B GRADE GFX cards

$tewi3

stupid Q but i dont really no the A. Anyway are the B grade cards made to a lesser standard or are they second hand?? and would you recomend gettin one or steer clear? Im thinkin of gettin one to use with my current 6600 gainward ultra ...... cant remember......... so does it have to be the same gfx card? and will it make any difference in gaming?? advice appreciated;)

8T8

B grade cards are one's that have been returned due to some defect but the base hardware is still functional like for instance some of the extras are missing or the packaging was damaged.

As to the second query I don't quite follow you say a 6600 Ultra there was no such card only a 6800 Ultra.

Do you mean a 6600GT Gainward slapped silly names on their cards like Golden Sample Ultra and such ?

I assume you're talking about SLI in order for SLI to work you need a nForce 4 or 5 motherboard and two GPU's of the same class they need not be from the same vendor so yes you can mix and match as long as they are the same type e.g 2x 6600GT's one from XFX and one from Gainward.

As for whether a 6600GT SLI setup is worth it well yeah I'd say so if you can get the second GPU cheap enough like this one for €89. It should at least equal or best a single 7600GT which go for €200+.

$tewi3

cheers for your help man mucho appreciatto. that was the one i was lookin at myself. and its one of them i have already. so even if they were returned with defects or somtin it should work with my system now?

would you no if there would be much problem installing it or is it just a case of poppin it in to the pci x slot and thats that. im a bit of a novice.

like i wouldnt effect the whole system if it was still bogey would it??

8T8

Komplett list what is "wrong" with the B grade part in that 6600GT's case is was a demo unit so it has been used and does not come with any extras but the card itself is still fully functional so it shouldn't give you any problems.

You do have an nForce 4 SLI motherboard with 2 PCI-E x16 slots correct ? As SLI only works on NVIDIA SLI motherboards and if you don't have one then you are out of luck.

Depending on your motherboard the install procedure goes as follows;
Power off PC
Remove case panel
Switch PCI-E lanes to 8x each*
Install second 6600GT
Install SLI bridge if you have it**
Put back on case and power up PC
Windows will detect second card and install drivers and the NVIDIA driver will tell you are capable of SLI go into it's control panel and enable SLI.

That's it enjoy.


* You need to tell me what make and brand motherboard you have as there is more than one way to go about this.

** The SLI bridge is a small PCB the connects the two graphics card together for SLI operation, one comes with every nForce SLI motherboard however if you have lost it there is no need to worry as the lower end 6600GT's can enable SLI without it by transferring the data over the PCI-E bus. However if you do have it use it.

You can see some pictures on NVIDIA's SLI site of this.

$tewi3

its an Abit kn8 sli mobo with 2 slots so that should be fine and i still have the sli bridge. its nvidia 4. i dont really understand the part 3 where u have to change lanes to 8x each. how do you do that??

and the ''extras'' that arent with the B grade card, wat would they be?? should i have them with my first card?

8T8

Extras are like TV out cables, CD's with drivers or games etc nothing terribly essential to the card it should work fine as it is.

On your Abit nForce 4 SLI motherboard you have two PCI-E x16 slots which are used for graphics cards however only one of the slots if actually an electrical x16 slot the other is a x1 slot even though physically it is an x16 slot if you follow my meaning.

What SLI does is divide the PCI-E lanes from the first x16 slot into two so both x16 slots become x8 slots which is perfectly fine for graphics cards as they don't make use of the total x16 slot bandwidth anyway.

(Newer generation SLI boards have done away with this by providing 16 lanes to each PCI-E x16 slot)

Now your Abit board has it's own method of dividing lanes having just looked over the manual, in the second PCI-E x16 slot there should be whats called in the manual an Abit shadow card (basically a small PCB) all you have to do is remove this card and plug in your second 6600GT and it will automatically re-route the ports to 8x each.

Now plug in the bridge between the two cards and the rest from there is fairly straight forward but if you have any more questions fire away.

If you want to see pictures download the Abit manual for the KN8 SLI and look at the 2-4 section it details the SLI install in pictures.

$tewi3

no i think thats goin to work fine all i have 2 do is buy the card now. thanks once again for your help. best advice ive had on boards yet.