Asus A8N SLI SE with Nvidia GFX 275

johnhutch2000

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Hi Guys,

Every google search I do for research on this subject puts me back here so I figure why not ask the comunity directly as they clearly know what they're talking about :)

I have an ASUS Nforce A8N-SLI SE motherboard with a pair of (badly matched) 7600GT cards. I had an asus one that was fine but then my mate gave me his XFX 7600GT and I put them together as SLI which although increased FPS on some games caused wierd alternating frame red artefacting on other games (such as Prototype) and now some artefacting with Bioshock 2. Turning SLI off fixes it but also reduces the FPS, so I'm going to buy a new graphics card.

Current Spec:
ASUS A8N-SLI SE
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
3GB RAM
SLI:
Geforce 7600GT (XFX)
Geforce 7600GT (ASUS)
Windows 7

I'm obviously going to upgrade the RAM but my main concern is the graphics cards I want to buy a single good graphics card that will last a while so if I next upgrade the Mobo and Processor I can still keep the gfx card so I'm leaning towards buying a "XFX nVidia GeForce GTX275 896MB"
which looks nice but I'm wondering if the fact my motherboard only has PCI-E 16x and the card is PCI-E2 will limit its potential.
The alternative is the much cheaper but much older design Geforce 8800GT, with the possibility of buying another later down the line to SLI them.

So my question is: will the GTX275 work with my ASUS A8N-SLI SE? (I can't seem to find a conclusive answer either way)
And secondly is it worth buying a GTX275 over an 8800GT given my other hardware specs.

Thanks in advance for anyone taking the time to reply.
:)
 
Solution
When I showed my 939 3800 x2 a pair of 8800GT's it ran into a corner and cried like a baby so I wonder if you might run into problems with anything more than a GTX260 216sp version card.

johnhutch2000

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Hi Mousemonkey, thanks for lightning response, I run my desktop at 1920x1200 and would of course love to run my games at that, but to keep the FPS high enough I run most at 1600x1024 or 1600x1000 depending on their support for widescreen ratios.

In response to Shadow187, I've found that my motherboard being Nvidia Nforce, although it 'should' work fine with Ati cards I've tried two different Ati cards in the past (I forget the names, it was a few years ago) and both created horrible artefacting so just to play it safe I want to stick to Nvidia cards. Thanks for the reply all the same though. :)

If anyone has any other suggestions as to another Nvidia card I'd also be interested, I'm just toying with the 8800 and the GTX 275 I'm not partial to either.

Cheers guys.
 

8800GTX's in Sli would swamp that CPU, a 275 or 5850 might as well unless the OP is running a really high res and extreme eye candy.
 

johnhutch2000

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Hi there, I just read your last post. When you said I'd run into problems are you just refering to the fact that it won't perform as well as it could or that it will actively reduce performance somehow? I definately don't want to create problems but I'm quite happy for it to not reach its full potential until I upgrade some other bits and pieces.

I've just had another look inside my machine and It's got an X-Power ATX 500 D - I'm wondering if the 275 is going to make this smoke?

I was looking at the XFX version as its got higher clock speeds, anyone agree/disagree?

I wanted this but its not in stock ATM.
http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalog?q=gtx+275&hl=en&show=dd&cid=5142988961504002961&sa=title#p
 

With a pair of 8800GT's in Sli and running @16 x 10 and max eye candy MOHAA became a slide show due to the CPU being overwhelmed, removing one card made the game run smooth as silk with the same settings after changing the mobo and CPU to an E8400 and 680i the game can be run in SLi at 16 x 10 and max eye candy but twice the frame rate that the single card got with the 939 CPU and silky smooth butteryness that the 939 just couldn't manage in SLi.
 

johnhutch2000

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Cool, starting to make sense :) thanks for explaining. So the demands of SLI will make the CPU choke if it can't handle it. What about just a single gtx275 if the CPU doesnt have to deal with the overhead of SLi then would that run ok?

I've also had difficulty finding an available gtx275, stock levels are 0 most places. I've been advised by Epsilon to hold out and wait for the release of the 3xx card series in a few months. Any thoughts?

Thanks again to all taking the time to help me out, Top guys! :sol:
 

What a lot of people and websites were calling the GT300 series as in Fermi has now been officially named the 4 series and the first two cards will be the GTX 480 & GTX 470 which it is hoped will turn up sometime in the early part of March. The 3xx series is for OEM's and so you won't be able to buy them from the likes of Newegg and such.
 

johnhutch2000

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Thanks Mousemonkey for the clarification. To both gracefully and Shadow I ask why such a downer on the rest of the setup? It's not brand new but equally its not slow either so wondering why the downer.

I can't run ATI cards on my motherboard as it is an Nforce chipset (ATI cards don't work so well) so I would be looking for some model of Nvidia. not a Radeon.
 

johnhutch2000

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Isn't it mostly the other way around? Your CPU will send data through to the GPU then out to the display. Surely the CPU cant be overwhelmed by a GPU because of the order in which the data is processed? - I'm not arguing I just cant reason why it would cause a problem.
Cheerz J
 
My bad.
Everything goes through the CPU for pre processing before it goes to the GPU to actually process.

Now say you have a *** CPU, it can send 50 bits of data to the graphics card per second, but the graphics card is able to process 100 bits of data per second. So basically, the CPU is holding the GPU back because it is not sending enough info to the GPU to keep up.

If the CPU sends more information (by being more powerful) the GPU would actually perform better, so you would notice frame rates and graphical benchmarks increasing when increasing the CPU power.

This is bottleneck, when any part of the computer is causing something else to not perform the way it could.

That's as simple as it gets I think.
 

gracefully

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http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/199157-28-nvidia-nforce-chipset-cards-compatible

That's what they want you to believe. ATI cards work just fine on any motherboard with PCI-e. :)

shadow explained it enough. Your CPU is holding your GPU back. You have a 500 HP engine stuck in heavy traffic.
 

johnhutch2000

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Haha nice anology!

I reckon your right but I'll stick to Nvidia for now, like the guy in the other thread said 'it seems like walking under a ladder' just kind of tempting fate.

I want to buy this Palit version of the 275..
http://www.overclock.co.uk/product/Palit-896MB-GDDR3-GeForce-GTX-275-VGADVIHDMI-PCI_8662.html

I'm going to increase the multiplier on the MB so the CPU steps up a few notches and up my RAM to something around the 6GB mark (as its so cheap why not?)

Anyone got any say on the Palit brand of cards? If so I'd like to hear it :)
 
That's not a good way to go, johnhutch. Like we've been trying to tell you (with analogies!), your CPU is subpar, especially compared with the card you're looking at. If you OC your CPU, the best card I'd recommend to you is an HD5770. nVidia's best card to compete with the HD5770 also happens to be priced at $60 more.

Without a huge OC, get an HD4850/GTS250. There will be absolutely no problem running an ATI card on an nForce chipset (I run an HD4650 on an nForce 610i).
 

gracefully

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The 5000 series of ATI have extremely good power management. The 5770, for instance, idles at 18W. If you badly want nVidia, I suggest you wait for their 400 series graphics cards. It's no good paying for last year's technology and have it replaced with something newer, better, at the same price in a month.