A good SLI?

[Gatecrasher3]

I stumbled across a second 8800GT for my rig, but I don't have a SLI board so it’s unusable for me as of yet. I am building a new PC now so I have a chance to pick myself out a new MB with SLI, but what one?
I am going to be running a q6600 (that I will be OC'ing) with pc8500 ram so those are my limitations that I need to work with, and a price tag less then $200.
Heres a dumb question, if a board says it uses crossfire it does not mean it can also run SLI right?

Suggestions needed.

 

[Cheffy]

No, a crossfire board supports ATI dual gpus only. SLI is for those with NVIDIA chipsets.

 

[silent-circuit]

EVGA 750i SLI FTW is probably your best bet... which isn't saying much. I've been through a huge variety of 680i, 680i LT, and 780i based boards. None are without their quirks, many just broken outright.

Why did you get such fast RAM for a Q6600? DDR2-800 is really all that's necessary for that chip to reach its potential under air cooling, and in most cases, water as well.

Crossfire capable boards cannot run SLI, no. Only SLI certified boards using Nvidia chipsets can run SLI. So, something 680i, 680i LT, 650i SLI, 780i, 750i, or 790i based as of right now.

The only board that supports SLI and Crossfire on the market today in so far as I know is Intel's Skulltrail platform, which uses a pair of LGA-771 quad cores and runs $600+ without processors. Not what you're after.

 

[Gatecrasher3]

yaa I picked up the 750I SLI Ftw today figuring it was the best way to go...
can you describe some of these "quirks"?

I went with the 8500 ram because I was looking at the e8400, but at the last min changed to the q6600. I liked everything i was reading about the 8500 and it was only a few dollars more.

as for the problems i may face with the FTW, if it runs good then I will keep it, but if its full of bugs then i guess i will sell the 2 8800gts and get a good single pci board and new gpu...


thanks for the help guys.