7900 gs SLI question

A 7900GS HAS to be paired with another 7900GS. You CAN, however, pair two different brands. For example: You have an XFX 7900GS (I don't really know cuz your link doesn't work). You can pair that card with another 7900GS no matter what company (BFG, eVGA, PNY).

AS for PSUs, look for something with over 500wats and more thn 30 amps on the +12v rails. Corsair, Seasonic, Thermaltake and Antec are good companies that come to mind.

As for the mobo, look at the nforce 600 boards (nforce boards are the only ones that you can use SLI with unless you hack an XFire board). The 650i series offers good features for the price.Avoid the nforce 500 series as they had quite a few stability issues (or so I hear).

you dont have to get the 6 series as they are for intel. currently also, amd boards are cheaper and paring 7900gs shouldnt be bottlenecked by and amd cpu nowadays. say, if your going towards the 8800 series, then id suggest the intel boards and cpus. as for right now, i see no (gaming) performance benefits towards the intel cpus.

5 series = amd
6 series - intel

theyre both essentially the same but has different support for the cpus.


as for power supplies, i agree with lostandwondering with the 500w. make sure you get a brand name psu and id preferably get the dual rail psus.

my antec smart power 2 can handle two graphics cards but they dont sell it here anymore ( AUS ). also, try looking at the coolermaster extreme 650w, its sli ready and works with two 8800gts 320mb.

shop around and youll never regret these kind of decisions

amd boards include:

M2N-SLI Deluxe

http://www.pesosforpenguins.com/20 [...] xe-motherb oard/

M2N32-SLi Deluxe

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/339

Gigabyte M59 SLI S5 * make sure you get the m59, as ive made plenty of mistakes of getting the m57/m55 S4 by mistake

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/368

ive had experience with these boards and they are top notch along with the price tag that they carry is a clear winner on the amd side.

if you choose to go with intel, id strongly suggest you reach deep and have a look at the 680i line of chipsets. i cant stress this enough to people that a good motherboard is a good indication of longitivity for years to come. also, personally i would stray away from reference designed 680i as there are a few flaws in the placement of some connectors.
dont go for the asus striker, unless you really do have money to waste. theres also the 680LT i think? along with plenty of crossbreeding from ASUS ( eg, nforce 590 coupled with a nforec650 chipset )

heres a link of those:
http://www.asus.com/search.aspx?se [...] rchkey=P5N