Running Dual ATI Video Cards in an SLI Motherboard

[dopefisher]

Is it possible to run, say, two x1600xt's in an Nforce 4 SLI Ultra motherboard, or does Nvidia prevent this somehow? I currently have an ATI card, but I am not impressed with the crossfire motherboards out there.

 

[i_am_a_newbie]

Heh, I was wondering myself but honestly I'd rather not attempt it.

 

[kirock]

No not a chance. The SLI set-up from nVidia is designed for nvidia cards only. CrossFire is designed for ATI cards only. It's an oil and water thing.

 

[Didou]

You can run two cards to power 4 separate screens for example but you won't be able to run them in CrossFire mode that's all.

 

[dopefisher]

thanks, yeah, this answers my question.., well it kinda brings up another, although i am sure i know the answer.

would it be possible then to run an nvidia card & an ATI card in sli/crossfire mode together?

 

[Didou]

No. You cannot run SLI other then with two similar nVidia cards & you can't run CrossFire other then with two ATI cards.

 

[matt_tr]

I'm looking to upgrade...

Given the info in this post..... (can't run crossfire cards config on an nvidia SLI MB)...

Can you run a single ATI GPU, say an X1900XT or XTX in one PCIe x16 slot and then run an X1600 or X1800 in the other PCIe x16 slot, which is only used for physics processing, on a nVidia SLI motherboard?

ala http://www.ati.com/technology/crossfire/physics/index.html

 

[Didou]

I doubt that would be possible but the info is quite scarce from ATI's side since it's only been demoed, it's not yet available to consumers.

 

[Nanahara]

SLI motherboard and Crossfire motherboards have two completely different chipsets for how the cards are raided together. They display half the screen but in a different way.

For an SLI screen it would look like this. (numbers represent GPU Number):

11111
11111
11111
22222
22222

Crossfire is like this:

12121
21212
12121
21212
12121

If you want the cards raided together you'll need to get a crossfire motherboard. But if you wanted to run 4 monitor's I'm sure an SLI motherboard would work just as well for that, but what's the point? :3 If you want 4 monitors, get a crossfire motherboard and don't use the raid cable!