NVidia Chipset

[tinkertech]

I am asked to build a system with nVidia SLI, the Dual graphics card on PCI-E slots. I can't get any help from nVidia so I come here. Just because a mainboard has two PCI-E slots does it make it nVidia SLI compatible? Or does the mainboard must have an nVidia chipset to work? Thanks.

If at first you don't succeed, reboot!

 

[rclarke250]

There are other chipsets that support SLI for Nvidia, but the NForce are considered by many to be the best. And the board does have to support SLI, just having pci-e is not enough. check web sites for makers like Asus, Abit, DFI, and MSI. Find a board that has the features you want, then search google for reviews and also for problems...

 

[cdogg]

Gigabyte was the first to bring the technology to the table. I'd recommend getting their K8N-UltraSLI board along with using Gigabyte's 6600GT or 6800GT for maximum compatibility. Newegg.com is a good place to find decent prices as well.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
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[paparazi]

rclarke250 quote:
"There are other chipsets that support SLI for Nvidia"
Not that I'm aware of.
There were rumours that Via were going to release the K8T890PRO with SLI support but as far as I know Nvidia are the only chip manufactures at present that support SLI, after all, they were the one's that invented it in it's present form.

Motherboard chipset MUST SAY SLI!!!!! only they have
2:16X PCI-e slots

Only boards with:
Nforce4 SLI and NForce4 SLI "Intel Edition" support this type of graphics card configuration.

I have used most of the AMD Athlon64 SLI boards thus far from MSI, DFI, ASUS, Gigabyte, I actually run a Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-SLI in my own PC and to be honest there isn't a massive amount of differance in all of them.

The DFI SLI is prefered by the overclocking fraternity because of it's overvolts so massive overclocking potential.

The Asus SLI for it's stability and wider PCI-e slot layout (needed for wide cards like the 6800ultra's)

The Gigabyte's for having every conceivable extra with sold performance

The differances are slight so the choice is purely down to use, budget and the features that best suit.
You wouldn't go far wrong with any of them.

Although, as I pointed out, Nvidia have produced an "Intel" version of the Nforce4 SLI chipset, it hasn't had as sucessful implementation for the 775 P4, it appears to be less reliable and is said to be having some teething problems when used in SLI on the Intel platform.
Time will tell as to wether Nvidia can iron out these issues with bios and chipset driver upgrades.

Martin




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Participate and help others.

 

[cdogg]

Yeah, I suppose I was drawn to that board because of all the features.

Check this review out:

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1735

Even if that's not the board you get, it may answer some questions about some features you were considering...

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[rclarke250]

Yep,Martin is correct, as of right now, the nvidia based boards are the only ones, the 955X from intel has the ability to support the sli as soon as a bridge card comes out...Also it should be noted that there is a SLI card in a single card format, but expensive.Gigabyte 3d1. And as noted by Martin, the VIA chipset has not been released. but I seem to recall the tumwater based boards having dual 16x pcie slots,but never heard if it ran sli. dual xeon, very expensive.

 

[tinkertech]

I am shocked with the wealth of information I have received here. Thank you all. Let me add a new twist to my situation. I am to build a dual xeon system and a dual opteron system with nvidia's SLI capability. I'm sure Win XP-Pro will work but I also have to build the same systems with Linux RedHat. I have never used Linux and was wondering of any feedback on that subject?

If at first you don't succeed, reboot!

 

[paparazi]

tinkertech
That's a whole new ball game.
Pretty specialized and very expensive look at this for AMD:

http://www.tyan.com/products/html/thunderk8we.html

Athough I've turned up several references to SLI for Intel dual CPU Xeon I cannot actually find a motherboard with it implemented (SuperMicro)

I suspect it's much like the single Intel CPU situation and not totally stable at the moment.

I'm guessing if this guy seriously wants SLI, a Dual Core (not dual CPU) will be a better bet at the moment ie:
AMD Athlon64 X2 or Intel Extreme or D

Martin




We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[cdogg]

One Pentium D (dual-core) advantage is that it can be cheaper than a similar performing Xeon, in addition to supporting nonregistered, unbuffered memory. The Xeon, however, does have more L3 cache. Performance should be eerily similar, however, since the memory and bus architecture of the two is identical.

Just thought I'd throw that out there...

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884