Just ordered...

[BaldEagl]

Well, I just ordered a recertified 8800 GTS G92 to SLI my rig plus 2 more Gb of RAM.

Since they aren't making 512 8800 GTS's anymore I figured I'd jump on it for $114 before they dissapear completely.  I've been watching used ones going on eBay for 150+ and at least recertified through newegg I've got a 30 day warrantee.  IIRC I paid just under $300 when I bought mine in April '08.  Hope it works.  Fingers crossed.

Also I'm going with 4 1 Gb sticks of RAM.  I couldn't justify throwing out the stuff I already have.

As a bonus to myself I picked up a HD enclosure to put my old 13 Gb drive into to use as an external USB drive.  I think that's the last of my HD's (3 in the new machine, 2 in the old machine plus this one) lying around.  Thought it might be nice for large file transfers and stuff like that.

It's always fun to get new toys.

[Fulmar]

I would have probably picked up another GTS myself, except my Asus P5NE-SLI only supports 8x SLI and those GTS cards would only work at 16x.

[Chalenge]

I would have probably picked up another GTS myself, except my Asus P5NE-SLI only supports 8x SLI and those GTS cards would only work at 16x.

Only 16x? You should check on that. Even if you had a dual 16x system in SLI an 8800 will only get to 8x.

[Chalenge]

Well, I just ordered a recertified 8800 GTS G92 to SLI my rig plus 2 more Gb of RAM.

Since they aren't making 512 8800 GTS's anymore I figured I'd jump on it for $114 before they dissapear completely.  I've been watching used ones going on eBay for 150+ and at least recertified through newegg I've got a 30 day warrantee.  IIRC I paid just under $300 when I bought mine in April '08.  Hope it works.  Fingers crossed.

Also I'm going with 4 1 Gb sticks of RAM.  I couldn't justify throwing out the stuff I already have.

As a bonus to myself I picked up a HD enclosure to put my old 13 Gb drive into to use as an external USB drive.  I think that's the last of my HD's (3 in the new machine, 2 in the old machine plus this one) lying around.  Thought it might be nice for large file transfers and stuff like that.

It's always fun to get new toys.

I hate to say it but... money wasted Im afraid. These cards are pretty picky and look for a clone of themselves to match up with.

You can match a XFX with an eVGA but 512 and 786 (or what have you) will not work. I dont think mixing drivers is a good thing either but Nvidia has always said it would work.

[BaldEagl]

I hate to say it but... money wasted Im afraid. These cards are pretty picky and look for a clone of themselves to match up with.

You can match a XFX with an eVGA but 512 and 786 (or what have you) will not work. I dont think mixing drivers is a good thing either but Nvidia has always said it would work.

They are both eVGA and are the same exact same part number (exact duplicates) other than the re-certified designation at the end of the part number on the new card.

Also, I think you're wrong on the 1x16/1x8.  I've never heard of that.  I've got a 3 slot eVGA 780i motherboard and many on the eVGA forums have SLI and tri-SLI (8800 GTX support only at the time these were new) set-ups and no one has mentioned that.  The board supports 3x PCIe x16 2.0 all at 16x.  There were a lot of SLI capable boards that only supported x16/x8 though.

[Fulmar]

Only 16x? You should check on that. Even if you had a dual 16x system in SLI an 8800 will only get to 8x.

Positive.  I'm not 100% positive that all 8800 GTS 640's were like this, but mine was an early model.  Even says it will not operate in SLI at anything less than 16x.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Positive.  I'm not 100% positive that all 8800 GTS 640's were like this, but mine was an early model.  Even says it will not operate in SLI at anything less than 16x.

SLI boards with 2x16x PCI-E were extremely rare if not nonexistant when 8800 640 was introduced. Makes it even weirder.

[Chalenge]

8800s in SLI (or especially a single) do not saturate PCIe 8x so it should not be true but they made the card...

BaldEagl for some reason when I read that last night I thought you were saying you bought two different memory configurations. That would not work but two different manufacturers cards which are both 512MB 8800s should work without a problem. Since you have identical cards (I think thats what your saying) you should be fine.

EDIT: Anandtech test of Asus P5N-E Sli w/ 2 MSI 8800 GTX cards and I know firsthand using this board previously that its 16x/8x

http://anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2894

We had heard rumors that the 8800 GTX cards would thrive on the dual x16 capable 680i chipset but in looking at the results in our two test games it appears there is very little difference in the scores between the two nForce 600i boards. We did not have any issues running our 8800 GTX SLI setup on the dual x8 capable 650i board and only in the synthetic 3DMark benchmarks did we see any true separation between the two setups. Those results favored the 680i over the 650i by 8% in 3DMark06, 6% in 3DMark05, and in 3DMark 2001 the 650i actually finished about 4% ahead of the 680i. At this time, the current games we have tested will perform almost equally on either board in 8800 GTX SLI operation at 1600x1200. We also tested at 1920x1200 resolutions with the same results between the two chipsets. We still need to complete testing at 2560x1600 with the 650i chipset but considering the very small increase in performance in SLI mode with our test setup, we highly recommend the purchase of a single 8800 GTX for today's games and to forgo 8800 GTX SLI operation at this time.

[BaldEagl]

8800s in SLI (or especially a single) do not saturate PCIe 8x so it should not be true but they made the card...

BaldEagl for some reason when I read that last night I thought you were saying you bought two different memory configurations. That would not work but two different manufacturers cards which are both 512MB 8800s should work without a problem. Since you have identical cards (I think thats what your saying) you should be fine.

EDIT: Anandtech test of Asus P5N-E Sli w/ 2 MSI 8800 GTX cards and I know firsthand using this board previously that its 16x/8x

http://anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2894

They are both eVGA 512 mb 8800 GTS G92 part number 841, both with the 640 (IIRC... might be 670) memory clock speed.  They are in every way identical (except one's recertified).

[Chalenge]

You should be fine. I just dont have the courage to buy recertified but you may just change my opinion on that.

[Fulmar]

Okay, I originally went back and found the thread I had posted for build suggestions on Tomshardware back in Dec. 2006.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/216734-31-finally-upgrade-suggestions

In that thread, someone points out a news article (from the Inquirer but supported elsewhere) that 8800's operating at 8x (which SLI on the 650i chipset is) produce a failure to boot.
http://www.techpowerup.com/?22503

I guess I didn't read the xbit article linked to it but it concerned early GTX's that had too small of a resistor.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/gf8800-games_27.html

In conclusion, it appears I've been mistaken for quite some time.  Wouldn't matter anyways, I'd have to upgrade to a bigger PSU.  Not really worth the small performance gain + cost of upgrade.