Few Questions about my EP45

[grishkafool]

I need a few answers to three questions that I have regarding upgrading my system, which uses a Gigabyte EP45-UD3P. I have tried searches and have not been satisfied with the answers I found.

1) If SLi and Crossfire are both achieved via a hard bridge attached to the tops of the cards, why can't I do SLi on my Gigabyte EP45-UD3P? I assume that it has something to do with the northbridge.... but would like a more illuminating answer. I did find one post regarding this and using 3rd party chipset drivers that were buggy and was wondering if there was any new information regarding that?


1b) If I were to add another nVidia GPU, say a GTX295, but not in SLI, can I use my other existing GPU (9800GT) just for Physics on my EP45? This begs the question, if I were to purchase an ATI 4870x2 as my primary GPU, can I use my 9800GT for physics?


2) If I were to replace my CPU (E8400) with something nicer, a Q9550 say, would I have to do anything other than just swapping the chip? I run Gigabyte's ET6 and think that I would have to uninstall and reinstall that, but anything else?


3) This is a version of #2, if I replaced my motherboard with a 780i(because I want to stick with nVidia and can't SLi on my board), would I have to reinstall my OS(Vista 64)? Would there be any other changes that I am not thinking of?

Thank you for reading this post.

gtf

[Reggie]

1) The SLI compliant motherboards use the NVIDIA SLI chipset. The GA-EP45-UD3P doesn't have an NVIDIA SLI chipset.

1b) You can add a 9800GT as a dedicated PhysX card. ATI 4870x2 doesn't use NVIDIA drivers, so it doesn't meet the NVIDIA PhysX requirements.

2) There would be some changes to adjust the Bios settings if you swap chips.

3) A clean install would be best if you install a different motherboard. In other Microsoft operating systems a repair the selected Windows installation was possible. This doesn't work in Vista.
How to replace the motherboard on a computer that is running Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, or Windows 2000

[grishkafool]

You can add a 9800GT as a dedicated PhysX card. ATI 4870x2 doesn't use NVIDIA drivers, so it doesn't meet the NVIDIA PhysX requirements.

I know that ATI doesn't have Physx. I mean, can I use the ATI or a better nVidia card as my primary GPU and keep my 9800 just for the Physx properties. Not in an SLI configuration... although, if i bought a better nVidia card, I would'nt need to keep the 9800 for Physx, lol... but you get my point.

[grishkafool]

I haven't yet had a good answer to question 1b. I really am curious...

If I got a 4870x2 (I know I would need a better PSU, btw.) could I put it in the PCI2.0x16 slot and put my 9800GT in the second PCI2.0 slot just for the Physx engine? I understand that its not THAT important today to have Physx, but.... I would like to make use of what I have.

[Capt Proton]

I do not believe you can mix ATI and Nvidia cards. They won't play nice together. The OS will load one set of vid drivers, not two.

I moved from a P35 to EP 45 board without another install. I removed all drivers and used the reveal hidden uninstalled devices after the system booted up. All is well. What you are proposing is a much more drastic change, and will probably have huge issues.