9800 GT and 9800 GTX SLI?

[Zoandar]

Can I SLI a GeForce 9800 GT with a 9800 GTX?

Zoandar

 

[justinxtreme]

Yes, probably... but I'm not sure cause I haven't tried it but in my understanding you can. They use the same GPU chip so yeah

 

[Zoandar]

Hey, that's the news I was hoping to read! Thanks!

I also just posted, if I couldn't SLI them, which one would give better performance? The BFG GTX has 512MB and is OC, but the EVGA GT has 1GB DDR3.

Any thoughts on that?

Zoandar

 

[sabot00]

The 9800GTX will kill the 9800GT no matter what is realistically possible.

 

[Zoandar]

The 9800GTX will kill the 9800GT no matter what is realistically possible.

Thanks for the reply!

By kill do you mean that I cannot SLI these cards? Or that individually the GTX would slaughter the GT's performance? I know that if SLI works, the GTX would only be operating at the ability of the GT.

The thing is, I have both of these cards, and am running an nForce 680i SLI motherboard. So I am trying to decide whether to use one, the other, or SLI them.

The GT has 1GB DDR3. The GTX is an OC model and has only 512MB of memory on it. I'm not sure how they would compare side by side because of the memory difference. But if I can use them together, I'd like to try it.

Zoandar

 

[sabot00]

I don't know about SLI, but in CF if you CF 2 different cards (ie 4850/4830) it will give 60% of the render area to the 4850 & 40% to the 4830.

 

[Zoandar]

That is interesting. Thanks.

Zoandar

 

[Mousemonkey]

A 9800GTX has 128 cores and a 9800GT has 112, they are different cards and thus will not work in SLi.

 

[Zoandar]

Thanks for clarifying that. Bummer. I had seen that in their spec sheets but wasn't sure it would matter.

Well, that leaves me with 2 options. I am currently using the 9800 GT 1GB card. The 9800 GTX OC has only 512 MB memory. For playing the 3 games I enjoy (Half-Life2, Flight Simulator X, and Lock-ON ) would it be worthwhile to swap cards and put the 9800 GTX in the system instead? I admit I don't know just how much difference having twice the memory makes when it comes down to the fine points. Does it at all make up for the lesser hardware capability of the 9800 GT?

Whichever card I use will be feeding the Matrox TripleHead2Go DVI that I am using.

Thanks!

Zoandar

 

[Mousemonkey]

I would run the GTX as the primary card and use the GT as a PhysX card myself.

 

[Zoandar]

I just received a link to some information on how to do that in another forum, so I have some reading to do.

Thanks!

Zoandar

 

[Zoandar]

In the end, since the 3 games I play don't use Physx, I decided to just install the GTX card, and keep the GT for a spare. I had not actually looked at them side by side before posting this. The GTX card is much thicker, and takes up 2 slots, as well as requiring 2 of the 6-pin power connectors instead of the single 6-pin used by the GT. So they are apparently very different in their makeup.

One note of interest to anyone reading this in the future. I had been running the "latest" Nvidia GeForce driver current at the date of this thread while running the GT. It was 196.62. However, after installing the GTX card, I ran into a problem where the displays would go to sleep once the Welcome screen was finished in WinXP. I tried everything I could think of, including even uninstalling my Triple Head 2 Go, and connecting a single display. But I wasn't getting any video.

Some research online revealed that for some reason, the 9800 GTX cards cannot use what at this point are the "latest" drivers. I read somewhere that a fellow had good luck with 185.xx, but unfortunately at the moment I tired to start looking for previous versions the whole Nvidia download site went out of service.

In the end, I had to revert to looking up an older driver on the EVGA site, based on a 5xxx series card, and found version 179.15, which is working fine. I know the 9800 series is getting to be an old card, and out of production, but this is the first time I had seen the lack of backwards compatibility on GeForce drivers recommended on Nvidia's site for a specific line of cards. Dialing in the 9xxx series points you to only one driver - 196.62. But that one does not work for the 9800 GTX.

Thanks to everyone for the help!

Zoandar