I'm trying to find the cheapest SLi motherboard.

SpeedZealot369

Platinum Member
Feb 5, 2006
2,778
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All help is appreciated, just trying to find the cheapest sli motherboard(but has stable decent performance) so if any of you found or saw any good deals recently please let me know of them.

Thanks.
 

sodcha0s

Golden Member
Jan 7, 2001
1,116
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Another nod for the Abit KN8 SLI. Very nice board, passively cooled, overclocks well and is below $120. I have it and love it, although I'm not running SLI.
 

mb103051

Senior member
Oct 27, 2005
280
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cheapest sli board that i knw of is the biostar nf4 sli board.it sells for about 79.00 at newegg.my next door neighbor ordered one a couple of months ago and he is running stock speeds and its a good board for the money.he had no setup issues at all.he made sure he had good ram and a good power supply.he is running 2 6600 video cards and ill tell you what its a fine running machine..for stock speeds you cant beat it.if your gonna o/clock then you mite want to look elsewhere.gigabyte has some inexpensive sli boards also and they have some pretty good reviews and can do mild o/clocking.i was impressed with the biostar.he plays alot of games and so far loves the board.for 80 bucks you cant beat it.the gigabytes sell for a few more dollars but not that much more.
he only had a certain amount of money to spend so the biostar was the only sli board in his price range.ive used biostar in the past on occation and they have always gotten the job done......good luck on your search.biostar has the tforce boards and there sli board is a great o/clocking board as well as the tforce ultra board.they o/clock like mad and the bundle they come with is unlike anything else...
 

designit

Banned
Jul 14, 2005
481
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wait for epox. it will be in market mid April
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2722

this place is selling it for $80
http://www.cybersprinter.com/item_description.asp?prodid=3028

EDIT: the Asrock 2sata does not have vcore options and you are stocked w/ cpu stock voltage, and vdimm goes to 2.8v. So it is not a good board to overclock.
The Epox is also e-sata ready. Both boards are good. Asrock can be volmodded just like dual sata version. incase decided on asrock and wanted to do volmods
 

designit

Banned
Jul 14, 2005
481
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Originally posted by: Heidfirst
Originally posted by: designit
wait for epox. it will be in market mid April
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2722
but if nVidia are intent (as they seem to be) on making SLI only work on nForce SLI chipsets that isn't going to work with latest & future drivers either ...
I dont know where you get your info, the board is designed to run SLI and it will.
Besides, Nvedia has bought ULi, and I am sure all ULi chipset that now are nvedia's responsibilty have to work w/ nvedia's SLI drive(s), otherwise they will face a class action law suite.
where did you get your info that nvedia's driver's wont work on ULi chipset or is not supported?
link please.

 

potato28

Diamond Member
Jun 27, 2005
8,964
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nVidia is going to make the drivers work for the new Asrock board, as they bought ULi, and its a good alternative with AGP and SLi.
 

Heidfirst

Platinum Member
May 18, 2005
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Originally posted by: designit

I dont know where you get your info, the board is designed to run SLI and it will.
Besides, Nvedia has bought ULi, and I am sure all ULi chipset that now are nvedia's responsibilty have to work w/ nvedia's SLI drive(s), otherwise they will face a class action law suite.
where did you get your info that nvedia's driver's wont work on ULi chipset or is not supported?
link please.
the board's chipset is designed to run SLI (or Crossfire) using a driver hack.
If you look at the Asrock they had it working, nVidia rewrote the driver & it stopped working, ULi rewrote the hack to get it working again & supposedly the latest Forceware (which has massive performance gains in FEAR) drivers break it again.
Now that nVidia own ULi I don't expect to see them rewriting the hack.

nVidia chipsets sell for more $ than ULi & no doubt are more profitable so it's in nVidia's economic interest to sell an nForce SLI chipset rather than a ULi 1. nVidia have been very clear that they intend SLI to only work on nVidia SLI chipsets (at least until they see an advantage in doing otherwise) - if I come across the articles again I'll link them but Google should throw something up easily enough such as http://www.fileconnect.net/comments.php?shownews=11645&catid=2
I think that you will find that nVidia isn't responsible for anything that ULi did before they bought it.
 

SpeedZealot369

Platinum Member
Feb 5, 2006
2,778
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Originally posted by: Heidfirst
Originally posted by: designit

I dont know where you get your info, the board is designed to run SLI and it will.
Besides, Nvedia has bought ULi, and I am sure all ULi chipset that now are nvedia's responsibilty have to work w/ nvedia's SLI drive(s), otherwise they will face a class action law suite.
where did you get your info that nvedia's driver's wont work on ULi chipset or is not supported?
link please.
the board's chipset is designed to run SLI (or Crossfire) using a driver hack.
If you look at the Asrock they had it working, nVidia rewrote the driver & it stopped working, ULi rewrote the hack to get it working again & supposedly the latest Forceware (which has massive performance gains in FEAR) drivers break it again.
Now that nVidia own ULi I don't expect to see them rewriting the hack.

nVidia chipsets sell for more $ than ULi & no doubt are more profitable so it's in nVidia's economic interest to sell an nForce SLI chipset rather than a ULi 1. nVidia have been very clear that they intend SLI to only work on nVidia SLI chipsets (at least until they see an advantage in doing otherwise) - if I come across the articles again I'll link them but Google should throw something up easily enough such as http://www.fileconnect.net/comments.php?shownews=11645&catid=2
I think that you will find that nVidia isn't responsible for anything that ULi did before they bought it.

