My GTX8800/"SLI" questions for NEW system

[Antx777]

Hello,

I would like to know "roughly" how SLI works. I have a GTX 8800 but in a "3-year-old" system (Socket 939, DDR 400 ram etc From a shop). I am going to buy a new PC with *ONE* GTX8800 in it (Budget £1200 Ish) I already have Samsung TFT 22 (226BW).

So if I get a PC base unit, with Two (or even three) "SLI", slots HOW do I configure this to my monitor? and what card is the MASTER? (My GFX card is this one): OcUK GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB. It is running at 575MHz
- Shader Clock Speed of 1350MHz
- 768MB GDDR3 Memory running at 1800MHz.

Will the other card have to be EXACTLY the same speed? (and with same Driver versions on them; 169.21 for example) Also, when I add the GTX8800 to my new system, Will I need to install Separate drivers for this card, as don't want to have a PC arrive and show only ONE card in the Control panel What PSU will be sufficient? (800W+?).

Also, what Motherboards take SLI, as I was looking at this from Overclockers Ultima OC 8800GTX" Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Price Sub £1200. BUT I don't think the - Abit IP35-Pro Intel P35 (Socket LGA775) is SLI compatible is It.??

I Can't seem to see overclockers selling one (already made) with ONE GTX8800 on a SLI (Nforce?) MOBO ...?

Ant

 

[melbourne720]

Only nforce NVidia boards (650sli, 680i, 780i, 790i, etc) use SLi. Intel based boards (such as the Abit you mentioned) don't.

SLi works by each card rendering half the screen each. They need all the game texture data in each card to do this though (which is why a SLi setup of 2 x 640MB cards doesn't have 1.2GB of VRAM).

As I understand it your current drivers will recognise the second card, and then you use ntune to setup SLi. The card nearest the motherboard (I think) is the master.

I believe it only runs as fast as the slowest card, so there is no value in having one card clocked faster than the other.

Some PSUs are specifically rated for SLi, for instance I know that the Corsair 620W has been demonstrated running an overclocked Q6600 and SLi GTXs.

Hope that helps.

 

[Antx777]

Thanks Melbourne720, it does help. I've only just had this GTX 8800, so I need a new system to put it in, hopefully overclockers can help me out on this (may give them a call to see if they do Ultima's with Just one GTX 8800 on SLI, so i can add another one.

Thanks

EDIT: BTW. would you say a Duo core is prefered over Quad?, I do: Lots of Gaming, "some Video editing", Spreadsheet/Databases and the like. So it is a 50-50 sort of thing, rather than an all-out gaming/Video-encoding ststem etc.

Ant