NVidia & ATI chipsets

[giselgeek]

If I bought a motherboard with an NVidia chipset, would an ATI PCIe card work with it?

 

[Coke27]

probably wouldnt want too lol

 

[baronvongogo]

yes PCI-E is PCI-E any card that is made for it will work whether ATI or Nvidia.

 

[giselgeek]

ok... are there any downsides to doing that?

also (kind of off this topic)... if a motherboard is crossfire ready, does that mean that you HAVE to have two video cards in the slots, or can you simply use one video card (and the other pcie slot be empty)?

 

[baronvongogo]

No there are not any downsides unless! its crossfire(ATI) or SLI(NVIDIA), so if you buy a crossfire board you can use one graphics card yes and have the other slot empty, although if you put an nvidia card in and want to add another then crossfire wont work. I do think there are hacked drivers to make it work though but obviously not the best way to do it.

so in conclusion: yes you can have sli or crossfire mobos and still only use 1 card and leave the other slot empty.