So you're saying all the boards that everyone recommended here won't have Sli that works? If so can you recommend a good cheap board instead of saying what's not going to work?
 

designit

Banned
Jul 14, 2005
481
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I believe it's just blowing smoke.
I think certification is similar to those software that are not Microsoft certified but never the less will work when installed. Have you come cross a download, installation, or a web site that are not MS certified? I have and no problem browsing, downloading, or installing the software, no problem what so ever.
the SLI is just a marketing pitch. There are DFI or other boards that are not SLI, but a hacked driver will turn them into an SLI board. check XS forum, you will see hacked drivers to make non SLI boards into a SLI board.
I never liked Nvedia and am very disappointed that ULi sold to Nvedia. We are not going to see any board that is reasonably priced like ULi's that can be as good or better than Nvedia's counterpart twice the cost. Nvedia has a history of overcharging video cards and chipsets. And this SLI certification bumble jumble is just another example of Nvedia?s attempt to monopoly, so it can sell at any price it wishes to. The acquisition of ULi was for that purpose also.
Hate those kind of companies.

To the poster who is interested in good cheap dual vid card mobo, those boards suggested are good boards and overclock and perform as high or even better than any Nvedia SLI boards twice as expensive. And dont wory about the smoke Nvedia is blowing. Its all hot air and soon will all clear and die down. Mean time you have bought yourself a good board reasonably priced.
 

Heidfirst

Platinum Member
May 18, 2005
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Originally posted by: designit
There are DFI or other boards that are not SLI, but a hacked driver will turn them into an SLI board. check XS forum, you will see hacked drivers to make non SLI boards into a SLI board.
That's not true, in the DFI case you already have an nForce4 chipset (where afaik the basic, Ultra & SLI are all the same silicon just with features turned on/off by bridges) & you have to physically mod the chipset to enable SLI.

Bottom line is that with nVidia's apparent current stance if you want guaranteed SLI in the future get an nForce SLI chipset board.
The ULi may work but with older drivers only & that may mean a performance difference.

 

ND40oz

Golden Member
Jul 31, 2004
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There is no guarantee that SLI will work on the ULI chipset in the future. It's all up to what nVidia decides to do. Just like you can't run SLI on the intel 975x chipset. It's perfectly capable of it, but nVidias drivers don't allow you to. If you feel comfortable suggesting that someone should go buy a non-nVidia board to run SLI with hacked drivers, then so be it. I'd say buy the real deal and have support from the manufacturers.

The gigabyte non-pro model can be had for $85 and the only thing the pro adds is 1394 support.
 

Megatomic

Lifer
Nov 9, 2000
20,127
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81
That EPOX board is nice, but the onboard NIC performance bothers me. I'm very net oriented in my computing so a slow connection would really hinder me. :(
 

MDE

Lifer
Jul 17, 2003
13,199
1
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I'm running an Abit KN8 SLI and I haven't had a single problem with it. I mainly got it for the passive chipset cooling, but it overclocks pretty well (running my X2 3800+ @ 2.65GHz) and I won't kill it replacing a noisy chipset fan...
 

designit

Banned
Jul 14, 2005
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There are so many opiniated morons here (including myself) that is hard for a person seeking a good and objective advise decides what is what.
the poster is interested in "good cheap SLI" board that is " stable and decet performance"
I dont know if he is interested in super overclocker, or super net monster, or any thing that interest you and me. Lets not get into a board war and try to be as object as you can and accomedate his need. Not yours.
thanks
 

MDE

Lifer
Jul 17, 2003
13,199
1
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Originally posted by: designit
There are so many opiniated morons here (including myself) that is hard for a person seeking a good and objective advise decides what is what.
the poster is interested in "good cheap SLI" board that is " stable and decet performance"
I dont know if he is interested in super overclocker, or super net monster, or any thing that interest you and me. Lets not get into a board war and try to be as object as you can and accomedate his need. Not yours.
thanks

A "super overclocker" board damn well better be stable at stock speeds if it's stable above them. If it's cheap, stable, and has SLI then being a good overclocker is icing on the cake. Judging from the OP's sig he will be overclocking anyway. It would be helpful if the OP did explicitly state what (s)he is looking for, but since that didn't happen we have to guess.
 

kb3edk

Senior member
Jul 11, 2004
494
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Like many others here I was very excited to read the review of the EPoX ULi M1697 based "SLI" board since it appeared to do so well against NF4 boards. I already own two ULi M1695 boards (the ASRock dual) and am happy with ULi's performance. However like others here I'm concerned about losing driver support now that ULi has been bought out. Also besides no driver, the EPoX M1697 board doesn't even have an SLI bridge connector in the box which means you have to buy one somewhere else, the cheapest I see on Froogle is $15 shipped which negates a lot of the price savings. So unfortunately for me, it looks like the M1697 is (pardon the pun) a bridge too far these days.

I think I still wanna try an EPoX board, they seem to get consistently good reviews here. I was thinking, if I go back to an NF4 board, the 9NPAJ SLI has got a lot of potential and is just $100. Anyone here using it?
 

TanisHalfElven

Diamond Member
Jun 29, 2001
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like i saiod the board in my sig. it an awesome DFI. ROCK STABLE. and OCs well.
pluss has soooooooooo many features.
all this for only 125
 

TanisHalfElven

Diamond Member
Jun 29, 2001
3,512
0
76
like i saiod the board in my sig. it an awesome DFI. ROCK STABLE. and OCs well.
pluss has soooooooooo many features.
all this for only 125