Asus A8N-SLI Motherboard Question

[obiwaynekenobi]

I'm going to upgrade the parts in my Computer for the first time since like 2002!

woo

I have two X700 Video cards, older cards I know but they'll do, they are supposed to support SLI. so I'm looking for a board that will support SLI.

so I have two questions

There are THREE editions of the Asus A8N-SLI Board, a standard, a Deluxe and a premium, I cannot see any REAL difference between the boards besides the types of CPU it'll support. So what is the real difference between the three?
and does the board support SLI?

Does anyone have this board and is it a nice stable board?

Thanks,
~obi~

 

[LOUISSSSS]

i'm pretty sure x700 is by ATi?

 

[obiwaynekenobi]

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS
i'm pretty sure x700 is by ATi?

They are but that wasn't the question, it was how stable is the mobo?

secondly... how hard is it to setup SLI anyway? I havn't the foggest how it's done. I've been out of the hardware loop for a long time.

 

[obiwaynekenobi]

oh and is there a signifcant difference between the three boards?

 

[letdown427]

SLI is an nvidia technology. ATI's equivalent is crossfire, you'll need to find boards that support crossfire if you wish to use those two cards again, but then, I'm not sure whether crossfire will be supported by them, as I think it needs some kind of master card. well, it did, i'm not sure about most recent developments.

 

[1N0V471V]

First off, x700s cannot be used in a dual configuration via ATIs Crossfire technology.

That particular motherboard supports NVIDIAs dual card solution, SLI, which can only be used with NVIDIA based graphics cards. If you want Crossfire you'll need X800xx series cards or better.

 

[imported_fx]

You probably dont need SLI for that ATI video card. Asus is pretty stable motherboard so If you want Asus motherboard then I'll suggest you to get Asus A8R-MVP that overclocks very well if you plan to overclock.

 

[Wall7486]

I don't recall x700 having a master card. Even then I wouldn't run them in crossfire.

ASUS A8N-E - Nforce4 board that contains no SLI. It's basically the same board as the A8N deluxe, except that there is no SLI feature.

ASUS A8N Deluxe - First SLI board by ASUS. The first ones had a really loud chipset fan and was prone to dying in a month or two. The newer ones seem to have better chipset fans from various user reviews.

ASUS A8N Premium - Improved version of the A8N deluxe, which has no fan cooling the chipset. Instead it is a just a heatpipe cooler.

ASUS A8N32 Deluxe - Newest board from ASUS that allows two video cards in SLI to run at x16 as oppose to x8 in the older boards. Slightly improved overclocking features. Otherwise it is the same as the A8N premium.

 

[obiwaynekenobi]

so basicly there is no way ti SLI/crossfire them period?

 

[Wall7486]

SLI is for Nvidia cards only.

In order to do crossfire. You need 1 ATI CRossfire master card and 1 other ATI card.
For example if you want to crossfire x1800xt. You will need a x1800 Crossfire card and a x1800xt card and put them on a motherboard that has the ati chipset. All A8N are nvidia chipset. If you want ATI crossfire you need to go for something like a ASUS A8R32 MVP.

 

[obiwaynekenobi]

ok so I'm pretty screwed as far as using these dual at all then aren't I?

 

[NuroMancer]

Yes,
The X700 series from Ati does not support Crossfire, and since it is an ATI product, it cannot be run in SLI.
So there is no way for you to use these cards to render one screen. You can use them as seperate cards to power multiple displays but thats about it.

 

[obiwaynekenobi]

bah, oh well. Guess I'll sell my second card since it's unopened.

Thanks guys for your help.