sli or crossfire with core 2 duo

Barleymo · 27 Nov 2006 at 12:50

I have been left a little money and was wondering which route to take in upgrading my system. i currently own a saphire x1959xtx and i want to build a core 2 duo system. This might sound daft but can i use the ati card in a sli mobo, ok i know i cant put 2 nvidia cards in, i would need 2 ati cards in a crossfire setup! If i was to buy another ati x1959xtx which asus mobo would you recommend, or would you go for something like the Asus P5W DH Deluxe mobo and put the nvidia 8800gtx in instead. would 1 8800Gtx be as quick as 2 x1959xtx's ??

Just to clarify, you can put whatever pci-e graphics card you want in a pci-e mobo single but it has to be 2 nvidea for sli in an sli mobo or 2 ati for crossfire in a crossfire enabled mobo.

Things were a lot easier in my day's :rolleyes:

Thanks a lot for your help guys.

LoadsaMoney · 27 Nov 2006 at 19:28

Yes 1x 8800 GTX would be as quick as the 2x x1950's in Crossfire, it would be faster in some cases, for ATi Crossfire you would need an ATi Crossfire motherboard, and for Nvidia SLi, you would need an SLi motherboard.

I think you got a bit mixed up at the start, as you say you know you can't put 2x Nvidia cards in an SLi board, but yes you can, 2x ATi cards would not work in Crossfire in it, also a single card from ATi would work fine in an SLi motherboard, and the same goes for a Nvidia card, will also work fine in an ATi Crossfire board, only when you want 2x in SLi would you need an SLi board, and 2x ATi cards would need an ATi Crossfire board as said.

Barleymo · 28 Nov 2006 at 13:00

You are right i have got a little mixed up, at least you knew what i meant

Thanks for clarifying the one card question, i thought you would be able to use any single card in any mobo but it is a lot of money to spend to find that you are wrong. I like asus mobo's do you have any tips for a sli one?

darkblade · 28 Nov 2006 at 13:10

Your only option on a decent sli core2 board at the moment is the EVGA 680Sli (the 680 chipset has not long been out). I haven't seen any release dates on an Asus board with the 680 sli chipset yet.

Abit are about to release the IN9 32X-MAX soon (another 680 board) but there are no definitive dates yet - possible mid Dec?

You will also need to ensure that the case you use has plenty of room as the 8800 cards are long - longer than the motherboard.