SLi on 7600GT?

[Emultra]

So I got this Asus EN7600GT. Some other models (other brands) explicitly have the term "SLI" in them to indicate it works with them. But would it work with this model as well? Is SLI support model-wide (for any 7600GT?) regardless of brand?

Then on to the question: would it be a good idea to buy another card to SLI it with in the first place? It'd be about $130 for another card here in Sweden.

I'll clarify by mentioning that I'm a gamer, and the CPU is an Athlon64 3200+ and 1Gb RAM.

 

[PCTC2]

yes, it is SLI capable (it should have an SLI connector on the top of the card.) It will run with any 7600GT as long as they have the same amount of memory.

For the price, it probably would be beneficial to go SLI, but only if you have an SLI board already. I have a 7950GT SLI setup and it does help if you are not bottlenecked elsewhere.

 

[aka1nas]

SLI with anything except the highest model or two of GPU is usually a waste. Especially with mid-range or lower end cards, as they don't have the memory bandwidth to scale well with higher resolutions and effects like AA. You probably don't really want to double your framerate at whatever settings your single 7600GT can handle, you want to be able to crank up the settings and still have playable framerates.

 

[Emultra]

I play games at 1024x768 since my monitor (CRT) displays some weird vertical lines at higher resolutions. I might replace it eventually, but meh.

The BioShock demo ran reasonably well on medium settings at that resolution. So I figure I'm gonna need to upgrade to run at high or run later Unreal 3, Crysis and IdTech 5 engine games even remotely well in the future.

Will SLi'ing 7600GT enable me to up the settings at 1024x768?

 

[Emultra]

Bump.

 

[MarcVenice]

Can't you sell the one you've got? If you wanna play games at reasonably high settings you want something better, not sli-ed 7600gt's. I'd wait till those games are out, and buy a 8800gts or whatever is a good deal by then.

 

[Emultra]

No such thing as a good deal on new video card models in Sweden. Those $130 I mentioned for another 7600GT, compared to sub-100 in the US? That number scales upwards as you go to newer models, where the difference in price between say newegg and a local store can be as much as a single 7600GT costs.

 

[corsa]

question.....is your 1Gb of RAM enough ? friends pc running 7600gt wasnt the same when we pulled a stick from its 2GB pair playing Fear, u might find u will need more memory when u get a better video card.

 

[Emultra]

Yeah I've considered that. From what I know, putting another 1Gb RAM in there would lower the "speed" from 400Mhz to 333 or something, I'm only barely recalling what I read about it two and a half years ago. Maybe it's worth it for the extra memory, though.

 

[shadowofthesun]

That's strange- it shouldn't downclock existing RAM unless you use slower RAM in conjunction with faster... if your new stick is 400mhz you should be fine.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: shadowofthesun
That's strange- it shouldn't downclock existing RAM unless you use slower RAM in conjunction with faster... if your new stick is 400mhz you should be fine.

If he has a revision D(Winchester) or earlier A64, it can only run 4 sticks of DDR at PC2700 speeds. If it's revision E(Venice or an X2), he should be fine, but may need to manually set the speed in the BIOS as some were not updated to automatically set it to DDR400 on a Rev E chip.

 

[themisfit610]

Right, but forget about 1T

 

[Emultra]

Originally posted by: themisfit610
Right, but forget about 1T

"1T"?

And my core is Winchester, which I remember now that you mentioned it. Currently I have 2 x 512 RAM sticks.

 

[Emultra]

Bump.

 

[themisfit610]

IIRC, if you have more than two double sided RAM modules, you can't run 1T - you're forced down to 2T.

I have 2x512 and 1x1GB (all double sided), and my system won't POST with 1T, but is flawless at DDR400 2T CAS3.

~MiSfit

 

[corsa]

Emultra, the step up to having more RAM far outways the stepdown to running 2T command rate

 

[Emultra]

Originally posted by: corsa
Emultra, the step up to having more RAM far outways the stepdown to running 2T command rate

Thanks. I should strongly consider getting another stick, then? Will 2 x 512 or 1 x 1024 make any difference?