Did I miss read about SLI

[neiledavies]

I'm sure I read somewhere (now can't find the article) that using an Nvidia motherboard with intergrated graphics + seperate graphics card could work together or was it a fututre coming development? Considering NF 630 board with a 9600 GT. does this improve things?

[SiM]

Somehow I doubt it works like that... maybe you can use them together to run multiple monitors, but I doubt they will work together in SLi for games... even if it could it would probably be slower than a 9600gt by itself!

[staffsMike]

As SIM says, you can use the DVI/HDMI outputs to add a 3rd monitor but you certainly wouldn't get any kind of SLi between the two.. it wouldn't improve anything even if you could.

[Cosworth]

I too would say that it won't work. I would reckon that the on-board display would be de-activated once the PCIe card was slotted in.

You may run two monitors off one card and three to four on two cards but when in SLI or Crossfire mode only one monitor will work, that on position one on the primary card.

[mrt9888]

It will work but you wait and get the new motherboards with hybrid SLI, 7 series chipset.

[Pob255]

Also considering that most onboard graphics are so bad it really wouldn't be wort sli'ing it in the first place.

[fredered]

I believe that this is an upcoming AMD feature, it may be nvidia but I can't find the article now, there was one on hexus. The idea is that the onboard graphics will be semicompetent and can work in crossfire/sli with a low end graphics card added to the system. The performance gaines were not massive but probably worth having. This was only at the low end and I do not belive it is released yet. Certainly its not worth bothering about with a 9600gt.

[kasavien]

In addition to what fredered said, the AMD crossfire implementation I think runs the discrete card at the speeds of the integrated chip, so i think performance gains were around 15% (I may be wrong on this) more than just using a discrete card.

[neiledavies]

The register has a link to the info on it only minimal benefit and looks not to be worth it for anything like 96000 GT.

AMD 780G integrated DirectX10.1 chipset | Register Hardware

[Agent]

I would much rather the on-board GPU be running physics / AI or something else to be honest if they go down this route.

[Webby]

AMD have got one of these (RS780G) but the hybrid crossfire only works with the 3450/70 (I think), still you get a decent boost in performance, the chipset basically includes a HD 2400 for the onboard graphics so it blows every other integrated graphics solution currently available away.

Hexus reviewed the board utilising the hybrid crossfire last week HEXUS.net - Review :: AMD RS780G - integrated graphics redefined! : Page - 1/13 and here is the page with the gaming benchmarks HEXUS.net - Review :: AMD RS780G - integrated graphics redefined! : Page - 11/13

[s_kinton]

You didn't misread, but its been delayed:
NVIDIA Delays Hybrid SLI

[2Cold Scorpio]

I would much rather the on-board GPU be running physics / AI or something else to be honest if they go down this route.

Thats actually a very good idea. I like that a lot.

[SiM]

Well they won't start putting integrated graphics on every motherboard anyway... if you were going to buy a mid range gpu would you buy an motherboard with onboard gpu just to do physics? its probably not worth it... these boards are usually low(ish) end and don't oc as well as boards without integrated graphics afaik...

[Pob255]

I would much rather the on-board GPU be running physics / AI or something else to be honest if they go down this route.

That would be sensible, although I seem to remember talk of doing that with normal crossfire/sli setups when the ageeis physX card came out . . . and appears to have dissapeared off the face of the earth.