9600GT SLi

[KBTuning]

well, im probably going to be told that im a complete idiot buuuutttttttt....

i ordered two EVGA 9600GTKO's to run in SLi on my new EVGA 780i board with my new Q6600 cpu... on vista....

now my last computer build was March of 2005, and im actually posting from it, A64 3000+@2.1Ghz, X800GTO2 @ X850XTPE speeds, 1gb of ram... on Windows XP... so im tackling a lot of new stuff all at once...


now the question is, how difficult is it to actually get this SLi stuff rolling? do i need to install vista with one card and then once im up and running install the 2nd card? im trying to make this as simple as possible at first and then once i get it up and stable ill start bumping the clocks up on everything

 

[manimal]

Its funny, I expected a big pita when it comes to SLI and it really wasnt. I just setup 2xG92GTS's on a evga 680i board it was as simple as installing the cards-ie plug them in-put in the SLI bridge- and install the drivers. It prompts you to turn on SLI and it just plain worked after that. I havent played a game that I didnt get better performance on but I would gather that some older games will not work as well but that doesnt really matter to me since they probably dont need all that horsepower anyway. Now some people dont mind vista and I even have it on another partition on this PC as well but I just dont use it for gaming. Now in my living room I love Media Center so it lives in there 24/7. You will probably get better performance with XP so since you already own a copy of XP you may think about that. If I were you I would install the OS and patch it with a single card so you limit any problems and do a full stress test before ever adding in the second card.

Now on my setup I tested my quad at stock with the SLI cards and they really do not shine till north of 3.4GHZ on the games that really need the power. Its funny the only game that really needs it now anyways in Crysis. I ran COD4 maxed and all the other games I had just fine with one card when it was heavily OCd. Supreme Commander was fine running 2 monitors on 1 card as well....

At your res with that BenQ monitor the dual 9600s should be awesome btw, let us know how it runs.What did the cards cost you? There is a hot deal right now at outpost.com where you can get 8800GTS for 229. If the 9600s were less than 40 bucks more each that may be something to think about. If you change your mind you can always decline the shipment and they can credit you back.

 

[KBTuning]

i got the EVGA KO Versions for 179 or 189 each on newegg i cant remember... i bought the whole setup at once... and my expensive arsed box is already in UPS's hands... everything should be here tuesday...

im hoping i can play crysis cranked way up since i only run 1680x1050.... but whats sad is what made me want to upgrade is World of Warcraft... how sad is that? haha