No SLI Support Gigabyte GA-MA785G-UD3H

[henrystrawn]

I have re-read my user guide, and I am still 404 concerning the fuctionality of video support for this board. I can accept that it does not support SLI with the 785 chipset. I currently have a BFG 8800GT OC2 installed, and I have an PNY 7300 GT in the parts drawer. My question is, can I populate the other PCI-E slot and use 4 monitors? I know that through trial and error, I could have my answer. I was just wondering if anyone has tried this without reconfiguring my entire office and migrating monitors, only to find out I have only accomplished a "spring cleaning" for my hardware. I was planning on using 2-19" Viewsonics and 2-23" acers. I am a welder by trade and I was wanting to build an "array" mount. Thanks for your time.

 

[evongugg]

Make sure your power supply supports 2 video cards.

 

[henrystrawn]

I got bored over the thanksgiving weekend, and went down to Best Buy and purchased an acer h233h 23" monitor that was on sale. I installed the PNY 7300 GT in the empty PCI e slot and moved my avermedia G2 capture card to PCI e x1 slot one. Everything seems to be working OK with 3 displays. My windows user experience index for 3D application went from a 6.9 to a 6.0. I verified that the BFG 8800 GT was in PCIE 1 and at x16, and the 7300 was at X4. I was just wondering if I don't have them in SLI will my gaming performance decrease? Power doesn't seem to be an issue. I have a Rosewill 550 watt PS and the 7300 GT doesn't require an additional power source.

 

[icarusorion]

Hey dude, I got the UD3H

running twin evga 9600 GS0's atm
not SLI or Xfire
runs great!

windows experience index will rate you based off the slowest/weakest card
b/c i have the same card twice there was no change in my index when i installed a 2nd one.
In terms of gaming i dont know if this helps you with your situation but....

running two monitors and one TV 1280*1024 twice and 1024*768 on the TV
you would think to put the small TV resolution on the card thats populating the pci e 4x slot and put the two monitors on the 16x slot... nope

seams i get the best all around preformance when i put one monitor and TV on the 16 and just one monitor on the 4x... when i run 3 of the same game they obviously share bandwidth

Scenarios

1 Eve Client 1 screen enabled 1 graphics card graphics maxed 55FPS avg

2 Eve Clients 2 screens enabled 1 graphics card w/ graphics semi maxed still 55fps

3 eve clients 2 screens 1 card graphics on one semi maxed other two low 55fps still

now 2 clients 2 screens 2 cards 30-40 variable avg fps (huge drop and your adding a card!?)

3 eve clients 3 screens 2 cards graphics med-low on all 3 22-35 avg fps highly variable with bottleneckin as low as 12fps which never last longer than a second or two may be due to Internet I/O 3 MMO clients all sharing the same IC
A DMI viewer rates my 2nd PCI E slot at 8X
documentations says its 4x ...any thoughts?

 

[henrystrawn]

I really like this motherboard. I just upgraded the AMD Regor 245 for a AMD 955 BE. I sold the two Nvidia G92s (8800 GT, 9800 GT) for $35 bucks a pop on craig's list (they went quick) and got a XFX HD5770.

I clocked the 955 BE to 3.817 with just the multipier, and DROPPED the voltage. There was no Vdrop with this board, and the Vdroop was negligible. Easy, Peezy OC.

When I had my 3 monitors, I found the same solution that you did with benchmarks. I plan on going back to three monitors, with the ATI "eyefinity" feature of the 5770, when I can get a monitor that has a Displayport input. I would much rather spend $100 towards a new monitor than pay that much for an DP to VGA adapter. It is nice to be able to run 3 display on one card.

I built my wife's system with this same motherboard, and I have been really impressed with it for a budget board. I think that for the price, this is one kickass board.

I haven't tried "Eve", not much into online games, but loved Dragon's Age origins.