new video card

[Paul]

Ive been looking at getting a new video card because my old one has been giving me problems, its a nvidia 9100 and the latest driver doesn't support it and everything is laggy so i think its time to upgrade.

Ive been looking at the Nvidia 9800 gt, or 9600 gt. I'm not too knowledgeable on this so when it says SLI ready does that mean i could hook up my 9100 to it when i set it up?

idk, take a look at these and tell me what ya think, or a good suggestion thats around a hundred bucks.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_geforce_9800gt_us.html
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00170H0Q4/ref=nosim/7240466-rg2304-00-20


also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tyct9l-fD8

[majer]

not to shabby. check with newegg.com or microcenter if you have one near you there having some really good deals and rebates. I would probably drop a Little more money then a hundred because your going to get what you pay for. as for the SLI that means that card can be linked in a crossfire with the other one however both cards need to be SLI ready and your motherboard also needs to be able to support SLI ( you need two PCI-E slots) and I'm not for sure but i think if you link the new card with the old one it will dumb down the speed of the new one don't quote me on that but I'm pretty sure people use two identical cards for crossfire.

[Reddawn]

yeah for crossfire the cards have to be the same

[Jim Tressel]

Just so no one makes the same mistake that I made a couple years ago:

nVidia: Uses SLI to link multiple cards in the same series.  For instance, a 512mb 9600gt and a 256mb 9600.  Beware, though, that the faster card will be throttled down to match the clock speed and memory size of the lesser card.  Only works on a mobo with SLI controller.

ATI: Uses Crossfire(X) to link multiple cards.  Cards must be identical.  Only works on a mobo with Crossfire(X) controller.


Basically, SLI is nVidia's proprietary format and Crossfire is ATI's format.  You cannot link nVidia cards on a crossfire board nor can you link ATI cards on an SLI board.  You have been warned.