SLI vs single card question

shuvool

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Feb 2, 2010
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I was...shall we say...uninformed about the x16/x8/x4 lane part of SLI when I bought my upgrade parts for my PC, and at the moment, I am sitting with several nice pieces to put together with a bit of confusion.

I originally planned to run both 9800 GTX cards (both 512 MB, one is XFX and one is evga, but that shouldn't matter, although the box on the evga indicates it is 9800GTX+, while the newegg link http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130339 indicates it is 9800GTX) in SLI mode, but I didn't know to ensure that the mobo http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131398 had 2 pcie x8/x16 slots to put them in.

So my question is...in order to make the most of what I have without having to go ans spend another hundred bucks or so on a new motherboard, would it be more effective to play games (World of Warcraft, Crysis, MW2, Sims 3) on a single 9800GTX or on 2 at X4 SLI?
 

shuvool

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Feb 2, 2010
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yeah, I just took another look and I originally missed that the on-board graphics on the card are ATI, which means that the board is probably crossfire, not SLI (the specs don't say either word but I would assume that a board with on board ATI graphics probably isn't going to have an Nvidia graphics chipset) so I guess I have a spare 9800 gtx for the moment