SLI / CrossFire FAQs

[motamedn]

thanks maziar, and happy belated new year from a fellow persian

 

[Maziar]

Thanks mate happy new iranian year to you too

 

[bonbon99]

If i have a motherboard with 3 way SLI but i decide to purchase one new ATI card, will the card work as it should on the nvidia based sli motherboard? im not trying to do SLI or crossfire with that one card or anything. i just feel like trying out a ati card. i dont know if an ATI card will be compatible with my motherboard.

 

[Thunder_40]

Nvdia Sli Technology is fully -developed if we notice for now.

But the real potential is AtI-Cross-Firex technology which is much similar.

Both have identical performance.

I really think that Ati-Crossfirex can be more developed in coming years=D

 

[Maziar]

If i have a motherboard with 3 way SLI but i decide to purchase one new ATI card, will the card work as it should on the nvidia based sli motherboard? im not trying to do SLI or crossfire with that one card or anything. i just feel like trying out a ati card. i dont know if an ATI card will be compatible with my motherboard.

Yes you can use a single ATI card on a Nvidia SLI chipset and vice versa.

 

[triplebug]

Very nice info, thanks!

I have a problem as I planning to buy a new CPU, hope you can help me.
Here's my specs:

Motherboard - Asus P7P55D-E PRO
Processor - Quad Core i5-750
Graphic - 2 x ATI Radeon HD 4850 (Crossfire)


Asus P7P55D-E PRO and Quad Core i5-750 only support "2 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (single at x16 or dual at x8 / x8 mode)"
Will there be bottleneck as both 4850 cards share x8 bandwidth only?

 

[Maziar]

You are welcome
In almost all games,the difference between dual 8x and dual 16x isn't noticeable.
In very high resolutions and in some specific games,dual 16x performs better but overall the difference isn't much.

 

[nitinbharadwaj]

hello i have a gigabite GA-EP45T-DS3R (rev. 1.0) mother board with CrossFireX and i am running a nvdia geforce 9600 gt DDR3 on it... and this works fine...

now my question is can i pair it with another graphic card i have i.e Nvidia Quadro FX 580 on this board??? is it possible??

mother board is CrossFireX certified and the first graphic card (9600 GT) is SLI certified...

 

[nukemaster]

You can run another video card(any card that will fit). It will NOT RUN IN SLI, but for individual cards, it will work.

Also note the second slot runs at X8 not X16

 

[Maziar]

You can use a main card(like FX 580) and use your 9600GT as a PhysX card

 

[nitinbharadwaj]

thank you very much for our replies....

so that means even if i get a new fx 580 after selling 9600gt and try to pair two fx 580 on my motherboard it wont pair as it is a crossfirex suport board not a sli board ??

 

[Maziar]

now that's different.
At first i thought that you want to keep your 9600GT and use a FX 580 with it but not you say that you want to pair 2 FX 580 and that's not possible because your motherboard doesn't support SLI.

 

[nukemaster]

thank you very much for our replies....

so that means even if i get a new fx 580 after selling 9600gt and try to pair two fx 580 on my motherboard it wont pair as it is a crossfirex suport board not a sli board ??

Dead on. They will not pair(SLi) and will instead run as 2 separate cards.

 

[Maziar]

Edited with Geforce GTX 400 family and also i put the HD 5xxx cards in one list instead of making more lists(like HD 59xx,58xx)to make it more compact

 

[leila833]

hey
i want a sutable video driver for my pc(vindows 7).
could u help me plz.what graphic card is suitable for me?

 

[Maziar]

Hello and welcome to the forums
What are your system specs and are you going to play games on it ?

 

[Maziar]

Edited with the updated "AMD compatibility" chart.

 

[Maziar]

Glad you found it useful
Can you post the full specifications of it ?

 

[leonmagnus90]

Is it wise for me to run dual GTX 260 SLI Configuration on a 1440X900 resolution?
I am thinking of picking up another GTX 260 to boost up my games... Any suggestions anyone?

The specs of my rig are as follows:
CPU: Core i5 750 @ 2.66Ghz
Ram: 4Gb Kingston 1066
Graphic Card: MSI GTX 260
PSU: Corsair TX 650W
Mobo: MSI P55 GD-65

 

[Maziar]

For a resolution like 1440x900,i recommend sticking with a single GTX 260 because it will do fine on that resolution.
If you want to go with SLI(or getting a better card),i would recommend you upgrading your monitor first

 

[leonmagnus90]

ok ok, thanks for the suggestions luckily i haven't went ahead and buy another GTX 260 XD

 

[Maziar]

You are welcome

 

[wolfram23]

Great post! It answered some of my questions. I especially like the graph of compatible cards - I didn't realise the 5870+5970 would be a decent combo. I'm currently running a 5850, and thinking about CF a second one which should perform great at 1920x1080 in any game max settings (hopefully including Crysis 2!). So, does CF/SLI improve min frames even if it doesn't improve max? It would be great to have a silky smooth experience even at 30fps.

 

[Maziar]

Great post! It answered some of my questions. I especially like the graph of compatible cards - I didn't realise the 5870+5970 would be a decent combo. I'm currently running a 5850, and thinking about CF a second one which should perform great at 1920x1080 in any game max settings (hopefully including Crysis 2!). So, does CF/SLI improve min frames even if it doesn't improve max? It would be great to have a silky smooth experience even at 30fps.

Well Crysis 2 isn't out ye,so no one knows how it will perform with MultiGPU systems but adding another 5850 will help you in current games.
And MultiGPU improves both Min and Max frames in games.

 

[Guest]

I have an NVIDIA 9800GT in my crossfire based motherboard (BAH!) and I wish to use 4 displays (3monitors 1tv). What do you suggest:

I may not want to use the crossfire technology at all, just the fact that I can put 2 VGA cards in my systems (without crossfire). I want separate extended windows desktops on all displays, no cloning.

1. Keep my current NVIDIA card and buy another (for driver's sake: NVIDIA but not necessary 9800GT) card so i'll have 4 outputs, is that good?
2. Sell my current card and buy 2 ATI cards like 2 HD4850, this is crossfire friendly and I will be able to use 4 indepentent displays? Even during gaming?

Obviously the second option is better but would the nr1. work? And did I understand the situation of the nr 2.?

Thanks!