SLI'ing Question

[aooga12]

I'm going to SLI 2 8800gt's (made by evga) now im having trouble finding the second one. Does it matter who made the 8800gt?... like if i buy one from XFX it will still work?

I've asked my teacher thats supposedly teaching me A+ stuff, and he didn't know either.

[Spoils]

"Instead of installing a matched set of NVIDIA SLI cards, one of the new driver features that we wanted to put to the test was using mismatched SLI video card sets. We picked two of the most different 7800 GTX-based cards we could find: the highly-overclocked EVGA 7800 GTX KO and the MSI NX7800 GTX."

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODY5

Long article but the short answer is yes it should work.

[usefulidiot316]

When SLI first come out, the only way it would work is if both cards had the same BIOS version on them, so sometimes even having two of the same cards wouldn't work in SLI(I found out the hard way). Sometime in early 2005, they changed it, and now even two different models of the same card will work together. Say you had an overclocked 8800gt with 512MB and a standard version with 1GB. By default, they both use only 512MB and they both run at the speed of the card plugged in the top slot. You still run the risk of over heating, though, if the overclocked card is plugged in on top, and the bottom card can't run at that speed.

I won't work with 2 different cards based on the same GPU, though. You won't be able to SLI your 8800gt with the faster 9800gtx or 8800gts, or the cheaper 9600gso.

[h4z4rd]

yes as long as its the same model # (8800gt) and both should have the same amount of onboard RAM..otherwise it's pointless. The graphics cards will run at the slowest speed of the two.

BTW your teacher is an idiot.

[aooga12]

"Instead of installing a matched set of NVIDIA SLI cards, one of the new driver features that we wanted to put to the test was using mismatched SLI video card sets. We picked two of the most different 7800 GTX-based cards we could find: the highly-overclocked EVGA 7800 GTX KO and the MSI NX7800 GTX."

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=ODY5

Long article but the short answer is yes it should work.

Thank you very mucho

When SLI first come out, the only way it would work is if both cards had the same BIOS version on them, so sometimes even having two of the same cards wouldn't work in SLI(I found out the hard way). Sometime in early 2005, they changed it, and now even two different models of the same card will work together. Say you had an overclocked 8800gt with 512MB and a standard version with 1GB. By default, they both use only 512MB and they both run at the speed of the card plugged in the top slot. You still run the risk of over heating, though, if the overclocked card is plugged in on top, and the bottom card can't run at that speed.

I won't work with 2 different cards based on the same GPU, though. You won't be able to SLI your 8800gt with the faster 9800gtx or 8800gts, or the cheaper 9600gso.

im just going 2 8800gt's.... diff makers of em... probably gonna grab a xfx

yes as long as its the same model # (8800gt) and both should have the same amount of onboard RAM..otherwise it's pointless. The graphics cards will run at the slowest speed of the two.

BTW your teacher is an idiot.

Thank you, yes he is.