P35-ds3l support sli?

[mmmikezd]

All I need to know is if my motherboard supports SLI. I have a single motherboard in it right now but I found another video card that is the same as the one I have in there so I just wanted to know if my motherboard is SLI ready?


Thanks.


Mike

 

[jaquith]

Assuming the GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2629#sp it has only (1) one PCIe Slot so there's no second PCIe slot for SLI or CF. Getting an internal SLI 'Dual' GPU {e.g. GeForce® 9800 GX2} would be the only choice. However, you can run any single* GPU nVidia or AMD/ATI; see image below - bottlenecking.

However, the newer single GPU's will by themselves {*} bottleneck your older LGA 775.

 

[4745454b]

Interesting pic. I'm surprised to see how much bottlenecking you get with a GTS450. (similar performance to the GTS250.) Then I realized it says C2D, and we get no info on clock speeds.

 

[jaquith]

Here's the original -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGdo75gasaQ

 

[4745454b]

I decided I wasn't going to watch the whole thing, works internet seems to be running very slow. I did watch long enough to know he's using an x38 board with four gigs of ram. He never ID'd the CPU, but it's a "C2D clocked at 1.8GHz." This makes it an E6300 probably, or something like it.

What I took mild offense to is you said a "newer single GPU's will by themselves {*} bottleneck your older LGA 775." An old dual core with sub 2GHz clocks I would agree, but a quad core clocked at 3GHz or higher is still very potent. Even a stock clocked Q9550 should have no issues with a GTX480 compared to the newer CPUs. Its not the S775 thats the issue, its the slow CPU they put in that X38 board.

 

[jaquith]

That's like saying a 3GHz i7-950 or i5-2300 etc perform the same as a Q9650; there's an approximate 20%~30% loss in CPU performance alone. I too realize the OP did not post their CPU, but there's no way that I'm ignoring the problem and not bring important fact to the OP's attention.

Most games totally ignore Hyper-Threading all together and most also only use 2 cores. I'm an X58 guy and the new LGA 2011 interests me only because of my setup and the fact of 32-lanes, but a 6-core or 8-core SB-E will do little to help in gaming over the current SB.

I guarantee that ALL current mid-end or higher GPUs are being bottlenecked by ANY LGA 775 CPU and architecture. The only real question is by how much.

 

[4745454b]

And I still disagree.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/50?vs=108

Not sure how this works, I picked the Q9550 vs the i7 860. Scroll down to the bottom where the games are. Only one game seems bottlenecked on the S775 platform and thats Farcry 2. All of the other games are within a few percentage points. In the actual CPU tasks the Q9550 is not even close. But in games it still makes for an ok CPU.

 

[jaquith]

anandtech.com uses synthetic benchmarks, and benching apps like 3DS MAX R9 are DirectX 9.0c applications; most Windows 7 are 10 or 11. Instead -> http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html or best find CPU + SAME GPU to compare benchmarks.

If you believe that "3GHz i7-950 or i5-2300 etc perform the same as a Q9650" then it's pointless have a discussion.

I suggest you find your CPU with the same resolution, AA, and GPU then find the newer CPU and newer sockets and compare.

 

[4745454b]

First, I suggest you calm down. I can tell from what your writing that you aren't reading what I'm posting.

anandtech.com uses synthetic benchmarks, and benching apps like 3DS MAX R9 are DirectX 9.0c applications; most Windows 7 are 10 or 11.

I never said the Q9550 could hang with the core series on CPU tasks. No need at all to mention 3DS or any of the other things that core would kick S775's butt. And as much as you and others might want to forget/ignore, there are still a lot of DX9 games. Even Duke Nukem and many others this year will be DX9.

Instead -> http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html or best find CPU + SAME GPU to compare benchmarks.

I tried to use that link. It will only show me passmark. I can't seem to find the way to change the benchmark. If you can tell me how to change that to a game I'd be happy to look at that link.

If you believe that "3GHz i7-950 or i5-2300 etc perform the same as a Q9650" then it's pointless have a discussion.

I never said that. I even said "In the actual CPU tasks the Q9550 is not even close." For gaming however, you only need a CPU that's "good enough" to drive the GPU. Is a 1.8GHz dual core fast enough? No. But a Quad that's 3GHz is.

If you can't read and understand what I'm writing, then yes. It would be pointless to have a discussion.

 

[jaquith]

...but a quad core clocked at 3GHz or higher is still very potent. Even a stock clocked Q9550 should have no issues with a GTX480 compared to the newer CPUs. Its not the S775 thats the issue, its the slow CPU they put in that X38 board.

It's stuff like this that makes the discussion pointless, especially if you believe it.

Here's the results from a HD 5850 less powerful than GTX 480, so if you choose to pair up your Q9550 + GTX 480 ... okay. I wasted my time finding those please enlighten me with Q9550 + GTX 480 and an i7. I game at 8xAA on 5900+ x 1080.

Again, it's just the cost of ownership. Imagine how I feel with an i7 980X and a SB 1/3 the price more less equal, and when I upgrade later on the LGA 2011 by 2013~2014 same old thing -- life.

 

[4745454b]

Again no link for me to check this.

Looking at this chart, and trying to understand it, I think it's saying that the i7 860 is just under 17% faster on average. Some games like Bioshock are less then 7% faster on the i7, while others like cellfactor revolution is 59% faster. (I'd like to also point out that of the closest 6 games, 5 of them are DX10 and you said something about the i7 would run them much faster. Of the top 10 games where the i7 has its biggest lead, 8 of them are DX9.)

I guess this is a matter of what you call bottleneck. Your first link you showed had your frame rates being cut by 50-66%. That's the one I called BS on. S775 isn't THAT far behind. 17%? I'd believe that. Bottlenecked? I'd argue that for gamers on a budget, if getting a used S775 setup with a fast quad frees up the funds for you to afford a 5850 or 6950 then do so. I'd rather have that setup then a newer i5/i7 and a 5750/5770.