SLI advice please

TranceCommunity

TranceCommunity

TranceCommunity

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12 Oct 2010
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Hi

Im trying to figure out which SLI motherboard to buy. My aim is to have 2 MSI GTX 768mb 460s running. Ill have one next week than another after Christmas. A few questions have me stumped

Firstly..

On most motherboards ive seen it seems that if i ran two double sized cards they would cover the other PCI slots. Where would i put a good sound card which ill also be buying?

This will be going in a Silverstone Lascala so plenty of space for ATX. Also, what i have now is a Q6600 so it will have to be compatible with that

Whats the best midprice 2x or 3x way Motherboard out at the moment. Hopefully between 100 - 150 but could increase if necessary.

3rd slot would give me better choice with the soundcard but not absolutely necessary

If you need any info just ask

Thanks in advance
 
If you have a Q6600 and you want SLI then your choices are not great. You either have to get an Nforce chipset board (*groan*) or hack an intel chipset board to work with SLI.

May I ask what motherboard you currently have?

Have you considered waiting till the AMD HD 6000 series comes out next month?
 
Yeah with that CPU your motherboard options are limited big time for SLi. Besides the nVidea options I can not really think of any that are available today.


I suspect that you might either consider going of a more powerful and therefore equal in performance single GPU or change to a newer CPU socket (much more expensive option) and do a complete upgrade.

Choices are limited sadly.
 
cmndr_andi said:
If you have a Q6600 and you want SLI then your choices are not great. You either have to get an Nforce chipset board (*groan*) or hack an intel chipset board to work with SLI.

are they really That bad? your speaking to an amateur here :p

May I ask what motherboard you currently have?

Its a cheapo gigabyte one that came with a Packard bell PC. 1 pci express socket 775

Have you considered waiting till the AMD HD 6000 series comes out next month?
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inb4 piece of string joke but how much roughly are we talking? i know the figures arent public but are we talking closer to 100 or 500? still know nothing here

1Day said:
Yeah with that CPU your motherboard options are limited big time for SLi. Besides the nVidea options I can not really think of any that are available today.


I suspect that you might either consider going of a more powerful and therefore equal in performance single GPU or change to a newer CPU socket (much more expensive option) and do a complete upgrade.

Choices are limited sadly.
Click to expand...

That sentence sends shivers down my spine these days :p

Ill probably take out a loan in about 6-8 months when i have my car paid off. Just want something decent in the meantime

Cheers for the advice folks
 
TranceCommunity said:
are they really That bad? your speaking to an amateur here
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I suppose if you don't need to overclock much (or at all) then an Nvidia chipset board would be OK, but I certainly wouldn't recommend going down this road. For one thing they aren't made any more so you will likely have to buy one second hand (no warranty).

TranceCommunity said:
Its a cheapo gigabyte one that came with a Packard bell PC. 1 pci express socket 775
Click to expand...

I see where you are coming from. However you may want to consider going down the AMD CrossfireX route instead of Nvidia SLI for multiple graphics cards. Intel make loads of boards that support this feature (eg P35, P45, X38, X48) and these boards are generally really good. This one for example would be well worth it. It would mean you have to go for AMD graphics cards if you want to overclock - but the current AMD HD 5770 is a great little board and the upcoming HD 6000 series sounds like it will be worth the wait.

TranceCommunity said:
inb4 piece of string joke but how much roughly are we talking? i know the figures arent public but are we talking closer to 100 or 500? still know nothing here
Click to expand...

Do you mean the price of the AMD HD 6000 series? Supposedly its a top-to bottom refresh so you can certainly expect something new at the £100 range - I think AMD sorely want to take the GTX 460 down a peg or two.
 
I think youve just answered all my questions

Being an idiot i thought SLI was any two Graphics cards and not just Nvidia. Looks like ill wait for the 6 series and put the 460s competition into that motherboard you linked to using crossfire.

Do you think thats the best option or is there anything else i need to be made aware of?

Ill most likely overclock the CPU as ive read its gonna create a bottleneck
 
Happy to help :)

May I ask what RAM you currently have? If you have something half decent (eg 4GB of PC2-6400) then with your Q6600 and a solid board like that P5Q deluxe then you will have a fairly formidable system without spending much money. Add a new graphics card in there and overclock the CPU (this would be a cpu cooler well worth getting) and you will have a system able to tackle pretty much any modern game.

may i ask what stepping your q6600 is? you can find out by downloading and installing and running CPU-Z. You will be looking out for either "G0" or "B1". Which stepping it is will help determine how hot and overclockable you chip is. Also, in CPU-Z make a note of what the VID is at full load (use this to fully load the CPU).
 
Some ram is on the shopping list aswell. Theres a pitiful 2gb. Theres only 2 slots in the motherboard and all that it will take is 2x1gb

Stepping B
Revision Go

Maybe if i buy the ram and motherboard this week, Then get a 6 series card when they come out. Then get another after christmas

I have a 750w Coolermaster power supply and Silverstone Lescala case arriving in the morning

Started off wanting a graphics card and will end up with a whole new PC :p
 
To be honest - if you need to buy a "new" s775 motherboard and RAM (presumably 4GB PC2-8500) then you will be spending around £160 on some reasonably old tech + a new GPU.

It may be an idea to buy the graphics card when it comes out (and the PSU if your current PSU isn't up to the job of a new card) , and put the money you would have spent on board+RAM into the bank and come back to it at the start of next year when the shiny new Intel Sandy Bridge and AMD Bulldozer CPUs and Motherboards are released. You will be able to sell on your G0 stepping CPU for a few quid then too.

Is your current motherboard and RAM working OK?
 
Aye, I would say so. Even at 2.4GHz (stock) a Q6600 is a powerful CPU - If you get a really nice graphics card then it may limit your performance a bit, but your performance in modern games should still be in the 60FPS+ range. So it shouldn't limit your enjoyment of these games.
 
Sounds like a plan. In affect im paying £150 for 2gb ram really

I might even get a good soundcard instead and just save the money again. Plenty of time sure its only October

Cheers for the help mate. Much appreciated
 
Darkzy said:
a good mobo with 3x SLi that supports socket 775 would be the Nvidia 780i great mobo
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That is very true it is a very good motherboard - it is also DDR3. ;) Not sure that is a problem for the original poster.
 
TK421 said:
The 780i is a ddr2 board is it not? the 790i is the ddr3 board! ;)
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yeh the 780i is the socket 775 mobo the 790i is the 1156?

my bro and me did a build on one so... i was pretty stumped when you said it was socket 1156 bare in mind it wasnt invented at the time xD !!!!


If you just want 2 pci-e slots the little brother of that would do probally the 680i LT which i am currently running in my build

great little budget board with great overclocking ability's th 780i is just a bit quiter and has 3 pci-e slot and one extra pci i think

Anyway
Let us know what you pick in the end

Darkzy
 
Am i right in saying they dont sell them here. Or maybe im looking for the wrong thing

If i Google it it seems to say unavailable everywhere

Id like to take a look at the one with 3 pci as it would give me a bit more freedom

edit

This seems to tick all the boxes. Is there a better alternative ? That ships to Ireland aswell
 
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the asus is a good board but its american amazon .. might be steep shipping

if you go on a certain auction site go to product 170550785462

:)
 
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