Graphic cards compatibility

i8DRM

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Do all brands of graphics cards work in all motherboards, or are some brand- specific? Say a board has onboard ATI GPU...if you disable it to add graphic card, can it be NVIDIA card? Say board has this ATI Crossfire stuff...if I'm not interested in using two cards, will a NVIDIA fit this board, or is board configured to only work with ATI cards?
 
All you really have to be concerned about is 2 things.
1 PCI or PCI-e
2 Does your power supply have enough amps to drive the card as well as the rest of your system.
Other than that, they're not brand specific.
 
All you really have to be concerned about is 2 things.
1 PCI or PCI-e
2 Does your power supply have enough amps to drive the card as well as the rest of your system.
Other than that, they're not brand specific.

Great! That adds a few more board choices I would of had to forget about otherwise. Thanks!
 
Yeah but depending on the level of applications you run you will want a pcie x16 card. They are slots are specifically designed for them , except for a few other devices for high-end machines (like a gigabit NIC for a server) because of the slots speed. In modern systems it is connected to the northbridge giving it much higher speeds than you would find on a PCI slot which uses the south bridge. Also, I have heard that some AMD cpu's work better with certain models of their GPU's, which I think they call fusion, but yeah if you have an AMD cpu and have that capability I would take advantage of it. Besides, I think Radeon does a better job with GPU's than nVidia does.
 
Also, if you are unsure about whether or not your PSU can handle the new GPU, you can use a power calculator on a lot of PSU companies' sites. Make sure you go with one that has 80+ wattage efficiency and be sure to check its voltage efficiency as well.
 
doesnt matter but some work better with certain mobo/cpu chip sets. an Nvidia card with an intel chip and for ati/radeon card to be used with an AMD chip.
 
Yeah but depending on the level of applications you run you will want a pcie x16 card. They are slots are specifically designed for them , except for a few other devices for high-end machines (like a gigabit NIC for a server) because of the slots speed. In modern systems it is connected to the northbridge giving it much higher speeds than you would find on a PCI slot which uses the south bridge. Also, I have heard that some AMD cpu's work better with certain models of their GPU's, which I think they call fusion, but yeah if you have an AMD cpu and have that capability I would take advantage of it. Besides, I think Radeon does a better job with GPU's than nVidia does.

Unfortunately, research indicates that nVidia works great with Linux, while ATI not so much. On the other hand I abhor Intel's obsession with DRM, HDCP, IntelTXT, etc., so I have no choice but to go with Phenom II processor, which in turn requires board having either AMD or nVidia chipset.
Nvidia chipset board would guarantee compatibility with nVidia graphics card. Its the AMD chipset boards I'm not so sure about where nVidia graphics cards are concerned.

---------- Post added at 04:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:36 PM ----------

doesnt matter but some work better with certain mobo/cpu chip sets. an Nvidia card with an intel chip and for ati/radeon card to be used with an AMD chip.

So will any AMD chipset motherboard run an nVidia graphics card, or only ati/radeon cards?
 
Motherboards aren't specific to one brand of dedicated GPU.

SLI and Crossfire needs to be of the same brand (not sub-brand such as ASUS, Gigabyte, PNY, etc, as these can be mixed and matched) and some motherboards support only Crossfire (AMD) or only SLI (nVidia) whereas other motherboards, like my ASUS 990FX support both.

When looking to optimise your graphic output, such as someone has mentioned with Fusion, although I'm not too knowledgeable on this matter, I know there exists minor enhancements for specific manufacturers.

These are the only reasons I can currently think of, as to why brand-matching is specifically important.
 
Motherboards aren't specific to one brand of dedicated GPU.

SLI and Crossfire needs to be of the same brand (not sub-brand such as ASUS, Gigabyte, PNY, etc, as these can be mixed and matched) and some motherboards support only Crossfire (AMD) or only SLI (nVidia) whereas other motherboards, like my ASUS 990FX support both.

When looking to optimise your graphic output, such as someone has mentioned with Fusion, although I'm not too knowledgeable on this matter, I know there exists minor enhancements for specific manufacturers.

These are the only reasons I can currently think of, as to why brand-matching is specifically important.

Okay, so I have no interest in dual cards for Crossfire or SLI, but lets say a board is ready for Crossfire. If I understand you, a single Nvidia graphics card will still fit/work in that x16 slot, right?

No idea what Fusion is, other than its connected to VMWare...doubt I'll be using it, but might get around to trying VirtualBox someday. Is that a potential problem?
 
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