Questions about BTX board on Dell 700GR

[BADMONKEY]

Ok so I've been talking to an IT guy for awhile and I'm no so sure he knows what I'm talking about.

Specs : Dell 700GR -- MS Windows XP SP2, Intel Pentium 4 CPU 3.40 GHz, 1.0 GB RAM, EvGa Nvidia GeForce 7900 GT w/ 256 MB

Now I want to either run the card in SLi mode with another cheaper SLi card, or upgrade the Video Memory. DDR or whatever you call video card memory. Now the IT guy keeps saying I can't run it in SLi because the BTX board doesn't support it or have PCI Slots or something. And I actually looked on the Dell support site and found it does have PCI slots.

PCI-E x16: 1
PCI-E x1: 1
PCI: 3

To be exact.

http://support.gateway.com/s/PC/R/3726/3726sp27.shtml

Now does this mean I could run in SLi mode? Or can I just add some extra memory to make it as fast as a 512 card? I plan on getting a new computer case and PSU if I run SLi.

Sorry if I sound like a newb, I've just started focusing on my computer heavily the past few months.

 

[aliasaid]

lol.. past few months? sounds more like few hours


anywyas... it does not look like you can use SLI because you only have ONE pci-express x16 slot, and you need 2 of them to run SLI. also, with SLI, you can only use the same cards.. you can't use a weaker card with a strong card, so if you have a 7900gt, you'd need another 7900gt.... BUT.. your motherboard doesn't support SLI anyways, so you can't do that. if you wanted SLI really bad, you'd need to get a new motherboard as well.. one that supports SLI... and thats a pain because it might not fit in your dell case and might not be compatible with a lot of the dell components like PSU or w/e... and you'll also have to do a fresh install of windows... (and if you have a product recovery disk, it might not work..)

oh and no, you can not upgrade video memory like that.. you'd just need to get a whole new video card...

but your computer seems very capable... what aren't you able to do with just one 7900gt?

 

[BADMONKEY]

Gaming mostly...I want to be able to run the hard hitting games such as oblivion and FEAR on high without any FPS chop.

But as it seems this motherboard is a POS looks like I have no options of upgrade.

 

[welsh]

upgrade, seems like a whole new computer to me.

 

[Trotter]

You don't need SLI to run those. I run them on my 7800GTX just fine (great frame rates, no skipping).

To my knowledge (take it for whatever you think that's worth), there is nothing akin the SLI/Crossfire in BTX. Intel is the only one making BTX boards, and they only make a few models.

As long as you have a decent card and a decent PSU (which is doubtful, as the specs don't like the wattage), you could run the games. So, invest in a good card (7900GT sounds good) and a new PSU and you're in business.