MSI P6N Diamond MB and MSI OC 8800 GT question..

[Hope Slayer]

Hello all,

My first post here so I hope it's in the right place.

I'm building a new system with a MSI P6N DIAMOND NF680I SLI Mother Board and a MSI NX8800GT 512M OC Vid card. My biggest question is are they compatible? I've read PCI-E X16 and PCI-E X16 2.0 are backwards compatible but I've also read that certain boards and cards may not be. I hate to sound dumb but with so many people running diff configs of non PCI-E 2.0 MoBo's and 2.0 Vid Cards together I can't figure out if I've made a mistake or not. Well if you don't count getting the P6N board as my first one already ....should have researched it a little bit more. *pray I get one of the good ones*

I can't test them yet as they won't arrive untill next week.

Been a few years since my last build and not up on all the newer tech so any help/advice is much appreciated.

 

[lschmidt]

I just ordered the same video card as you...is yours the one with the copper pipe cooling?

As far as I know, PCI-E 2.0 cards are compatible with PCI-E 1.0 slots/motherboards, and vice versa.

With PCI-E 1.0, you'll only have one x16 slot, and one x4 slot OR one x16 slot and 4 x1 slots. Don't quote me on that part though.

As for certain motherboard/video card compatibility - I don't think it matters, but again don't quote me here.

 

[Hope Slayer]

Yes Copper pipe cooling/fan.

MoBo specs say I have (4)PCI X16...so I'm guessing I can run SLI at 8x8x16x8 or 16x16x8...in other words run two cards in full x16?

 

[lschmidt]

Ok, well disregard what I said above. My answer is I don't know.

I was under the impression that the total pci-e lanes available was limited by either the chipset or pcie 1.0 technology.

Anyone more experienced know the answer to this?

 

[mtyermom]

From the MSI website: Support Dual PCI Express 16X interface with either 1x16 + 1x8 or 2x8 operation.

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=P6N_Diamond&class=mb

Doesn't sound like you'll be getting 2x16