680i or P35/X38

Hello guys!

at the moment I'm running an E6600 with two 6800GT (one is softquadro) but next week I'm buying a q6600 and as soon it will be available in the stores the 8800gt. The only thing I'm not sure about is the motherboard! The 680i would give me the chance to use the new cpu and motherboard till the 8800gt arrives. On the other side I could do the same with the p35/x38. The problem is: I use dual monitor but in this case I could run it only on one single card..........(not nice when you run maya and got to animate!)
so, my main problem is: can I run the two 6800 gt on a p35/x38 board? I know sli doesn't (and I don't need it) work because it is not a nforce board.........and to be honest, I do not care because dual monitor doesn't work on sli anyway (I know...it works if you use the dual/tripple head). For me it's only important that I still can attach the 2 monitors on 2 different cards. Anyone got some experience on that one?

thanks to all

but isn't sli only if you connect the two cards with a sli bridge? so in theory shouldn't the 2 cards work independent from each other and independent if it is a crossfire or sli board?

Whilst I don't have any personal experience on this, I'm confident you are correct. You should have no problems running 2 nVidia cards on either P35 or x38. The boards don't support SLi, but I see no reason why you shouldn't be able to run the 2 cards non-SLi to support multiple monitors.

You can use any chipset you like for independant cards as long as the board has enough x16 slots.

@Crashman

thanks, that's the best news By x16 slots do you mean "real" ones like the 680i has or would be a P35 that has 2 slots x16 but the second one only goes x4?

I don't need sli because I do not play games and do not plan to do it either.

No he didn't, read the post again. He just asked if his two 6800 gt's could be run on p35/x38 without SLI for a dual monitor setup. He even said he didn't need SLI.

So yes, it will work fine. I would probably go for the Intel chipset unless you need SLI anyway.

A lil off the subject but maybe this may shed some light on those bringing up the legality question. It seems that Nvidia is helping Intel prep their mobo's to run SLI legally. No idea if many of you follow tech news but Intel is currently developing a gamer board codenamed Skull Trail. It's supposed to be a dual cpu board that takes advantage of all of the X38's new features and better support for the future 45nm chips and both Nvidia SLI and ATI Crossfire. When demoing this mobo guess what was running on it... two Nvidia cards in SLI. When asked about this Intel replied "Nvidia helped us with the demo". So the big question here is if Nvidia doesn’t allow Intel to run SLI, why help Intel publically showcase a new mobo running their cards in SLI? The only thing that ever stopped SLI from being run on Intel boards was the fact that there was only one PCI-E slot running at 16x. With the X38 boards breaking those rules now Nvidia's 680i and future 7xxi boards are a bit in trouble market wise.

The only way Nvidia can stop Intel boards from running SLI is to somehow make it not run on mobo's that don’t have a Nvidia chipset onboard. Other than that since such a method does not exist and Nvidia is actually helping Intel with allowing their mobo's run their cards in SLI, the legality issue is becoming a bit irrelevant. Look at it from a business stand point. Nvidia had a great market position by creating their own SLI chipset and licenses this to mobo makers to create their 5xxi and 6xxi boards cause there were no mobo's in the market besides those with their chipset that had the ability to run two cards at full 16x. Now with PCI 2.0 and the X38 breaking those rules Nvidia no longer has that hold. So what's the smart move to make here? Obviously that would be to allow Intel to integrate SLI into their mobo's. What's stops Intel from doing so anyway? Legally they have no right to "advertise" SLI capability without permission from Nvidia because they lack a official SLI license like they do with ATI's Crossfire. And beside the license of course they have to integrate SLI software like maybe Ntune with the mobo's driver disc and such.

So is Nvidia screwed? And what about the new 780i series? No, Nvidia isn’t screwed cause by allowing Intel to license SLI they basically are now making profit off of EVERY Intel chipset board that supports SLI, just like ATI is making buckets of money off of every Crossfire Enabled Intel boards out in the market. And what about the upcoming 780i series? Nvidia can afford to let SLI go cause now they will, with the 780 series, be the first to bring out 3-way SLI, three PCI-2.0 slots all running at 16x. Nvidia is simply replacing one marketplace lead with another. They can just let Intel have SLI and market their 3-way for the next few years like they did with SLI. You guys have to understand is that these companies aren't ran by idiots and Nvidia is always finding a way to lead the pack with some sort of "exclusive" technology. So back to the whole "legality" issue I would predict by this summer I wouldn't be surprised to see new Intel boards (maybe the X48's?) advertising SLI support cause it seems the X38 boards are simply testing the waters to see how well their boards work with cards, either ATI or Nvidia, at 16x. Nvidia will be cool cause they will have 3-way SLI out and focus on that. Everyone makes money and everyone will be happy. Now is 3-way SLI a good thing? And who on earth will run 3 cards in SLI? Well didn’t we all say that almost 3 years ago when thinking of the absurd possibility of running 2 cards back to back? Think about it guys.

Some links to help some get certain things in better perspective:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_SkullTrail
http://www.pcper.com/comments.php?nid=4516
http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inqu [...] skulltrail
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/ [...] 8_october/

And also one important note i should say about Intel's Skull Trail is this. The board is not going to be a common board among the market place cause who here can afford to buy and let alone run a dual CPU mobo. It's simply a board that shows what is possible and what the X38 series and beyond will look like. It opens the doors to the possibility that SLI will soon be licensed by Intel and that if so it's technically possible as well with the present technology on boards in the market today.

680i for sli

Yes, you can run two or more independent video cards. It does not matter if it is pcie-X16, X4, or even just pci. In the bios, you will have to identiry the primary card. It is best if all the cards use the same driver and support software.

I would go with a P35 board. The bugs have been worked out, they are cheaper, and none of today's vga cards push the limits of pcie1.0.

Legal issues, licensing, and other half-arsed conversations asside, that's the only thing nVidia does. It makes its graphics card drivers not run SLI mode unless it finds an approved chipset. NVidia is already allowing SLI on notebooks using different drivers...but those are likely written to include only specified notebook chipsets.

And now we could discuss Skulltrail, which is supposed to have an SLI chipset component onboard that does absolutely nothing except give the driver something to validate. Oh, and suck power.

Intel doesn't have to license SLI for SLI to work, nVidia just has to enable it in the drivers. Any agreement between Intel and nVidia to include SLI support on an Intel chipset would not require Intel to license any hardware, it would simply involve Intel paying nVidia for the driver change. For others to say "Intel can't do it...license...blah blah" is meaningless, because Intel isn't the responsible party. Intel chipsets support SLI mode, nVidia graphics drivers won't let them, and the only corporation responsible is nVidia.

NVidia could easily "license" the tech...by charging Intel a certain amount of money PER NORTHBRIDGE for every chipset nVidia adds to the driver's approved-hardware list. But they's probably want more than Intel would like to pay.