Does this mean I can run 3 video cards?

Yep. The 4X bandwidth means that one of the PCIe slots is a 4x slot only (so, don't use that one for SLI).
 
Cool! I'm getting a QX9650 (never overclocked anything in my life; what a processor to start with!) And I was thinking of stuffing this with 3 8800GTs.

Thanks!
 
Well I'm still sort of confused about this and I won't buy a third card if I don't need it! Money burning aside, from what I understand, SLi works in such a way that only one monitor will work in SLi. The other I'll use for other things while gaming...would I need a third video card for this?
 
If all you want to do is SLI and run one extra monitor, then there's no reason to get a 250 dollar card just to run a second monitor. Do you plan on running another game at the same time? If not, just get the cheapest PCI-E card you can find, like the Radeon HD 2400 or Geforce 7300LE.

You're probably better off with an nvidia card that way you'll only need one driver, I think.
 
But, having a third card will still allow me to use dual view, correct? Even if it is cheaper...it doesn't have to be performance. I just need to scroll from one monitor (gaming) to the other (non-gaming stuff).
 
I'm starting to see this asked a lot, even I asked it in another thread earlier today.

Screw it, I have a board with 2 x16 and 1 x16 (at x4) and three NVIDIA cards. I'm going to try it. Be back with details. :p

I'll be trying it with 2 8800GTS's in SLI and a 8400GS.
 
Ok, here's the story:

I put the card in, booted up, and it was detected as new hardware. I had to reboot after that was done because the Nvidia control panel crashed if I tried to open it.

There's something you should keep in mind in regards to putting the card in, but I'll cover that at the end.

On reboot, it only detected one 8800GTS in the "Set-up multiple displays" tab. I went into the regular Windows video control panel and all three cards were there. I selected the display on the 8400GS and told Windows to extend my desktop to this monitor. The monitor then came on and was running in DualView mode. The Nvidia control panel saw both cards now in "Set-up multiple displays", but "Single Display" was my only option even though it was actually in DualView already. It might've defaulted to that because I was running DualView on the 8800GTS's by themselves when I shut down to put the card in.

After a reboot, the same result in "Set-up multiple displays." SLI isn't even an option in the tab list. I loaded up the Crysis GPU benchmark and it was running at single 8800GTS speeds.

So I took the card out, cutting myself in the process and ended up bleeding on the 8400GS. After cleaning up that mess I rebooted.

DualView came back up just like I had it originally. I switched SLI on which shut off the second display like normal (had to reboot.) SLI was shown as on but wasn't running in any games and no indicators came up. I reinstalled my drivers right over the same installed drivers and SLI mysteriously started working again.

This is with an EVGA 680i motherboard, and 169.09 Nvidia beta drivers.

Now, the installation issue. There is little to no room to install the third card if you have dual slot video cards. The 8400GS was actually pushed up fairly tight against the main 8800GTS, and even covered 1/4 of the fan opening. The 8400GS I have is a passively cooled card, and there's no way I'd run this daily, even if it did work.

Here's the obligatory photo to show the issue:

threevid.jpg
 
I've heard (somewhere else on this forum) that it's actually better if the third, non-SLI card is an ATI card, to avoid the very issues synapsis faced. Maybe another [H]'er has tried that method and can give his or her experiences.
 
farfromhome said:
I've heard (somewhere else on this forum) that it's actually better if the third, non-SLI card is an ATI card, to avoid the very issues synapsis faced. Maybe another [H]'er has tried that method and can give his or her experiences.
Click to expand...

Maybe true of XP, not of Vista. Everything I've read suggests all three cards must be able to use the same drivers under Vista or you will run in to any number of horrid compatibility issues.
 
Well this is an issue that we will all have to deal with for a while but in short.... If you want to run dual displays in SLI then the 3rd card does indeed have to be an ATI card. The reason this is is because when you enable SLI between two cards and introduce a third then the driver will act very silly (as synapsis has already experienced) mainly due to the fact that all the cards are running on the same driver and the driver is either trying to SLI all 3 of them or doing something else the can lead to some really random glitches.

On top of all that even if you do get the 3rd card as ATI getting dual display is a pain because now you have 2 sets of video drivers in your system and if you don't set it up just right then the term driver hell will have a whole new meaning to you.

So in short, don't bother with multiple displays in SLI until NVIDIA fixes it, it just isn't worth the hassle.
 
what if he is not running SLI (never), would 3 x nvidia card be okay?

The truth is, members here has a thread on 4 PCI E video cards, w/ 2 at x16, and 2 x8, as there are motherboard that support 4 x PCI E.
 
Happy Hopping said:
what if he is not running SLI (never), would 3 x nvidia card be okay?

The truth is, members here has a thread on 4 PCI E video cards, w/ 2 at x16, and 2 x8, as there are motherboard that support 4 x PCI E.
Click to expand...

From the Nvidia control panel: Don't think so since "Single Display" was the only option there for me. But from the Microsoft control panel: I saw all the cards. I only have two displays, but I didn't see anything that'd keep me from plugging in six.
 
Sorry about the cut on yourself! Thanks for experimenting; sorry it didn't work out...maybe one day Nvidia will fix this issue...
 
Besides all the experiment stuff (all jolly good mind), and back to the OP question.

The Mobo you linked was the Abit intel X38 QuadGT - you can run ATI Crossfire on these for multi GPU and taking advantage of the dual 16x PCI-E lanes, but not Nvidia SLI (driver/chipset/ Nvidia vs Intel type issues).
 
Providence said:
Sorry about the cut on yourself! Thanks for experimenting; sorry it didn't work out...maybe one day Nvidia will fix this issue...
Click to expand...

No worries, it was fun! Can you imagine being able to do this for a job... like Kyle. ;)

I heard that with ATI Crossfire you can multi-gpu and use multiple displays with no problems. I don't know anyone personally with a Crossfire setup though.
 
To the OP: That's a CF only board, no SLI is supported

And yes, the new CrossFireX supports multiple monitors while in multi-GPU mode, something SLI doesn't support. There's a video in the [H] review of the 3800's that links to youtube showing 8 monitors w/ QuadFire in FlightSimX...
 
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