2 graphics cards...

for a better vista rating with 2 graphics cards, do both cards have to be the same...? cuz i got an 8400 gs and 6200turbo and my rating is the same as i had with a 8400gs...no performance upgrade

The Performance indicator in Vista is a guide only. And Did you upgrade your Power supply so it can actually run 2 cards without running short on power?

Also, I think both cards have to be the same series. I don't think an 8400 and a 6200 can actually be linked.

In order to "link" (Crossfire for ATI's, SLI in NVidia's case). They need to be the exact same card.

Think of crossfire and sli as a raid configurisation. Both cards or drives have to be exactly the same. I have heard of a second gfx card being used for phisx but this was on a test rig. The only bonus you will have is if you are running two monitors.

I went from one 8600GT to two 8600GTs in SLI and my performance rating went from a 5.5 to a 5.6. Performance in games went up about 40%, however.

If you are wanting to run SLI or Crossfire, the cards need to be the same.

If you just stick a second card in there: (1) Vista will rate only one of them, and (2) The second card will do nothing except use power until you hook up a second monitor to it, and (3) the two cards will not be able to work together to power your (game) apps.

Since you have a P35 chipset: If you want to run two cards together you will have to go with a Crossfire setup, which means you must use ATI GPUs. SLI is an nVidia owned technology and nVidia do not license it to any company wanting to use SLI with a non nVidia chipset. So if you want SLI, you will have to use a motherboard with an nVidia chipset with your nVidia graphics cards.

If your MB supports it, and if you have three DUAL SLI CONNECTOR cards (like the 8800gtx), you can actually run three cards in SLI.

If the cards are different, you can run multiple monitors (I'm running 3 montiors, one 30" on the 8800gtx and two 20" on the 7900gtx).

I actually have a third pcix slot, which is not 16x but 8x, and it's not SLI'd, thus it can only be used for another vid card + 2 monitors, which I'll do in a couple of months..

hey there can u tell me if u could play bioshock and crysis on one 8600gt?
and what motherboard do u have??

that 3rd slot is for Physics cards