Sometime soon (no rush) im gonna upgrade my GFX card from a 8600GT 256Mb to probably a 8800GT (512MB or more). Im not sure if its worth it but I might consider an SLI set-up with two 8800GT cards. Question is, will my Corsair HX520 handle two 8800GT cards in SLI?
It probably will, but you should use a 620W HX to be on the safe side. Beware of the heat from those cards and its impact on the chipset, which will be used more. The P5N-E SLI chipset gets very hot, so ensure you have good case cooling.
thanks SAM yes I was thinking of adding some chipset cooling anyway. I have salvaged a 50mm square alloy heatsink from an old P3 board to use on the Southbridge and I have a small fan salvaged from the same donor that could fit over / on the existing Northbridge alloy heatsink. Beyond all this, and before I do any clocking or change components I am still struggling to get this new build stable. It has passed a first pace of memtest ok. I ran ORTHOS for about 15-20 mins the other day without an issue. (more time needed I know) Also performed a PCMark05 benchtest..... But still, once in a while I get a crash and it re-starts (fails soft re-start so I have to hard reset then) The crash can be at the windows logon screen or any other time such as using Outlook. Its not a fault I can "make" happen. My Ram timings are set as they should be 4-4-4-15 2T (2.078Volts) My VCore was a little high on auto, so I set it manually to 2.225V as stated as max on the E8400 box. N/Bridge is set at 1.35V. What else could be causing this problem Sam??? Could it be the SATA (IDE) that the OS (XP pro) is on? Sorry I have gone off Topic and thanks for your previous advice.
I hate to break this to you but the problem is unfortunately that your motherboard is awful. The P5N-E SLI is one of the worst motherboards ever made, I had one and it was dreadful. To make proper use of an SLI config you should get a decent board, perhaps an XFX 680i board...
Well, there are many threads about this board all over the place but I guess if you stick a description in a search engine and it comes back with lots of results then im learning that usually means there's lots of moaning rather than praise going on. Fortunately, It has never crashed whilst gaming in H/Life 2 or Crysis but that would really cheese me off. At least I know who to ask (& believe) when the day comes to bin it.
Well, I have used the P5N-E SLI for one year now and I`ve been very pleased with its performance - overclocking is easy and I can bumb up the FSB till almost 500 with E4300. Still, the 650i or 680i series are not the best options for SLI mobo, i would recommend the new 750i series, since it has 16x+16x PCI-E support and the price is reasonable. Maybe you(samm) had some kind of a "monday-version"? ;-D ps. HX520 will handle 8800GT(S) SLI configurations.
k0jootti, have a sarch around aD for the board, you're the only person I know of double figures to not have had any issues with the board. The very early revisions were fine, but around a month after release, they became useless.
Dare I say it, I seem to have got it stable now. I updated to the latest bios (0901) and it has passed Memtest, Orthos and prime for about an hour each. No Crashes since.
Might be true, but I havent heard any complains about this board. Some memory issues, but those can be resolved by bumping up(not much) the DRAM voltage. Even though I like this board, my trust in Asus has gone since P5K. Hordes of complains about packet loss, vdrod, SATA-issues, audio-problems etc...sick...
The list of problems with the P5N-E is endless. You may have one of the early revision boards which were alright.
