Needed: Advice

RWBRWB Icrontian
edited January 2006 in Hardware
OK currently I have an SLI capable motherboard with a single MSI Geforce 6600GT 128MB card. Is it possible to put another 6600GT card for SLI but the new card having 256MB of memory?

My understanding is that the primary card's memory is the memory that get's used and the secondary card's memory get's waisted and never used. I was thinking of getting a 6600GT 256 and putting it as my primary so that I could have 256MB of memory instead of 128 and have SLI at the same time.


But then again, would I be better off spending like $10 more on a card that is probably faster than 2 6600GT's anyway's? If so, what card is less than $200 that is faster than DUal 6600GT's and has 256MB memory?

Comments

  • tmh88tmh88 Pittsburgh / Athens, OH
    edited January 2006
    Most of the 6600 GT's are below $200 now. You shouldnt have too much of a problem finding one.
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited January 2006
    tmh88 wrote:
    Most of the 6600 GT's are below $200 now. You shouldnt have too much of a problem finding one.


    Yeah actually the one I Have is now $140, but the cunundrum I am facing is that it might be a waist of money in terms of performance gains in compairison to my options of having a slightly more expencive single card which may only cost $160 or something and be considerably faster.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited January 2006
    You won't get a card that's faster than SLI 6600GTs without paying ~$300.
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited January 2006
    I thought I had heard that the 6800 or something was faster than SLI 6600GT's, or a softmodded 6800.
  • roland_dmproland_dmp Oklahoma New
    edited January 2006
    RWB wrote:
    I thought I had heard that the 6800 or something was faster than SLI 6600GT's, or a softmodded 6800.

    It's possible that the softmodded 6800 could be faster than the SLI 6600GT's (I'm not positive on this though). But your odds on getting a 6800 to softmod isn't really all that great. It's like the flip of a coin, even if you go with a brand that softmods more often than others. More than likely, if a company is selling a card as a 6800 non GT or Ultra, those extra 4 pipelines are going to be damaged. It's up to you, but I wouldn't take the chance - my 6800's extra pipelines were damaged and completely unusable.
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited January 2006
    OK how about the SLI question of a 128MB 6600GT and a 256MB 6600GT, they'll also be different brands.

    Also while i was looking through Newegg I found a 6800GS, what the heck is a GS?
  • roland_dmproland_dmp Oklahoma New
    edited January 2006
    According to NVIDIA with the new Release 80 graphics drivers, you can indeed run two cards with different memory sizes (even different clock speeds at that)

    Unfortunately, you'd have to use Coolbits to get it to run right, and even then, it would use the card with the smaller amount of memory.

    http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone2_rel80.html
  • roland_dmproland_dmp Oklahoma New
    edited January 2006
    Missed your question on the 6800GS the first time. As far as I can tell, the GS is just a factory overclocked 6800.
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited January 2006
    I'll probably just save my money :P
  • edcentricedcentric near Milwaukee, Wisconsin Icrontian
    edited January 2006
    The GS's use different memory. They are about like an ultra, but they cost less because they use more available parts. They are short life parts and will vanish from the market as soon as this cycle is over.
    I would go $140 for another 66.
    You can't get more features/power/stuff for that money.
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited January 2006
    Think my 520W TTGI PSU will handle SLI 6600GT's with an X2 CPU and 4 DIMM's of PC3200 Memory, with 2 Optical Drives and 2 HDD's?
  • roland_dmproland_dmp Oklahoma New
    edited January 2006
    Check ebay for some 6600GT's. I saw one on there going for 89.99, and many others for 119.99.
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