Noobie sli questions

[lokiguesty]

Hi all

basically i have a 8800GTS 512mb (the older one i think its a dif size GPU 80mm or somthing?)

anyway im looking at doing sli. what im wondering is

A) will i still be able to duel screen the way i do now

and

B) other than the two gfx cards do i need anything else? special connectors or anything like that?

thanks for any info

loki

 

[Rroff]

SLI and multiple displays don't currently work - you'd have to disable SLI mode to get the other displays to work.

You can run SLI in bridgeless mode but for slightly better performance you need the SLI bridge dongle thing that comes with most SLI ready motherboards and some graphics cards.

I can't see from your sig what motherboard you have but you will need an SLI capable motherboard too.

The older GTS cards come in 320MB and 640MB not 512MB if it is a GTS and it is 512MB then its one of the new cards.

 

[Blackhawk47]

well for starters you need a sli compatable motherboard, a sli certified psu, and with the mobo should be a sli connector (bridge thing)

 

[Rroff]

You don't need an SLI certified PSU - but that does bring up another point - you do need either an SLI ready PSU that has dual PCI-e power connectors or a spare power adapter to connect a couple of spare molex plugs upto to power the second card.

 

[lokiguesty]

ah right

in that case its a 640mb GTS as i know its the older version.

my psu should be up to it as i have the 640watt corsiair (i think its 640watt rated)

motherboard is a gigabyte d96 ds3p i think tho im not great with motherboards it certainly has 2x pci-e slots.

tbh if i cant run more than one monitor then i probably wont bother as i've got quite attached to my duel screen set up

thanks for the advise

 

[Rroff]

That motherboard does not support SLI only crossfire...

 

[lokiguesty]

lol that could be a problem i guess.

maybe i could ditch my 8800 and look at ati not that i know anything about their cards or about how good crossfire is,

 

[Rroff]

I'd stick with nVidia personally... if you really want to upgrade maybe sell that GTS and go with one of the new 8800GTS 512Mb now they are so cheap.

 

[fobose]

I would keep your dual screen setup and not bother upgrading, doesn't really seem worth it to go from a 640GTS to a 512 GTS.

 

[kylew]

lol that could be a problem i guess.

maybe i could ditch my 8800 and look at ati not that i know anything about their cards or about how good crossfire is,

Wait for the ATi 4XXX series, they should* be much faster than 8800s and the current 9 series. Crossfire is pretty good, and it's slowly getting better, NV severly loses out in not being able to do more than one screen with SLi enabled.

*going on the rumoured specs the 48XX series should be much faster than the 8 and the current 9 series, atleast the single GPU versions anyway.

 

[LoadsaMoney]

Yeah id just get a fast single card to, as your 2nd PCI-E slot only runs at 4x when using 2x cards in Crossfire, so your gona take a performance hit, oh just remembered, if you do want to go Crossfire, then you can get a 3870 X2, which is 2x 3870 XT's in Crossfire on the one board, or wait for the 4870 X2 thats coming, as they only need the 1x slot.

 

[lokiguesty]

good call loadsa perhaps one of the x2 cards could be the answer im looking for.

any idea on the eta of the 4870? is if im going to upgrade i may as well get the best i can at the time so i dont need an upgrade again for a while.

cheers

Loki

 

[kylew]

good call loadsa perhaps one of the x2 cards could be the answer im looking for.

any idea on the eta of the 4870? is if im going to upgrade i may as well get the best i can at the time so i dont need an upgrade again for a while.

cheers

Loki

May, apprantly, so very soon , I think gibbo will "slip-up" soon enough and let out a bit of info on them to us , there'll be more stuff about them pretty soon though, I'd say over the next few days/end of this week, we'll have a bit more "solid" info, like a round-about release date etc.