Few Questions about PCI-E Upgrade

[paul1980]

I am very soon to be upgrading to PCI-E. I have a few questions:

Whats the difference between SLI & Crossfire is it just NVIDIA & ATI compatibility?

If I buy a SLi ready or crossfire ready Motherboard do you need 2 graphics cards straight away?

If not does the graphic card need to be an SLI or Crossfire version to work or will any PCI-E graphics card work in a crossfire ready motherboard?

In your opinion whats the best option for me out of these motherboards? bear in mind that I will be getting either a x1800xt or x1900xt (Non Crossfire version)

Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum nForce4 Ultra
Asus A8N-SLi Deluxe nForce4 SLi
MSI K8N Diamond nForce4 SLi
MSI K8N Neo4-F nForce4

Cheers

 

[pieman109]

Depends how much you wanna spend really. SLI at this point in time is a lot better than Xfire due to nvidia having had longer to develope/refine it, but ATI is catching up. AFAIK, you can use any single card from any company in any mobo ie: nvidia vidcardin an ati mobo, and vice versa, BUT, you cannot run two ati cards in Xfire in an Nvidia mobo, or two Nvidia cards in SLI in an ATI mobo.
If it were me, I'd get either a Xfire or SLI mobo, but go with the single card option for now. Trouble is, you've got to decide which route to go, ati or invidia.

 

[okimanoob]

If I buy a SLi ready or crossfire ready Motherboard do you need 2 graphics cards straight away?

No - u do not need to go down SLI/X-Fire route just because uv bought whichever set up mobo - that only gives u option to go down sli/x-fire route at later date.

If not does the graphic card need to be an SLI or Crossfire version to work or will any PCI-E graphics card work in a crossfire ready motherboard?

If you have an ATI X-Fire MOBO then it is pointless getting nvidia gfx cards as this mobo is ATI card based.

In your opinion whats the best option for me out of these motherboards? bear in mind that I will be getting either a x1800xt or x1900xt (Non Crossfire version)

If u are going down ATI route then only one choice, get u r self an Asus A8VR 32MVP - which is a top spec X-Fire mobo that will allow u to have ** ATI X1800/X1900 single card run great + give u option to upgrade to x-fire at later date.

Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum nForce4 Ultra
Asus A8N-SLi Deluxe nForce4 SLi
MSI K8N Diamond nForce4 SLi
MSI K8N Neo4-F nForce4

Cheers