What to do

[Kribby2006]

Hi All,

As is the same with many other people right now, the lack of next generation video cards seem ages away and I was thinking about going for an SLI setup and have a couple of questions.

Firstly, I currently have a BFG 8800GTX OC and wondered if I could SLI this with the XFX 8800 GTX Extreme currently at a great price on OCUK? I know there are a couple of differences with memory/shader speed and so on and wondered if this would would be a problem?

Secondly, As I have an Abit AW9D Max mobo with and Intel chipset I will need a new Nvidia based motherboard so I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions. Price will be slightly important here as I notice that some of the new mobo's are breaking the £200 mark now and I didn't want to go that high.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Kribby.

 

[eyetrip]

I know this isn't exactly answering your question, but why not consider a 9800gx2 and sell you current card?

Will land up costing you around £200 (or less) once you sell your current card and no need to replace mobo or anything.

 

[-iceblade^]

i'm guessing you can overclock the cards to a desired speed, but if i were you, i'd just go for another 8800GTX, and when the price is right, jump on a full-blown mobo upgrade...

 

[semi-pro waster]

i'm guessing you can overclock the cards to a desired speed, but if i were you, i'd just go for another 8800GTX, and when the price is right, jump on a full-blown mobo upgrade...

I'm not sure I'm following here, the current motherboard doesn't support SLi so you can buy the 8800GTX but do nothing with it until an SLi capable motherboard is bought unless I'm misunderstanding you or the situation?

I'd agree that you should be able to pair the cards though, if necessary a bios flash to get them both working together should do the trick.

Kribby2006, if you really want to go for it then something like the XFX 780i motherboard might be a good option, it is under £200 and seems pretty well specified. What size of monitor do you currently have?

 

[-iceblade^]

whoops. i'm the one who misread... didn't see he's on an intel chipset... I'd personally still say wait... wait till the proper next gen comes - after all, the 9800GX2 is EoL soon, and the 9800GTX doesn't really fight well with the 8800GTX...

 

[Kribby2006]

Thanks for all of your replies. I think the GX2 might be an option because I would't need a new mob.

With regard to your comment Semi, my point is, I would buy a new motherboard if necessary to go with the new video card but the total cost would be roughly the same as buying a GX2 I guess.

With regard to my monitor, its a 20inch Samsung running at 1680x1050 and I know most people will say what you have already will be fine at that res, but then I love to crank up AA/AF to the max. This has also put me off some of the newer spec cards in that due to the narrower 256bit bus, they don't handle this aswel, so I heard anyway

All comments are greatly appreciated.

 

[aslco]

My advice?
Don't Bother

1) Effort
2) Price
3) Possible disapointment in some areas.
4) Mega small performance boost

 

[Kribby2006]

faur enuff man, i think i'll wait and take your advice

My advice?
Don't Bother

1) Effort
2) Price
3) Possible disapointment in some areas.
4) Mega small performance boost

 

[LoadsaMoney]

Just wait, as if you went SLi your 8800 GTX would downclock itself to match the speeds of your 2nd card, so its not worth it, only the much better CrossfireX can do seperate cards/speeds, and also a single GTX can run everything out apart from 1x game, so wait for the proper next gen's.