OS Certified workstations – extensively tested for a professional experience
    HP Z800 workstation
    Dell Precision T7500 workstation

    Host OS Guest OS (Virtual Machine OS)
    Windows XP SP2 64-bit Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 64-bit
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 64-bit Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.7 64-bit
    Windows Vista SP1 64-bit
    Windows Vista SP1 64-bit Windows Vista SP1 32-bit
    Windows XP SP2 64-bit
    Windows XP SP2 32-bit

    NVIDIA SLI Multi-OS Capable systems
    Systems based on the Intel Xeon 5500 series and the Intel 5520 chipset are capable of running Parallels Workstation Extreme with SLI Multi-OS enabled graphics boards (Quadro FX 5800, FX 4800 and FX 3800). Parallels maintains a list of systems that meet the requirements here. These systems have not received the full system level testing of SLI Multi-OS certified workstations.