New motherboard and SLI.

=[Ga]= AutoDMC

=[Ga]= AutoDMC

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Tax Return Time! I'm gonna have a few bucks, so I'm looking into upgrading my motherboard and graphics (as my current mobo was just the one that cost the less, this computer was built in a hurry and on a strict budget). I'd like to reuse everything else I have.

However, I has a question about SLI:

Nvidia has SLI, which allows you to bridge two (three, four) graphics cards together into a bundle of 1337.

I have a Nvidia GEFORCE 9600GT. I can get the exact details when I get home.

Do I have to get the exact same card to be it's partner? Exact same memory, chips, clock, DDR2/DDR3, etc? How tight does the similarity have to be?

I know I need 2 PCI-E slots to pull it off. But I'm on a budget again of about 250$ (anything above that from taxes goes into emergency slush fund), so I can't go crazy.

ALSO: Do both cards need full 16xPCI-E? I see some boards have two 16x sized slots, but one of the slots is really just 8x or 4x...)
 
hahah.. i got my taxes and i got an aligment and front new tires on my car!! and some pants! thank god for that tax return!!! lol...
 
I'm not sure but for Nvidia I think you need the exact same card. You also need an SLI capable board. And about the x16 and x8 lanes. imo you don't really see the difference in performance that much. Well at least, I don't.
 
AMD or Intel?
What motherboard do you have at the moment?
Amount of RAM?
What resolution are you playing at?
What games?
What's your PSU rated for? How many amps?

SLI is only beneficial at 1920 or above. There's also a point of diminishing returns past two cards.

You can grab a EVGA GTX260 (216) for $210: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130434

For $200, a Gigabyte HD4870 1GB: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125256

Either of those cards will give you higher, and more consistent frames compared to SLI 9600GTs.

Unless your motherboard is causing problems, keep it, and spend $200/$210 on a new graphics card and the remaining $40/$50 on a pair of G.Skill 2 x 2 GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231122
 
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Yeah, i've got two XFX Geforce 7900GT's and they are running in SLI.

My mobo also supports SLI :)

makesure you get a MB that supports it!
 
To answer your question, yes, they have to be the same cards, with the same vram and stuff. I'm running duel BFG 7900GTX.
 
To answer you, HardHat, currently...

MOTHERBOARD: ECS GeForce7050M-M
Socket AM2 with TripleCore AMD Phenom X3 8450, 2100 MHz (10.5 x 200)

MEMORY:
1 2GB Crucial DDR2-800 memory stick

POWER SUPPLY:
600w

GAMES I PLAY:
TF2, DODS, CSS, CoD:5, CoD4 (soon!), Quake III Arena, Bioshock (occasionally now that I've beat it), L4D, Fallout 3, Portal, who-knows-what'll-strike-my-fancy

I play all my games in Windowed mode, at the highest resolution that will fit on my 1440x900 monitor.

The motherboard was on sale at Fry's when I had an emergency your-computer-just-made-smoke buy; I think I got it for like $15, and it's worked fine, except for the fact that it only has one fan connector and the SATA ports are under where my graphics card hangs off!

It's got 2 PCI slots, and very basic onboards for LAN and sound.

And while I know "NEW GRAPHICS CARD" would be better, I'd hate to "throw away" this perfectly good card. Especially when I can get a really cheap "SLI" card to pair with it.

Basically, I'm looking to see if I could get a decent mobo replacement so I can have some peace of mind against this cheap board, that can SLI my graphics cards, that gives me the ability to install more than 4G memory (I'm currently running Vista 32, but when Win-7 comes out, I want to be able to get more memory).

I'm not a power graphics user, but I like turning all the details up to "2001 Monolith" mode, so I need shader and vertex handling up to wazoo.
 
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sorry bout the bad news of only gettin 250$ back

but the good news find some good deals on www.frys.com
so if you lookin for good cheap video card that matches your own these guys could possibly have it, and i would say just upgrade your video card completly thats my opinion tbh.
 
As Hardhat said, you will get better performance and stability running a single more powerful card. I know SLI is cool, but the odds are you'll have to buy a new motherboard and PSU, and still won't get the performance you're looking for.

This is coming from someone who uses 2x 8800GT's in SLI -- I wish I had just bought a more powerful card.
 
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