Vista - Crossfire/SLI with Non-SLI Cards

Hi, I'm new to crossfire/SLI and need help. This is my scenario:

I got MoBo ASUS P5N32-SLI Premium running Vista Ultimate 32bit on Core 2 Duo Processor. Recently I got another Graphic Card ATI Radeon X1900XTX 512MB PCI-e which I already have one. So, I plan to use the two X1900XTX cards on my system. I already checked the cards but found it has no connection to enable the so-called SLI bridge to connect the two cards.

My questions are:

1. Is there any way for me to use the 2 cards on my PC (crossfire/SLI) ??
2. Does the crossfire dongle will make the 2 cards works ??
3. Any new tech that enable crossfire with non-SLI cards ??

Thanks for helping.

Max

Doubt it will work. I would suggest getting the correct video cards for crossfire and sli to work properly. Less problems with driver and software support.

you need an AMD/intel Chipset for Crossfire to work, you cannot use a Nvidia chipset for crossfire, hence the SLI on the board. you can use 2 nv cards but not ATi, Needs to be an AMD/intel chipset.

Thanks, but even if I use MoBo with AMD/Intel chipset, will my two XTX cards work on crossfire?? Some says it will only work if paired with XTX crossfire edition's card but another says that can be done with software. Which one is true?

With SLI, do I need 2 identical nVidia cards?

heres a chart from AMD/ATi http://game.amd.com/us-en/content/im...art_July08.jpg, and no, Nvidia cards dont have to be exactly the same, they do need to be the same model number, but you can get different cards from different companies, ie/ you can get a 280GTX From XFX and mix it with a 280GTX from EVGA.

TQ MrNeeds. I see no difference between SLI and Crossfire, what do u think is better?

they both are vitually the same, personally, i would prefer Nvidia, just because of the driver issues with ATi/AMD, Nvidia tend to be focused on things that work rather than AMDs method of new stuff is better.

I would go with SLI mate. The driver issue with ATI is a pain, so save yourself the hassle and go SLI and enjoy!