Office Dispute about SLI - Prove me Right!

[GerrFel]

This pertains to the system in my signature.

If I purchased another 7600GS:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814143054

And SLIed the two of them, would the 2nd card help my video performance in high end gaming? I'm using one 19" LCD monitor.

[GerrFel]

And by performance, I'm talking about AA/AF, textures, other graphics options. I'll be using 1200x1024 resolution.

[TimoneX]

You are absolutely correct. I'm a fan of budge SLI setups as I've been using them for over a year.

BTW can you put some results from your system? That is precisely the system I ordered yesterday save that I got cheaper memory(G.Skill value stuff) and I went for the 6400 CPU. Anything you can share would be appreciated.

[GerrFel]

The system is currently in 2 peices at home. UPS should be arriving with the ram in about 20 minutes! That's the final peice, except for my case. I'll put it all together, but until the case gets here in about 3 days, I'll be running it caseless.

[TimoneX]

Sweet. Keep me posted. My toys will be here on Monday. Are you going with the retail HSF?

[GerrFel]

I've heard that the latest HSF aren't as bad as those in the past, so yes. They run real cool anyways, and I'm not too sure how it will overclock, but if heat becomes an issue, we'll see.

[CGR]

It will help you a little bit, but you still wont be able to play on max settings with two GS cards most likely.

[icedragn]

GerrFel, your sig says:
"::Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 "Conroe"::"

the 6300 and 6400, are not conroes, they are allendales?

[TimoneX]

It will help you a little bit, but you still wont be able to play on max settings with two GS cards most likely.

Depends on the game of course and how well the cards OC. It's hard to go wrong with the 7600GSs for that price IMO.

[GerrFel]

GerrFel, your sig says:
"::Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 "Conroe"::"

the 6300 and 6400, are not conroes, they are allendales?

As far as I know they're Conroe. They're listed on Newegg as such.

[icedragn]

As far as I know they're Conroe. They're listed on Newegg as such.

I'm not sure if it is a different core, but 2mb core 2 duo's, such as the 6300/6400 are "Allendale's", the 4mb's are "Conroe's". So unless there is actually a different core for the allendales ( i did some googling, inconclusive ), then they are still conroes imo. But what my googling did find, was lots of posts of people saying they are not conroes, mainly on etailers, and some forums. Nice cpu none the less tho, insane overclocker o_O

[z0n3]

Same core just different amounts of cache.

[RangerXLT8]

E6300 & E6400 are not Conroe. They are code-named Allendale. They are all from the same wafer, just built with a different amount of cache attatched.

[GerrFel]

They're still conroes in my heart. =D

[_Elmstreet_]

precisely, "allendale" was just a code name for the new conroe before they actually went into production. my buddy asked intel about this and they confirmed it.

[GerrFel]

Sweet. Keep me posted. My toys will be here on Monday. Are you going with the retail HSF?

The motherboard was DOA. Sending it back and getting a different board, a Gigabyte, as seen below.

[Vengance_01]

You better get a Intel 975 board. the 965 boards only have 1 PCI-E x16, and then the higher end board comes with a PCI-E x4 slot. With this setup you will limit SLI and on top it, you need hacked drivers. I suggest you go with an X850XT for cheap atm, then grab Direct X 10 cards when they hit. Those 7600GS's are junk in my eyes. Even an X800Pro would be faster at about the same price.

[TimoneX]

My board isn't DOA, but it's not very good. I cannot clock at anything over 300FSB or things go wrong. It's okay though I'll just stick with this untill there's a clear alternative.

[Killaapp]

Are you trying to set up SLI on a 965p chipset? Do you have any evidence that this is possible? I know there are now bios updates to support crossfire but I have certainly not heard anything about SLI.

Furthermore, if you load up the CPU-Z of a 6300 and a 6600, you will see that the 6300 is ALLENDALE and the 6600 is CONROE. I don't care how Newegg has them listed; calling a 6300 a Conroe is simply inaccurate.

[TimoneX]

Right call them both Core 2 Duo and let's be done with the hair splitting. It is my understanding that all that is required to run SLI on an Intel chipset is 2 PCI-E x16 slots, 2 PCI-E SLI Capable nVidia cards, an SLI bridge, and hacked Vid drivers. If someone has differing information then please enlighten us.

[TimoneX]

Hmmm...I got BSODs 12x in a row when I tried to install XP32 w/ SP2 slipstreamed. This is the disc I always use to install windoze. Then on a whim I grabbed an ancient XP32 SP0 disc and tried that and it worked flawlessly. Weird. It seems something in SP2 is at odds with the nF570 chipset.

[BLcK]

E6300 & E6400 are not Conroe. They are code-named Allendale. They are all from the same wafer, just built with a different amount of cache attatched.
Wheres your proof? As far as i know, they are conroes. I have been to the conroe launch orientation (I went mainly for the free dinner and prize raffle ^_^) and all the 6x00 series cpus are conroes. Newegg and ZZF also lists them as conroes.

OT:And SLIed the two of them, would the 2nd card help my video performance in high end gaming? Yup, better preformance at higher res, AA, and AF compared from 1 7600 to SLI'ed 7600's. You will see this in pretty much any review. though in some cases of early ATI CF cards they actually did worse in CF mode :X which i believe they have worked out those bugs by now - i would think.

[TUK101]

lol, who on earth is arguing about not betting better gaming performance with sli? SLI was pretty much intended for better gaming performance. You certainly dont need an extra video card just for web surfing, unless of coarse you are using dual monitors.

[TimoneX]

Don't need the extra card for dual monitors either, really just three + displays.

[GerrFel]

Well I didn't plan on SLIing it, it was a theoretical thing. The PC is up and running now after a lot of hell and high water. This new board is amazing, does a GREAT job OCing the chip! The 965P chipset is amazing Timone.

[Rattle]

I would sell the one you have now and get 1 single powerful card thats better than both, like a 7900gto 512 if your a nvidia fan

[TimoneX]

Sweet! Glad you got it goin'. I think I'm gonna sit on this cheesy board for awhile and see how nVidia's C55 chip pans out. I'd kinda like an official SLI chipset that overclocks.

[dfonda]

Off topic Gerrfel but I am curious why you went with such small HD's?

[Memphis69]

my guess they might have been cheeper or he already had them... the same reason i have an 80 an a 20.. lol

[GerrFel]

Off topic Gerrfel but I am curious why you went with such small HD's?

Two nice SATAs I had from my last PC. I'm not a person that collects a lot of stuff on drives. I have a HUGE problem with drives crashing on me, so I do a lot of DVD backing up.