Is it possible to use another graphic card with GeForce GTS 240

[Pillars]

Hi, I am having Dell Studio XPS 8000 in which I have installed GeForce GTS 240 and was wondering if i could add a second video card in the machine or not. I’ve been interpreting somewhere else on this and came to that we need two PCIe x16 slots, is this true? Because when I open the chasis I came to know that mine has only one. If I require two of them, then this suppose to be on my Motherboard, correct? So what should I do in order to use this feature.

[Tigerius]

See for using this sli feature first of all you need to have that compatible motherboard and two identical graphic card in order to make them SLI. Thus let me tell you that though you have that’s GPU but still before that you should make sure whether the motherboard that you are using is a SLI compatible motherboard or not, because as you have mentioned that you are having only one PCI slot in the board thus I don’t think you’ll be able to use this feature. The actual thing is like we need to have SLI bridge on the board that actually enables boards to make use of two GPU’s at a time.

[Oms-waroop]

I would like to inform you the exact procedure through that you can have proper information regarding the SLI and the GPU you have.

See the hardware configuration that you need to have first of all ,

• big, stable power supply unit
  
  
• SLI video cards
  
  
• case cooling fans,
  
  
• PCI-E x16 video cards slot,
  
  
• Two identical video cards,
  
  
• SLI compatible motherboard
  
  
• SLI drivers

[Pillars]

ok after seeing this I came to know that we need to have two identical video cards only? Because I was thinking of having another card from the ATI rather than this GeForce again, so according to you guys it is impossible to make use of another GPU right ?

[Anvita]

Exacyly you have got it corectly as you cannot make use of another graphic card rather you must have to have two identical cards installed in your machine in order to run them parallel.

In fact let me tell you that though you have GeForce GPU but if you wanted to make use of another one then also you need to have the same, for an example as you have mentioned you are having GeForce GTS 240 thus if you wanted to make use of another graphic card then you must have to make use of the same model, as you can not be able to make use of another model as well, though it is from the same company that’s GeForce.

[Emeryjon]

completely agree with the above user but moreover to this you should know that this is the same with the crossfire as well, machine running Geforce cards at that time the configuration is called as SLI rather ATI configuration are known as crossfire.

But if you have any more doubts regarding the SLI then you can simply clear them from here.