9800GX2 and X48

[bellinghamwa]

I know neither of these are officially out, but I am looking for input on what Mobo to get.
I am building a new system with a single 9800GX2 and was going to use the Asus P5E3 Premium (X48), but I wonder if this card is compatible??
Can any previous 7950GX2 users chime in? Did it work well/at all on Intel boards?

[zanzabar]

it should work fine like the 7950 did, but unless ur stepping up the 3870x2 should be faster

[Asgard_thor]

the card should be fine

[xMrBunglex]

a single 9800 GX2 will run on any mobo with a PCI-E slot. you'll only be able to run two of them if you have an SLI-capable board though - and Vista. Quad SLI and Quad CrossFire won't work in XP.

[tiro_uspsss]

a single 9800 GX2 will run on any mobo with a PCI-E slot. you'll only be able to run two of them if you have an SLI-capable board though - and Vista. Quad SLI and Quad CrossFire won't work in XP.

wouldnt be so sure of that - check linky in this thread:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=180339

[YukonTrooper]

Whatever you do, make sure you get a PCI-e 2.0 compatible board. The 3870X2 and 8900GX2 are the first cards to take advantage of the extra bandwidth.

[tiro_uspsss]

Whatever you do, make sure you get a PCI-e 2.0 compatible board. The 3870X2 and 8900GX2 are the first cards to take advantage of the extra bandwidth.

serious? u got any links for read-up on that, wouldnt mind having a read, cheers!

[ncsa]

The 7950GX2 worked well on most Intel Chipset boards, it will come down to whose 'flavour' , for instance the DFI P35 would not run the 7950GX2 until a very poor BIOS was released (it wouldn't run in the DFI 680i either) but ran fine on the Abit IP35Pro.

I know neither of these are officially out, but I am looking for input on what Mobo to get.
I am building a new system with a single 9800GX2 and was going to use the Asus P5E3 Premium (X48), but I wonder if this card is compatible??
Can any previous 7950GX2 users chime in? Did it work well/at all on Intel boards?

[xMrBunglex]

wouldnt be so sure of that - check linky in this thread:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=180339

i read the thread and i'm still not sure what you mean. it's a fact that quad-GPU's don't work in XP with DX9. no driver will change that. as far as what chipset is required, the 9800 GX2 should be no different than the 7950 GX2 - it worked on all chipsets.

[Flip_Lx]

7950gx2 running in my cheapo p35 board no problems, ran fine on my old nf4 and has been used on an msi965 and x38 without any problems

[DaMulta]

a single 9800 GX2 will run on any mobo with a PCI-E slot. you'll only be able to run two of them if you have an SLI-capable board though - and Vista. Quad SLI and Quad CrossFire won't work in XP.

There have been reports that it still does not work right on non ninvida chipsets because you have to turn on SLi.

I wonder if this is a shaddy way to get more people to buy thier chipsets.

[bellinghamwa]

I didn't realize that the 9800GX2 isn't really a 1GB card.
Is it true that an application can only use 512MB of the RAM??

[BenchZowner]

I didn't realize that the 9800GX2 isn't really a 1GB card.
Is it true that an application can only use 512MB of the RAM??

Each GPU has 512MB of memory.
But it's not shared or something that you can say "512MB + 512MB=1024MB".
"Each cards memory contains the same things" ( the " are there for a reason ).

[bellinghamwa]

Each GPU has 512MB of memory.
But it's not shared or something that you can say "512MB + 512MB=1024MB".
"Each cards memory contains the same things" ( the " are there for a reason ).

Is that the same for SLI? If I had 2 9800GXT in SLI would I still only have 512MB of RAM for an application?

I played Crysis the other day with my 8800GTX for 30 minutes and the game was using more than 751MB!!!

[BenchZowner]

Yes, the same applies for SLI ( ed: The 9800GX2 is actually 2 cards in a single "package" [ or should I say sandwich, due to the stock heatsink/cover ], it's using SLI to work ).

[bellinghamwa]

Then could I potentially get better performance from a 8800GTX Ultra (768MB and 384 bit) than from a 9800GTX (512MB and 256bit) or does the 9800GTX have other advantages that will out way the more RAM and bit?

[CraptacularOne]

Then could I potentially get better performance from a 8800GTX Ultra (768MB and 384 bit) than from a 9800GTX (512MB and 256bit) or does the 9800GTX have other advantages that will out way the more RAM and bit?

Teh 9800GX2 will be faster because it has 2 cores to process the data vs 1 on the 8800Ultra. The benefit of SLI isn't to increase your memory because you don't (as was explained to you above) but to increase your GPU rendering power.

[WrigleyVillain]

I played Crysis the other day with my 8800GTX for 30 minutes and the game was using more than 751MB!!!

What res was that? My personal record is 865 with Oblivion at 1920x1200, 2x AA + HDR (all the hi-res texture mods etc). Most of my games still use less than 500, btw.

[bellinghamwa]

Teh 9800GX2 will be faster because it has 2 cores to process the data vs 1 on the 8800Ultra. The benefit of SLI isn't to increase your memory because you don't (as was explained to you above) but to increase your GPU rendering power.

But what about the regular 9800GTX (not GX2). Could the 8800GTX Ultra (768MB and 384 bit) potentially outperform a 9800GTX (512MB and 256bit)?

I don't understand why NVIDIA is limiting cards to 512MB if some games will use as many 750MB.

[bellinghamwa]

What res was that? My personal record is 865 with Oblivion at 1920x1200 (all the hi-res texture mods etc). Most of my games still use less than 500, btw.

It was 1920x1200;XP SP2; settings on High and 4xAA. It was very shiny and a barely bearable 25 FPS.

I hit about 530 in World in Conflict and 675 in the Froggy Demo.

[CraptacularOne]

But what about the regular 9800GTX (not GX2). Could the 8800GTX Ultra (768MB and 384 bit) potentially outperform a 9800GTX (512MB and 256bit)?

I don't understand why NVIDIA is limiting cards to 512MB if some games will use as many 750MB.

What you were probably looking at was the system RAM being used in regards to Crysis.

And yes it is entirely possible and probably likely that the 8800GTX/Ultra will perform better in the high resolutions because of their larger amount of memory and wider data path.

[BenchZowner]

Then could I potentially get better performance from a 8800GTX Ultra (768MB and 384 bit) than from a 9800GTX (512MB and 256bit) or does the 9800GTX have other advantages that will out way the more RAM and bit?

Well, considering the overclocking potential of the 9800GTX ( G92 core ) and the faster RAM used ( reaching GDDR3-2460 ) it'll be at least on par with the 8800 GTX/Ultra even on high resolutions, considering that we'd overclock both cards.

On Air and water cooling the 9800GTX has the advantage of higher GPU & Shader clocks, and "loses" in memory bandwidth ( ~78.8gbps against ~105.6gbps ). [ approx. ]

[bellinghamwa]

What you were probably looking at was the system RAM being used in regards to Crysis.

It was definitely the Video Memory. The physical memory was over 1700. See the screen shot in my post above.

[CraptacularOne]

It was definitely the Video Memory. The physical memory was over 1700. See the screen shot in my post above.

I see no screens

[bellinghamwa]

I see no screens

Post #14...4:49pm