Recent talks with our sources and plethora of speculative reports have left us quite interested in ATI’s Multi-VPU technology, which the GPU maker should launch at this year’s Computex in Taipei, Taiwan. Majority of us have an idea of how NVIDIA’s SLI works, therefore, we were expecting to see something similar from ATI. But it appears that ATI may have a surprise for all of us.

According to an industry insider, ATI’s Multi-VPU technology will not require a physical bridge to connect between the two cards. All compatibility and functionality of the cards will be taken care of by the drivers.

The source further revealed that ATI’s Multi-VPU technology would be superior to NVIDIA’s SLI, as it will not be limited to two of the same graphics adapters from the same manufacturer to ensure compatibility. ATI’s Multi-VPU technology will not be limited to this criterion, so you can have a card from Sapphire and another one from Powercolor and both will function perfectly fine in a Multi-VPU setup.

Additionally, the company’s Multi-VPU technology would be able to support multiple cores and still function well. For example, you would be able to operate both an X700 and an X850 card in a Multi-VPU setup if you would like. In other words, you should have three different categories for ATI’s "SLI": low-end, mid-end and high-end. The combination of each of the three categories can be taken care of by various GPU cores.

Unfortunately with good news comes bad news as well. Although two cores will work perfectly fine in the setup, you will notice a significant performance gap depending on your choice of cores. For example, let’s say you already have an X700 and you purchase an X850 for the Multi-VPU setup. The unfortunate scenario is that when both of these cards are connected, the speed will default to the core/engine speed of the X700, meaning your X850 will actually run at X700 speeds and not its specified speeds.

According to our source, this is ATI’s way of helping you upgrade to the multi-VPU setup gradually. If you have an X700 now, you can save up and purchase an X850 in 30 days. Until then you can run the X850 at lower clocked speeds, save up some more, purchase the second X850 and retail the X700 you originally had. Obviously, this system might work if you have a low-end/mid-end card and you want to move up to a high-end solution. It wouldn’t make sense to already have an X850, purchase an X700, and run them at lower clock speeds until you can purchase the second corresponding solution. In that case, we would recommend that you not purchase a low-end/mid-end card, at all. Needless to say, we are disappointed at what otherwise would’ve become an excellent solution for users.

ATI will apply the same approach as NVIDIA to support games for its technology. Since Multi-VPU is driver dependant, the initial support for games will be lengthy, but like NVIDIA, ATI will continue to create profiles and support newer games as time progresses.

As you can tell, ATI has taken a completely different approach to NVIDIA’s SLI. The only thing left to be seen is a direct comparison between the two multi-GPU technologies from the graphics giants.