PNY GeForce 6600 256.. Not really SLI ready?

Paraphobe80d

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Dec 27, 2005
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18,510
I recently purchased a PNY GeForce 6600 PCI-E graphics card. On the box it says SLI ready. I have the ABIT Fatal1ty AN8 SLI mobo and it came with two connectors for SLI. one is the SLI Switch Key, and the other is the Bridge Connector. I read the instruction book for the mobo, and it says to attach the key to the mobo and the bridge connector to the cards.. Only problem is, there is no bridge connector on the cards!!!! Anybody else get one of these cards then find out it's not REALLY SLI ready? Or can i do it without the bridge connector. Please Help, i just quit smoking cigs, and this isn't helping, cuz i'm getting pissed off with this new pc. :(

Thank you much,
Dan
 

mpjesse

Splendid
Well... i tried to find a review or pic of ur card on the net to see if it's supposed to have an SLi connector. I couldn't find one.

I'm assuming you know exactly what an SLI connector looks like... so here's a little comfort:

SLI will function without the bridge. Some sites have done benchmarks and shown that it works fine, but there is a slight performance hit. Instead of the cards being able to talk to each other thru the faster more efficient SLI link, they are forced to communicate thru the PCI-e bus.

Initially SLI didn't even work without those connectors. But recent driver updates have been able to entirely exclude the SLI link connectors and provide functionality without them. Again, there's still a reduction in performance but it works.

Keep in mind that Crossfire doesn't use any type of card to card communication in the form of a bridge connector. Everything is done through the PCI-e bus. So it's possible that nVidia will move past the SLI bridge connector in future driver updates.

Hope this helps.

-mpjesse
 

Paraphobe80d

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Dec 27, 2005
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By the SLI Link you do mean the bridge connector right? The SLI Switch Key i should still put on the mobo right? That's the PCI-e connection that you are talking about am I right? Because if so, that would be awesome. I'm sure it would offer a much greater performance than what i'm getting from one card right now.

Man, you really did give me some comfort, thank you