I’m about to build myself a PC to be used mostly for games and game-related programming.
Was hoping to put three graphics cards in it, a 512MB 4850, a 512MB 9800 of some kind, and a 1024MB 9700. If the 4850 and 9800 were available in 1024MB versions, then I’d do away with the 9700, or maybe get a lower spec card instead. I’m trying to cover the high end of both vendors, and as a potentail bonus have a reasonably low end card if possible.
I have done some research, which I’ll summarize as follows: it seems to me that I need to get an SLI or Crossfire board, and just not use SLI or Crossfire.
I’m currently suffering from information overload, so any comments or advice on how to go about the above would be most welcome.
Why not? (If that looks like a silly question, please bear in mind that I’m also switching from Mac to PC with this).
Any reason not to have 3 different graphics drivers installed?
I don’t actually want to use them all at the same time (at least to start with). I just want to have them all physically in the machine, with two of them disabled at any given time, to avoid having to swap them physically when I want to use a different one…
SLI GPUs | Graphics Cards
NVIDIA SLI GPUs deliver powerful, elegant and super-rich graphics for games and other graphics-intensive applications. Combining two NVIDIA SLI-Ready certified graphics cards (with the same GPU) in a single system with an nForce SLI MCP results in up to double the graphics performance.
I seem to remember that you could mix gpus on some ati cards, but generally it’s not a good idea.
Though it would be nice to be able to use a cheap low end card to enhance physics.