P5N-E SLI + HD Radeon 6950

I currently have a P5N-E SLI motherboard

http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/In [...] /P5NE_SLI/

Currently I have two xfx 8800GT run in SLI that have provided me with enough graphical power for years,
they have finally run their course and I am thinking of upgrading.

Would a HD Radeon 6950 run with this motherboard?
It seems to be the next equivalent of the 8800GT for this generation which is exactly what I'm after,
not to mention it is good value for money.
It should have the juice to run my photography programs and latest games e.g. skyrim
(I will overclock it also by flashing to the 6970)

http://www.pc-titan.com/product_in [...] -HDMI.html

Any help would be appreciated.

If the two will not work together in harmony then can you suggest any new motherboards?
(link them from PC Titan if you can)

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My computer specs are as follows:
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MOBO - Asus P5N-E SLI (2 PCI, 1 PCI-E x1, 2 PCI-E x16, 4 DDR2 DIMM, Audio, Gigabit LAN, IEEE-1394)
CPU - DualCore Intel Core 2 Duo E8500, 3200 MHz (9.5 x 337)
RAM - 2 GB DDR2-800 DDR2 SDRAM x 2
GPU - XFX 8800GT Nvidia (512 MB) x 2 in SLI
SOUND - Realtek ALC883 @ nVIDIA nForce 430i (MCP51)
HARD DRIVE - ST375084 0AS SCSI Disk Device (750 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-II)
POWER - PowerCool 850W PC-850AUBA Quad 12v V2.2 80 Efficiency PSU - 850AUBA
Windows 7 Ultimate with DX11

Thanks in advance.

Hi, no you should not have a problem running that card with your motherboard, and yes the 6950 is a very good card.

A lot of people out there are running current gen graphics cards with their LGA775 systems

Q9550+XFX 6870 Black Edition FTW !!! didn't get the 6950/6970 as i was short on funds.

**

manufacturers learn't of this cheap way to upgrade cards so AMD but a lock on the BIOS modding thingy...so i think you'd be out of options to mod 6950 bios into a 6970.

i was one of the members who refereed a new board to an OP(not long ago-maybe a year or so ago) cos he had an Asus P5N-E sli board - and i came a cross a thread like yours only on OCN and they also mentioned how bad that board was...for OC'ing and the troubles with later gen GPU's.

sir as a newbie yourself - you don't grasp the extent of your comments. mods can penalize you for your behaviour. Some P5N-E boards were really awesome to work with, some ...well... most were dodgy. that doesn't mean ALL of them are.

FYI - if you look at OP.

site and OP mentions that PCI-E slots are rated at x16

but what's not mentioned is the version. last time i checked. PCI-E 2.0 cards are backwards compatible with PCI-E 1.0 slots. Here's the issue in fine print: PCI-E 2.0 cards can run in a PCI-E 1.1, 1.0b slot but nadda on a 1.0a slot

so i think the bigger issue here is, is the PCI-E slot on OP's mobo a PCI-E 1.0a, 1.0b , 1.1 or 2.0(i doubt its the latest)

@ pb2011 - i think you drank too much duff

Sorry wasn't meaning to insult but I think it's really out of order to give misleading advice without any qualification to do so, especially to another new member.

I went through a lot of heartache with my Radeon, including making up cables and adaptors to run it from a separate power supply.

Newer, higher end Radeons simply do not work (at all or reliably?) with this board.

It is not a criticism of a board launched in 2005 though. Asus don't have an open ended commitment to test and release BIOS upgrades 6-7 years later, annoying as it is and it's certainly not a criticism of the Radeon which is amazing for the money.

Apologies to the person concerned. However please be more careful in future.

No, not at all. I was just hoping not to get modded on my second post!

I actually got a lot out of my P5NE-SLI and actually once you understand its quirks, it overclocks reasonably. I could run my E5400 (2.7GHz) at 3.6GHz. Finding out the hard way with the Radeon was extremely painful though!

In fact it's probably been the mainboard I've owned longest since a 440BX.

FYI The board I got was a Zotac G31 Value for £25 and it worked fine with my CPU, RAM and the Radeon 6850 even with a generic 400W PSU.

This is my rig until Ivy bridge launches (I waited so long for bulldozer!).

I also bought a £8 E4400 second hand and used an old Radeon 5450 in the P5N which worked fine and is now in use elsewhere.

Your cpu is in any case going to bottle neck the 6950 not to mention 2 6950's

And i forgot that you had a nvidia chipset that could cause compatibility issues

Or the deluxe for £6 more

sorry for double posting;

yeah the one you've found is good - though keep in mind the size and quality of the heatsinks over the vrm's/mosfets show how they are designed to deliver power to your cpu to gve you an overlcok. getting something cheap cos of credit crunch and then trying to make it do what its not built will help you see the 4th of July on your case

on the asus boards - i've seen people push your E8500 to 4.0GHZ with a few tweaks.

for slightly more and better value; http://www.pc-titan.com/product_in [...] Y00Z-.html

http://www.pc-titan.com/product_in [...] G0EAY.html

http://www.pc-titan.com/product_in [...] 30-G0.html

* you'll thank me later after making the purchase with the ROG cos of all the neat bells and whistles you get with the baord...ofcourse you can also get on the P5Q-E boards

I say buy the card, then upgrade time you will already have a decent card.

It will bottle neck the card but it will still run your games much better than your previous card.

I'm not saying that the card won't work period on your current motherboard, make sure before you buy another board. you can update the bios with the latest version, which could help if you have any issues.

To buy a new lga775 board is a waste, you might as well just save up and get yourself a next gen sandy bridge build. Don't waste money on old tech.

Well it turns out that PC-Titan is a very dodgy site indeed, so I won't be going there... but it was helpful to see products i suppose.

This means I'm going to have to shell out a little more money - I'm hoping not to spend more than £300 on both the card and mobo.

The card is also outdated but the newer version can still be overclocked fairly easily.
http://uk.asus.com/Graphics_Cards/ [...] ifications

Cheers for everyone's help!

I'll be sure to pick myself up a CPU cooler, they shouldn't make much of an impact on my bank balance!

Yeah, I think I'm pulling the trigger on the GENEII and EAH6950 DCII/2DI4S/2GD5

Hopefully I'll have a computer that can cope with today's demands shortly

if you can't find the gene, the formula is the cream of the crop only bigger - more sata ports, dual lan, x-fi riser card, more OC'ing headrooom cos of better cooling...should i continue ???

just remember, by overclocking headroom i meant that you can sustain the overclock for a longer time, not getting an overclock of something like 5GHz on air