Legit Reviews

first off i'd like to wish all the users here a happy Valentines Day, chances are at least a few of us aren't going to be getting any *cough cough* valentines day cards today!
allllrighty now i've got an iffy question.
i've been saving up for my ASUS 650i motherboard ---> http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6813131142

and i'm also saving to get 2 GeForce 8800GTS cards to slap in there.
my question is simple. knowing that the 650i runs 8x in SLI and the 680i runs SLI at 16x ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131073 ), would the speed gain in SLI mode be noticeable? i'm not sure exactly what kind of performance gains i would see if i went with the 680i, but honestly i wouldnt mind just waiting another paycheck to get the computer.

feedback?

benchmarks have shown that 8x and 16x does not differ that much in performance. it's about like 1-5% I think.

I would actually suggest you opted out the 8800GTS in sli but rather go for the 8800GTX card as it's a single card and use less power and also free up your space.

As for going to the 680i, I haven't seen reviews compare these two chipsets but I think the performance would be very similar to each other. If I am not mistaken the 650i actually uses slightly older nvidia chipset for the northbridge (or is it SB), so there's a few option that's missing but nothing major.

SAMSAMHA wrote:benchmarks have shown that 8x and 16x does not differ that much in performance. it's about like 1-5% I think.

thats good, as for the gts to gtx upgrade i just might, now knowing that the mobo's aren't THAT different. saving some money on the mobo by not going to the 680i would free up some cash for the gtx which is what i wanted anyhow

as for the "older chipset" i think i'll survive, i'm running on one of the worlds worst rigs ever. think Compaq, circa 2000 B.C.
ok so not that bad but i'm on a Radeon 7000 card on a really slow setup.

ASUS just released a stripped down Striker Extreme board with the same solid-state capacitors, simply missing a few of the bells and whistles of the Striker. It's running 200 bucks on newegg right now.

ASUS P5N32-E SLI Plus is the name. Uses the 650i chipset and bridges that $100 gap between the 680i's and the 650i's so far....I really like it.

Here's the link:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131153

i checked out the board and it runs 16x in SLI mode. not a bad deal, it has some nicer features from but it's not way expensive. thanks for the tip!

Another thing to consider is the PSU requirements for running SLi versus one single Video Card. I'm not sure which PSU you have chosen, but you've got to take that into consideration. I agree with Samsamha with regards to going with the single 8800GTX. That card is a monster and should run anything that you throw at it.