link video cards?

D

Deadman_ny

Spaceman
I saw somewhere that you can link video cards together with a little clip hech, if you go to nvidia.com they have pc's with several vid cards...(nvidia). Is this just to add more monitors which doesn't make much sence since both my 7600 and 8800 cards alreay have 2 monitor ports and a S-vid port... or can you do it to improve performance by linking the GPU's togeather? that would be sweet. :) and is it possible to 'link' 2 different cards...ie the 7600 and 8800 or do both cards have to be identicle? I've got room on the motherbord and...you get the idea. :)
 
No, it's a specific function that uses two cards to increase your processing power. Essentially the computer divides the portions of the screen between two (or even 4!) video cards. Nvidia's system is called SLI and you need a motherboard that supports it. Where as ATI's version is called crossfire. Usually you need to have the cards matched, otherwise your more expensive card is essentially wasted. In some cases two lower grade cards in SLI will be cheaper and outperform a single card system with the Very top model available. Once again you have to have a motherboard that supports it. There will be either 2 or 4 PCI-express slots.
 
but neither of my cards will work in a PCI slot, have to plug it into the PCI-E slot it says (there are 2 on my board) no wait, lit says they will work in a PCI slot but it will make the card run doggy.
the dividing of the prosessing is kinda what i was hoping for to incrase performance. just for sh-ts and giggles i wanted to find out, otherwise it's just going to end up sitting on a shelf with all my other vid cards. cool how they have the 90 trade up thing...though not sure how that works either.
sorry for the stupidity but i'm getting old and so is the comp.
just bought 3,1 gig dimms for $35! well $35 each then 8% tax... wich to me is AMAZING since when i built my first computer an 8 meg simm cost nearly $100.
don't get me wronge, my comp runs great with the new vid card and another 3 gig of ram. mind you that this comp only had 1/2 a gig of ram and an onbord vid card when i bought it but it's nice to play some of the newer games with all the bells and wistles blaring without soo much as a studder.
always seems that i'll upgrade the hech out of my computer till it can't be upgraded no more. only had 4 computers in the last 15 years :)
 
both cards are PCI-E, if you try to put them in a reg PCI slot it'll make the card run doggy, at least thats what the lit says. was wondering is it would boost the performance since your linking the GPU's of both cards and if it's possible to link 2 different cards ie the Nvidia 7600 and the 8800 since the 7600 will just be sitting in a drawer anyways :( my board does have another PCI-E slot btw. just don't want to put both cards in, jump them togeather and fry both cards and be out 100's of dollars.

If you didn't have bad luck you wouldn't have any luck at all. :p
 
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