Asus A8N .

This motherboard has 2 PCI-Express slots right ? My question is that do we have to install to same PCI-e cards in those slots? Or it dosent matter we can install any graphic card in either pci-e slots ?

Are you referring to running 2 vid cards in SLI mode?

If so, I believe you need to use 2 of the same cards.

Dangles

Two cards of the same chipset [ I.E. 7900GT + 7900GT ], the manufacturer type is no longer an issue.

Same chipset ? You mean like i can use Geforce 7900GT along with Nvidia 7900GT ? I didnt get what you meant by the chipset and the manufacturer.

Yes the chipset is basicaly the GPU [ Graphics Processing Unit ] of the graphics card. Things like :

1. 7900GT
2. 7800GTX
3. 7300GS <-- pile of turd
4. 6800XT
5. etc

All those numbers refer to the chipset on the graphics card. If you take away the letters at the end, you get the chipset series.

A few months back, you were only able to use SLi with graphics cards that were from the same batch [ meaning you had to buy both cards at the same time from the same manufacturer ]. nVidia have since updated their ForceWare drivers so that you can buy one card from one manufacturer now [ I.E. XFX, BFG, Asus etc ] and then buy another card later on, either from the same manufacturer or a different one. The only thing that is required to be the same is the chipset.

Hope that clears that up, if not just say.

Okey i think i got it. Oh and by the way does a8n series have builtin graphics ?

No, the A8N series doesnt have onboard graphics ... I didnt relise this myself until I burnt out my GPU trying to overclock it [ went a bit far ].

Personaly though, I dont care that it doesnt have onboard ... the boards are brilliant and cannot fault them on anything.

Oh dear.. That means i have to spent on the Pci-e card as well. No a8n32 for me at the moment then. Have any idea how much a decent PCI-e card is going to cost ? Dont want anythin extra ordinary or something really cheap and worthless. Recommend me a Pci-E card please.

Also how much do you think will these things cost me:

Amd athlon 64 3500
Asus a8n Premium
and the pci-e card you suggested.

256Mb XFX 6800 XT £88 from Scan.co.uk

There are cheaper cards, like the 6600 series, but they are only about £10-£20 less, not a massive difference, and you do get alot more on the 6800 for just that small extra amount.

With the AMD64 3500+, the A8N-SLi Premium and the XfX 6800XT from Scan.co.uk, the total came to £224 inc VAT minus delivery [ next day fro £10 ].

Hmm i wont have to worry about delivery issues because im going to buy it from a shop. Most of the sites dont ship to the country i live in, pakistan .. *Sigh* Anyways thanks alot bro for helping me out. Will try to get those goodies soon.

No problem, good luck with it.

Oh yea, if you know any sites that ship to pakistan do tell me ... That'd be great.

Thanks alot mate.

Get an A8N-E; awesome board. But I reckon you should just get a 3200+ venice core, if you want more power couple it with a Zalaman and you can hit 2.7ghz on air. Although that's not adviseable lol.

Whats a zalaman by the way ?