C2D with SLI

[knorren]

Hi, registered a minute ago and I'm in panic!
I'm looking for a motherboard that support both SLI and Intel Core 2 Duo, I found some cards that the reseller told that was able of that, but I couldn't find any good review so now I ask you.
What do you think or know about these boards which according to the store both support C2D:
- Asus P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe, nForce4 SLI
- Asus P5NSLI, nForce-570 SLI Intel Ed.

I would be very thankful for any help I can get on this.

 

[hardwareking]

welcome to anandtech.
As far as i can see both boards support core 2 duo.
The nforce 570 is a recently released chipset from nvidia.
But it's pci-e ports run at 8x speed when used it sli compared to the P5N32-SLI SE.
Both will be good boards.Don't know about overclocking though.

 

[knorren]

Ok, but how is 8x pci-e compared to 16x, does it really matter nowadays. I read somewhere that not even 8x on agp are driven in its full potential, so you can really wonder if that 16x pci-e really is necessary?

If you wonder why I ask, I was going to buy a 7950GX2 but then I saw that SLI was requred on the motherboard. That would mean that as of right now you have to buy yourself and older board or wait for a while before the nforce5-series are out in the stores, if you want yourself a killer-system with the core 2 duo.

 

[hardwareking]

only if u are going to do quad-sli does dual pci-e 16x becomes an issue.
If u are going for a high-end board i would suggest waiting till the nforce 590 sli for intel comes out.

 

[knorren]

Nah, Quad is little too expensive for me.
I was going for a single GX2 but that one requies SLI too acoording to some reviews, why that is needed I really don't understand since GF 7950GX2 is a SLI-card built as a single card.

So here comes the really tricky question, can I run a GF 7950GX2 on an Asus P5W DH DELUXE since it doesn't support SLI?

 

[hardwareking]

Actually the gx2 would run on any board with a pci-e 16x slot and an up to date bios.U can run it on the P5WDH so long as ur bios is uptodate.(that goes for any board)

 

[knorren]

Thanks.
Here is the spec. for the new computer then, hope it will last for a while:
- Antec Chassi P180-EU Performance One (no PSU)
- be quiet! PowerSupply (PSU) 530W Dark Power Pro
- Asus - Socket 775 - ATX Intel 975X (P5W DH DELUXE) - PCI-E / SATA / DDR2
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 "Conroe" 2.4GHz / 1066MHz / 4MB (Boxed)
- Zalman P4 - Socket 478 - CNPS-7700-CU (passar Intel 478, 775 och AMD 754, 939, 940)
- Corsair XMS2 Xtreme 4096MB DDR2 PC2-5400 (4*1024MB)
- Asus GeForce 7950GX2 1024MB (EN7950GX2/2PHT/1G/A) - PCI-E / HDTV / TV-Ut / 2xDVI
- Western Digital Raptor 74GB SATA (10000RPM / 16MB Cache / SATA)
- Nec Intern IDE DVD±RW 16x Dual Layer ND-3550 - Silver (Bulk)