Do yuo have to choose?

[Slime101]

I've been considering a new Core Duo setup, however on looking at motherboards they seem to say SLI, or Crossfire.

From what i understand this is either Nvidia or ATI - do motherboards really not support ANY graphics card anymore or are you really tied to one manufacturer due to motherboard restrictions?

 

[Tetras]

SLI is nVidia tech for having two cards working together, Crossfire is ATI tech for having two cards working together. A Crossfire or SLI board will work with all graphics cards (by ATI, nVidia, doesn't matter) but they will only support two cards working together for one (nVidia for SLI, ATI for Crossfire).

Some boards that support Crossfire can also support SLI and vice versa and there are some boards which don't officially support SLI or Crossfire but on which one or both may be enabled, but in all cases it is rare, requires hacked drivers and/or in some cases board mods and can't be relied on.

 

[Werewolf]

I bleieve you can still user other cards on them, just not for multiple linked cards

I can understand the reason, but would love someone to create a board/chipset that supports SLI and Crossfire rather than one or the other (but any single card).

 

[Jokester]

You can get SLI cards to work on a non-SLI board, but support is patchy.

Jokester

 

[Slime101]

So for single card use there are no restriction on brand, this only comes into play when using 2 or more?

 

[Tetras]

Yup

 

[BillytheImpaler]

So for single card use there are no restriction on brand, this only comes into play when using 2 or more?

Indeed.

 

[Slime101]

Thanks for the info chaps