Fitz said:
Thought of that until I looked at the cards....the 1GB 7950's appear to
take up 2 slots,
and I don't think there would be room on the board to run 2 cards @ 2
slots each along
with a couple of standard PCI devices. That's why I'm trying to choose
between 2 512MB
cards (1 slot ea.) or one 1GB card. Can't find any documentation stating
whether or not
the motherboard can accept 2 two slot cards.
Using a Samsung 204B (20 in.) LCD in DVI mode (1200X1600 capable, but I
don't run the
desktop at that).
Are you referring to a 7950GX2 dual GPU card when you say "1GB card" ?
When I look on Newegg, I only see 7950GT in a 512MB version. I'm not
sure that high quantities of video RAM are that useful, and if a
video card with a single GPU had 1GB on it, it would be a sad waste of
memory bits.
This is what I use as a reference, and this list is not complete.
http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/
The memory on cards operating in SLI, do not add. Two 512MB cards in
SLI, gives a grand total of 512MB to the application. On the 7950GX2,
if there was a total of 1GB on the card (512MB per PCB), the grand
total of useful memory when operating in SLI is still 512MB. As I
understand it. (And quad SLI would be doing the same kind of thing -
four copies of the same data.)
http://www.dansdata.com/slibox.htm
"Unfortunately, though, SLI-ed cards can't access each others' RAM,
so texture and other memory-hogging data is duplicated on each card"
7950GT single GPU cards have a higher clock than the GPU on the
7950GX2. Two 7950GT cards with 512MB memory on each, offer 512MB
total memory to the application. A 7950GX2 with 1GB total memory,
offers 512MB total memory to the application. Both solutions are
the same, except the dual 7950GT solution has a slightly higher
clock, and the ventilation of the cards would be "healthier".
On the 7950GX2, I understand one GPU gets hotter than the other.
In the event of a hardware failure (one GPU goes bad), you can
still game by using 7950GT cards. While with the 7950GX2, you'd
have to wait until the warranty replacement arrived.
For high end cards like this, make sure you are covered by a
warranty, for as long as you plan to keep the card. DX10 will
arrive some day soon, so the urge to upgrade again will also
strike soon. Some high end cards have had a 10% failure rate,
so warranty protection and good tech support from the manufacturer,
are important considerations.
Paul
