Upgrading motherboard for SLI?

coolguydudeman

coolguydudeman

coolguydudeman

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Joined
20 Jun 2009
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Hey guys i had a computer made up about 5-6 months ago

specs are;

ASRock N61P-S motherboard

with 3.00 gigahertz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core
256 kilobyte primary memory cache
2048 kilobyte secondary memory cache

in the future im planning on upgrading to AMD phenom X4 quad-core but at the minute my processer is fine for what i do.

the only problem is that i like the idea of running duel graphics cards and by the looks of it my motherboard doesnt support this.

I have a 9400 gt graphics chip with 1gig memory. It runs most the games i play okay, but i just want something more powerful.

so to cut the story short my question is;

should i upgrade my motherboard and just go SLI? or should i just upgrade the graphics chip up to a 260gtx or something?

any suggestions would be great

thanks
 
SLI on 9400GT is pretty pointless. just spend the money on a single card, then when you upgrade your mobo you can use the same card and have much greater options.
 
I recommend you get a new gpu, if you buy an xFx ATI HD 4870 xt for around £140 it will run all games incredibly well and will suite you well for your next big upgrade - of course you may have to upgrade your power supply (might have had to do that with your other intended upgrades anyway). When picking a power supply do a google search on the name and find a review on it - it is always good to ensure there is a single 12 volt rail that is rated 40+ amps, might want to make a post about power supply options when you look for one.

You could probably upgrade your ram. Buy a dual channel 800MHz set with low timings, probably won't set you back more than £25 - always go with a trusted brand (corsair, ocz, kingston etc). Your memory timings are important depending on how the game manages it's texture resources. (eg crysis doesn't put them all on the video card - only uses 340MB video memory on enthusiast for me - so slow ram kills it; notice that if you do a 360 rotation quickly it stutters while pulling textures from the ram)

edit:
overall, my suggestions cost you:
ram - £25
gpu - £140
psu - £90

and you can reuse those 3 components for your next upgrade. if you upgrade just mobo and get another 9400 you may need a new psu too:
mobo - £80 (eewwww, nForce chipset)
gpu - £40
psu - £90
(optional ram, £25)

this is cheaper (you can also sell your old motherboard), but you will not be happy with the graphics performance.
your current motherboard supports am3 cpus, but they wont peroform as well on it as they would on a very new motherboard unfortunately (not by a lot though, depending on your budget for a new mobo). However, you can still play any game at high frame rates if you only change your ram gpu and psu, except the horrid ports like gta4 and prototype :D
 
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Thanks guys for the responses, I wouldnt intend on SLI with the 9400's i would be scrapping that and buying two seperate ones if i was to upgrade the motherboard.

I have 3gig ram installed at the moment im running XP because i hate vista and waiting for windows 7.

If i were to just upgrade the GPU hyperthetically to a 260gtx could i then buy another one when i upgrade the motherboard and run them SLI, or do i need to buy specific SLI graphics cards?

Would i need a new power supply for a 260gtx or similar aswel?

Thanks again
 
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Getting a gtx 260 sounds like a good plan.

If the motherboard of your future upgraded system supports SLI, then you can add a second card. If you plan on going to intel i7, then most boards support both AMD crossfire and Nvidia SLI - so you should be fine (just check that it is a board that supports SLI). If you upgrade to AM3 Phenom 2, then the nforce boards should do SLI.

For SLI you just need cards of the same model - so SLI should be fine with any other GTX 260 (216 core). As for PSU, a 450 - 500W should be fine for just one card. For SLI you probably should have a 600-650W at least. Also, make sure it is a good branded PSU.
 
Shouldn't be looking to pay more that £130 for a gtx 260. If you want the best card in the £150 range, its either this or this. If you go for the ATI Card you may want a crossfire compatible motherboard to add extra cards.
 
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
GX-137-XF_60.jpg
XFX ATI Radeon HD 4870 XXX 512MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £101.99
(£88.69) £101.99
(£88.69)
CA-037-OC_60.jpg
OCZ ModXStream Pro 500w Silent SLI Ready ATX2 Modular Power Supply £52.99
(£46.08) £52.99
(£46.08)
MY-114-OC_60.jpg
OCZ Platinum Series 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel (OCZ2P10664GK) £38.99
(£33.90) £38.99
(£33.90) Sub Total : £168.67 Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.50 VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £26.73 Total : £204.90
 
Wouldn't bother with SLI, your CPU wont be able to handle it.

Just get a single card, anything higher then a 1Gb 9800GT will also be bottlnecked by your CPU.

I had SLI 8800GTs running with a 5600+ X2 overclocked to 3.5Ghz and i was still CPU limited.

A GTX 260 will be a major waste on your CPU..
 
If your definitely looking to get a quad phenom in the future I wouldnt be looking at an nvidia card for sli purposes either. Going sli with an amd cpu is going to limit your choice of motherboard severly.
Instead, if multi gpu is something that interests you why not consider crossfire ? You could look at getting a single 4870/4890 now to give you a huge improvment over what you already have (but do check your psu can handle it) and then later on when you upgrade to your quad phenom you will be able to pick up a second card for very little money :)
 
My new plan was really just to get a better graphics card first, then upgrade the motherboard. either way the CPU would be upgraded at some point afterwards. then go SLI afterwards.

so basically i couldnt even run the 260gtx on my current cpu and if i wanted to / stick with nvidia, Id be looking at upgrading the CPU/Motherboard for intel i7?

Would the 260gtx work okay in my current set up intill i can buy the i7 and new supporting motherboard? I.e. possibly not using the GPU to its full potential because of the CPU restrictions but still a vast improvement from my current situation?

I thought quad cores didnt make much of a difference on the gaming/graphics side of things? Well least what the guy in the shop who built my computer said lol.
 
coolguydudeman said:
My new plan was really just to get a better graphics card first, then upgrade the motherboard. either way the CPU would be upgraded at some point afterwards. then go SLI afterwards.

so basically i couldnt even run the 260gtx on my current cpu and if i wanted to / stick with nvidia, Id be looking at upgrading the CPU/Motherboard for intel i7?

Would the 260gtx work okay in my current set up intill i can buy the i7 and new supporting motherboard? I.e. possibly not using the GPU to its full potential because of the CPU restrictions but still a vast improvement from my current situation?

I thought quad cores didnt make much of a difference on the gaming/graphics side of things? Well least what the guy in the shop who built my computer said lol.
Click to expand...

A GTX 260 would work fine with your current CPU, it just wouldn't work to its full potential
 
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