SLi Question, please help

[Lamri35UK]

Sorry if this has been covered, I did a search but couldn't find anything relevant to me :cry:

I have a XFX7800GT card.

If I wanted to SLI it with another card, does it HAVE to be the same card or can it be any other Nvidia SLI card?

I ask because its getting harder to find cards the same as my one and i'm thinking (in a couple of months) of buying a second card for SLI.

Or

Would it be a waste of time and should I wait and buy newer card to run on its own.

Thank you for any replies guys, please go easy on a thick tw@t!!

[Sir. S.A.S]

Re: SLi Question, please help

well it can be any compnay card but must be a 7800GT, can be any size of ram but it always matches the card with lower ram.

Im personally going to get another 7800Gtx for me just to boost my pc's performance till DX10 comes more mainstream.

[[Expletive Deleted]]

Re: SLi Question, please help

I ran into the same problem. I got my card a couple of months before the 7900s came out, and I haven't been able to find another 7800GT except for on eBay. You should just wait until you have the scratch to get one of the new 8000 series GPUs. No sense getting another obsolete card at this point.

My 7800GT runs every game I've thrown at it with passable performance, anyhow. It's holding me over just fine until DX10 benches come out for the new cards and ATI has an answer for the 8800s. With competition will come lower prices and better products. Hold off for about 3 more months.

If you DO manage to find a 7800GT, it will most likely be in the $250-$350 range. Wait until the 8800GTS or the midrange cards coming in under it hit that price range or lower and you won't be sorry.

[BoloMarkXXX]

Re: SLi Question, please help

It really depends on the size of your monitor and the rez you want to use. SLI would only help you get realy high rez's on 20" or bigger monitors. As far as matching the cards goes maufaturer does not matter as much as matching the clock frequency & mem size & frequency

[Lamri35UK]

Re: SLi Question, please help

Thanks guys, great info
I think for me the way ahead is to wait for a bit and then spend the money on a DX10 card.
Which brings me to another problem, Nvidia or ATI lol

[[Expletive Deleted]]

Re: SLi Question, please help

Thanks guys, great info
I think for me the way ahead is to wait for a bit and then spend the money on a DX10 card.
Which brings me to another problem, Nvidia or ATI lol

Again, wait and see. Right now Nvidia is hot off the block with the first DX10 cards. I can't wait to see ATI's answer.

[Lamri35UK]

Re: SLi Question, please help

I've always been firmly in the Nvidia team in the past, but perhaps its time to throw off my cloak of bias and wait.
I'm playing BF2 with everything maxed out if required with no problems so I think i've got a little while yet before I NEED a new card :)
Might look at getting a Dell Ultrasharp jobby too if I can afford it

[Mad Ad]

Re: SLi Question, please help

dont bother, I wish I hadnt, picked up a second one before xmas and altho it runs a little better at 1920x1200 it makes no difference at lower resolutions and has actually introduced a slight stutter to the display updating when flying a helo at 1600x1200 (but dont notice it in a plane).

I dont like to lose the strip off of the top of the screen using 1920 so I mainly use 1600x1200 in bf2 (and let my display stretch it to 1920) and one 7800GT is more than enough for that.

On top of that, with 2 video cards my xfi makes cracking noises over the speakers at different times, depending on what IRQ/pci slot its in - right now its only doing it when a map loads, before it crackled when grenades went off, very annoying.

ive had it with sli - overall it was no cheaper than getting say, a gtx instead and the motherboard cost more too - im sticking to single cards from now.

[alienstout]

Re: SLi Question, please help

dont bother, I wish I hadnt, picked up a second one before xmas and altho it runs a little better at 1920x1200 it makes no difference at lower resolutions and has actually introduced a slight stutter to the display updating when flying a helo at 1600x1200 (but dont notice it in a plane).

I dont like to lose the strip off of the top of the screen using 1920 so I mainly use 1600x1200 in bf2 (and let my display stretch it to 1920) and one 7800GT is more than enough for that.

On top of that, with 2 video cards my xfi makes cracking noises over the speakers at different times, depending on what IRQ/pci slot its in - right now its only doing it when a map loads, before it crackled when grenades went off, very annoying.

ive had it with sli - overall it was no cheaper than getting say, a gtx instead and the motherboard cost more too - im sticking to single cards from now.

Great post, you've answered all the questions I had! Thanks.