MSI are releasing their new MSI K8N Platinum range in early december with dual PCI-E capabilities, IE you could run 2 x Nvidia 6600 PCI-E cards and run them in Dual mode, providing.. and i quote: "3D Acceleration Increase of 180%"- IE u could run 2 x 6600 Cards in PCI-E and ur graphics would improve performance / quality wise upto 180% over having just one 6600.. http://www.msi.com.tw/html/newsrelease/product_news/2004_1021_pciexpress.htm OMG I'm tempted to buy one, problem is i don't really need it..
Same here.. Cause im gonna upgrade soon and i dont know if i should go with pcie or just agp. And not many pcie motherboards out for amd i dont know what to do!!
Patience boy, patience. Haste is a factor leading to the dark side. One must be careful not to go with Intel, because the empire will not hesitate to use their enormous wealth to tempt us. </geeky star wars lecture> Check the SLI guide on HardOCP for some figures before you buy.
Well, i wished i had known i was going to have all this trouble with my retailer.. i have yet to get my PC working - 2 weeks after it arriving, i could have waited another week, spent another £50 and got PCIe and SLI capabilities. Even so, i don't really need it, and if i do buy a PCIe / SLI board i'll have 2 buy a new graphics card and prefably a new cpu. What i'll most likely do is use my pc till after xmas, and if there is that much difference i'll just sell my pc for what it cost me, if not more and then buy another system for same price based on PCIe/SLI. However atm, i don't think i need it
Do you think I should wait for xmas for the sales to buy my upgrade? or is there a better time to buy mb and video cards?
Well, if the [H]'s guide is anything to go by, SLI has some quirks. Let's not forget that you will NEED a fat power supply if you're wanting to run dual 6800-series cards. Don't get me wrong, I'm freakin' excited about this, but I wouldn't jump on it immediately. If you want to keep your framerates in D00M 3 as high as possible and money is not a problem, go for it. Just realize that the video card product cycle is about six months, and ATi has already announced the Radeon X850 lineup. SLI, no. PCIe, yes. PCIe is the way things are going to, so while I'm not sure SLI is the best choice right now--mostly due to the technology's status---PCIe is the way to go. If you build anything these days, you WANT a motherboard with PCIe on it. There will always be something bigger and better to get. The PC market, particularly video cards, is very aggressive. Keep waiting for the 'right' time to buy and you'll always be waiting.
Honestly, I am not sure what the big deal is. Basically SLI technology simply divides the display into two parts. Using one video card for each half. When running SLI the normal PCI-E pipelines are split...so instead of running 16x for both slots, it drops to 8x per. Frankly, I think that it is a technology for those that just have money to spend, or want bragging rights....but this IS america, right? Both cards must be the same make, and PCI-E of course. If you want to run Doom3 at Ultra settings, an Nvidia Geforce 6800 Ultra is sufficient, as is an ATI X800 XT Platinum...I imagine that there would be some performance increase, but it would not be as much difference as going from 8x agp to 16x pci-e. It truly performs like have an AGP card running at 8x for half the screen.
What you can do i buy say a 6800 gt (only one) for your sli pci board. THen, later, if you want to you can buy a second 6800 gt sli pci card and plug it in. Right now, games and appz dont need two gpu cards, but pci is for sure the future. Safe bet is to buy a mobo with sli and pci capabilities so you can upgrade no prob in the future. Personally, right now i am going to buy the amd athlon 64 3500+, and Asus A8N-Sli deluxe mobo. This means that later on, if i want to upgrade my cpu i can, and also i have the ability to run a second 6800gt when i can afford another. Basicall, if you use only one card to begin with, it is just like running 1 pci card on a non sli board. The sli lets you add another at your convenience. Pricey, but nice and great for future upgrades!
The PCIe-based cards in nVidia's lineup SLi-capable are the 6800Ultra/6800GT/6800 and the 6600GT. This applies to PCIe cards only. AGP cards don't have this ability, mainly due to the AGP standard itself and PCIe being...well, rather useless in AGP format.
Once i get paid after Xmas i'll get a motherboard with PCI-E, and if SLI comes with it then thats a bonus, i think i might build a second AMD64, got spare 256mb crucial pc3200, spare hdd, floppy, cdrom, psu, just need case and cpu.
They are only just being released as the first batches or waves of them released onto the market were AGP based. So they will be harder to find.
