Any way to SLI a 7800GT + 7800GTX or 7900GT?

QuixoticOne

Golden Member
Nov 4, 2005
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Hmm looks like it'll be unlikely for me to be able to find another 7800GT when
I really want to upgrade to SLI.

Is there any way to SLI the 7800GT along with either a 7800GTX or 7900GT?
The 7800GT/7800GTX have fairly similar cores and core architectural capabilities,

I'm surprised that there'd be no way to combine the 7800GT and 7800GTX even
if it meant limiting the features used on the 7800GTX to the same ones the 7800GT supports.

Has anyone tried sticking a GT and GTX into the same system and seen if the driver
even lets you try to SLI?

Anyone know if NVIDIA plans to enable this sort of thing in their drivers in the coming
months? Given the DX10 / unified shader GPU generation that'll be coming on, I'd guess
there will be a LOT of people with 7800s/79XXs/etc. that'd want to SLI them with
one of the newer boards for a performance boost.
 

josh6079

Diamond Member
Mar 17, 2006
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7800GT + 7800GTX = NO. The GTX has 4 more pipes anyway, so it wouldn't be pretty.

7800GT/GTX + 7900GT = NO. The difference between the 78 series and the 79 series is the smaller die, which changed the efficiency of the GPU as a whole. They are two different GPU's except they share the same feature set when gaming.

7900GT + 7900GT = YES. Obvious compatibility.

7900GTX + 7900GT = ??? Now that I think about it, they do not differ in pipe count nor die size. I imagine the different memory control would prevent that though, since one has 512 MB and the other only has 256.
 

Pens1566

Lifer
Oct 11, 2005
13,508
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No. They must be the same model. Can be different brands (EVGA, BFG,etc), but same model.
 

JBT

Lifer
Nov 28, 2001
12,094
1
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Originally posted by: josh6079
Originally posted by: goku
Isn't this a feature of crossfire?

What? Pairing a 7800GTX to a 7900GT?

no. Being able to mis match ATI cards.

Yes Crossfire can do this, but its pretty stupid IMO.

I'm sure you can pick up a used 7800GT from someone in FSFT
 

josh6079

Diamond Member
Mar 17, 2006
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Originally posted by: JBT
Originally posted by: josh6079
Originally posted by: goku
Isn't this a feature of crossfire?

What? Pairing a 7800GTX to a 7900GT?

no. Being able to mis match ATI cards.

Yes Crossfire can do this, but its pretty stupid IMO.

I'm sure you can pick up a used 7800GT from someone in FSFT

Oh, yeah they can mismatch. Isn't that capability designed for one GPU devoted for physics and the other for visual rendering?
 

dme92189

Senior member
Dec 26, 2005
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Well, as far as i know, only the core arch has to be the same, so if one card runs a G71, and another runs a G71, and they are equilivalent in all other pipeline specs, then it could be possible, but I would not recommend it unless you have enough vash to throw around to get cards that may not work together.