Recently I have wanted to upgrade my computer so that I could get a better frame rates with World of Warcraft and other games that I play. So a quick mention to Stephen allowed me to pick up a second nVidia 7600 GT video card and begin my journey to better gaming.
The one thing about nVidia’s SLi technology is that you need to be running the same GPU (graphics processing unit); in this case I would need two cards that had the 7600 GT GPU in them. Even though Stephen had available a MSI 7600 GT and I was previously using an eVGA 7600 GT, I was a bit leery about if this would really work. All the other SLi gaming rigs I have seen their owners have always matched their video cards. I find buying two video cards at the same time a bit expensive especially when my eVGA 7600 GT cost me $275 a couple years ago.
Installation was easy (after I obtained an SLi compatible motherboard) just drop the two video cards in and ‘bridge’ them together with the SLi bridge piece (yes you might of noticed the bridge is from Asus ).
Powering up the system for the first time with the dual video cards enabled, Windows immediately informed me of my SLi capabilities. Though this would have been from the nVidia ForceWare drivers taking noticed of the added hardware.
I had to ensure I had the latest nVidia ForceWare drivers. It seems that every time I try out a new video card in my machine I always have glitches with the driver (163.71 WHQL). I checked back at nVidia’s website the day after and to my surprise they released a new version of the driver (163.75 WHQL).
Now the performance of the dual cards is not all that noticeable while playing World of Warcraft. My average frame rate when from 30 fps up to about 40-45 fps which to be is a good thing especially since my character is getting up past level 60.
My next test will be to see how playing Battlefield 2142 goes. It has been a little while since I last played that game but with the second GPU my frame rate should also go up and I might be able to turn up the quality on it as well.
And yes I do understand my machine isn’t the neatest one out there. If anyone wants to send me a TruePower Modular cable PSU I am more than happy to accept it! Those dust bunnies in the copper fins of the 120mm Zalman heat sink are also a pain to get rid of.