ATI+nVidia=nVidia+ATI??

No, the chipset has no impact how a certain card performs. There are no disadvantages of running an ATI card on an nVidia chipset, and vice-versa.

No.

It depends on games. Oblivion will run better on ATI cards, while Quake4 will run better with nVidia cards.

<<<warning - I'm new at this so take it with a grain of salt, but it's feedback and food for thought nonetheless>>>>

I'm to understand that if a mobo is nvidia, then it's IDEAL that your graphics card is so as well (and same with crossfire/ati, etc). But it's not crutial that both are of the same "genre", if you will...

Now when I was asking around in these forums for suggestions on a video card for my nvidia 590 amd compatible mobo, a few very knowledgable peeps suggested ati as well as nvidia.

So with that, I'm assuming that you can configure it to your liking regardless of what component is ati, or nvidia.

Maybe this will open up otpions for you? /shrug - like i said i'm totally new at this, but just trying to help.

All I know is that the ms32n-sli mobo compliments the bfg 7900 gtx oc i just put together perfectly.

Hope this helps

It doesnt matter if you have an ATI card with an nVidia chipset and vise versa. If you are going to use one card then the performance will be the same as if you used the manufaturers chipset. In order to run SLI you must have 2 nVidia cards and in order to run crossfire you must have 2 ATI cards. As said before some games are better for different cards, but it isnt that big of a difference between cards like 7900GTX and X1900XTX. I have a nVidia chipset with an X1900XTX and my roommate has the same setup as mine only with a crossfire ATI chipset motherboard and we benchmark the same on everything that we test (give or take a few points here and there) he will eventually go crossfire and beat me, but it doesnt matter at the moment even though he uses an ATI chipset and I use an nVidia one!

In reply to distortions sig, I enjoy seeing other peoples specs and comparing them to mine or know what they have in case I would like to ask that person a question about their parts...so I am one of those people who wants to see it!

Best,

3Ball