2 Nvidia Cards in SLI or 2 seperate on crossfire board?

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notsohandyandy

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Sep 21, 2011
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Hey, was jus wandering if anyone has any thoughts on this. I have just upgraded my Gpu from a 8800gtx to a GTX 260 maxcore which i'm very happy with. The thing is i have the 8800 extra now and was wandering whether to sell or put it to use. My mobo is a Gigabyte P35-DS3R and does not have SLI capabilities, so I would need a new board for 2 cards. I dont wanna spend too much (Ebay probably) and would like a Gigabyte board again but they all seem to be crossfire ones.

So my question is this... could I use the 8800gtx as a physX accelerator or some such on the crossfire board and would it give any improvement on performance if i did?

Or... should i invest in a SLI capable board and eventually get another Maxcore..?

Which would be better considering the price and performance?

Thanks for suggestions in advance.
 
You won't be able to SLI those two cards as they are different gpu's. You can however use the 8800 for a physics card. The option to get a different MB and another 260 is an option that is entirely up to you and your budget . If you did you would see an improvement in performance with the two cards in sli.
 
Cheers for the replies. Sorry i dont think i explained very well. I know the 2 cards are not compatible for SLI, i would have to get another GTX 260 and a new board for that. I'll need a new board for the 2 cards anyway as mine only has 1 pci-e x16.

I'm leaning towards a just a new board and using the cards i have, but what sort of performance enhancement would i achieve from doing this?

Also I would like a the new board to be a gigabyte one and most the ones i've seen are crossfire but that wudnt matter with the cards i have....
 
So not all games support the the xtra card for physX. Thats interesting. It would be pretty pointless then. So I think a Sli board it is then and hopefully another gtx 260 eventually. Any ideas on a good Sli LGA775 mobo? Dont wanna spend too much, have been looking at boards on ebay, Asus P5n-e P5-d seem pretty good for the price, anyone know which chipset is best? I've noticed there are 680i's 780i's from Nvidia. I suppose in general the chipstes get better as the no's go up?
 

The only difference between the 680i and 780i IIRC was an extra PCIe and the ability to support 45mn Quads without the need for a BIOS update, nothing ground breaking as I recall.
 
So been as i have a Q6600 which is 65mn and only really need the 2 PCI-E for sli (not gonna need nemore) then a 680i should be ok with no real less performance? Any one have any suggestions for a good mobo? Dont really wanna be spendin to many bucks, the asus striker II looks pretty popular but thats a bit more than i wanna spend.

p.s sorry if i'm talking about old hat but i cannot really justify a total upgrade to icore's, ddr3 etc at mo
 
OK. So i've narrowed my search down to an EVGA nForce 680i, MSI P6N SLI PLATINUM LGA775 NVidia 650i and the ASUS P5N-T deluxe 780i. Both the EVGA and ASUS are 3 way Sli so really it's just the chipsets i think are the issue. Is there any noticeable performane of the 780i over the 650i?
 
The MSi is def Sli capable and the board is like £30 cheaper than the other 2, but the Asus n EVGA are 3-way, (i heard u cant beat a bit of 3-way 😛 lol), which is temptin, but seriously, i've heard that that triple sli, as cool as it sounds really isnt that great. Also strangely for Asus the P5N-T is a bad overclocker.
 

X8 + x8 will have no impact on performance whatsoever, so go for it.
 

Yes, even a pair of GTX580's would only suffer a couple of percent performance loss so a pair of GTX260's would suffer no loss at all.
 
Thats good enough for me. Or was until i found the board i was sent didnt work 🙁 So i've got to start looking again, i've seen an asus p5n72-t which as far as i can tell is identical to a Striker ii almost. I might have to open another thread on best sli 775 boards, i dont know this subject has probably been done to death already?
 

Good 775 boards that are SLi capable are few and far between these days, you might not be able to get a new one.
 
Well if it's broken geeks will send you a prepaid shipping label to send it back so there's not much risk with them, and it's cheaper than a used one.

I looked at that board after I posted it though and the x16 slots are only 1 slot apart so I don't really recommend it.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MSI-P7N-SLI-FI-LGA-775-NVIDIA-nForce-750i-SLI-ATX-Intel-Motherboard-/140614414552?pt=Motherboards&hash=item20bd45b0d8

That's the one I have, it's got an extra slot between the first 2 x16s so you don't have to have your cards crammed together. I don't think you will find any new socked 775 SLI boards, if you do they will be 200 bucks.
 


Ha ha, i ha one of those, was a P7N diamond, first board i ever overclocked. Dont like to make things easy for myself :)

I've seen this though http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/220831328372?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649 . Isnt this the same in all but name?

My head is swimming at the mo with Asus P5... whatever..

Wow.. i just checked and the Acer is new 😱

The Asus P5n72-T i was looking at is used and coming from China, and £10 extra.

So it looks like it could well be the Acer.

If i mem correctly the P7N had trouble getting my q6600 up to 3.6, there was like as massive black hole for me from about 3.2 up... until then it just clicked.

I dont know if the Acer will be similar???

The fact it is new could sway me..
 
That board isn't made by Acer, it's an OEM part made for Acer by MSI, it's pretty much the same as the MSI P7N Diamond but doesn't have the soundblaster X-Fi extreme. I had that same board and I had some problems with the heat pipe that runs behind the PCI-E slots keeping my graphics cards from being able to seat in the slot so I ended up returning it.

 
Good point. I'll have to check how much my 260 overshoots the slot. Looks like there's a bit of clearance there. What card were you using?
The sound card doesnt interest me ,as i 'll be using the optical out 😀
 
I was using a pair of GTX 465s. One EVGA one Palit, the Palit fit, the EVGA would not (and yes I could have run the palit as the primary card but didn't want to for a variety of reasons). The problem is where the 2 heat pipes are stacked on top of each other where they run behind the top slot from the northbridge to the PCI-E controler and the southbridge. By stacking 2 together it makes it too thick and I couldn't push the card all the way down to seat it because the edge of the cooler and PCB was hitting the pipe. I guess I could have flattened the pipe out, it was just lacking a few mm in clearance, but I didn't feel like hammering on a motherboard and killing the warranty so I just returned it.
 
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