# SLI: 750i vs 780i



## Unknown Soldier (Mar 23, 2008)

So I'm building my first new rig in a few years, and I've been rather out of the loop on things. So far I think I'm going to go with an E6750, with one 8800 (not sure which variant) to start with, and add a second one later on down the road.

My question is this: when running SLI, how much of a performance difference is there between the 2 x 8x interface on the 750i and the 2 x 16x on the 780i? Is it really worth the extra cash? I haven't been able to find any benchmark comparisons between them on any review sites.

Keep in mind that I want to run Crysis, but I'm already pushing my budget.


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## ShadowFold (Mar 23, 2008)

For nvidia cards you will want the extra bandwidth.


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## btarunr (Mar 23, 2008)

Depends entirely on which cards you plan to use. The 750i SLI implements PCI-E 2.0 and 8 lanes of these provide the same bandwidth as 16 lanes of PCI-E 1.1 

I would say PCI-E 2.0 x8 would be sufficient for a single GPU card of the GeForce 9 series since the 9800 GTX didn't turn out to be that big monster we all expected. So running two 9800 GTX units in SLI (x8 , x8) wouldn't bottleneck much though the case would be different with 2x 9800 GX2. So in a way it's a nice buy, 750i SLI based boards. There's one out there, the ASUS P5N-D SLI which is based on the NForce 750i SLI.


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## FilipM (Mar 23, 2008)

Also, if you want a 750i SLI motherboard, you can also consider the MSI P7N Platinum.


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## ktr (Mar 23, 2008)

I say the 8800GTS 512mb and a 780i.


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## farlex85 (Mar 23, 2008)

+1. Another makes a gx2, for less price.


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## btarunr (Mar 23, 2008)

NVIDIA already knows the consumer realises the present video-cards don't really don't bottleneck with 8 PCI-E lanes, and that 750i SLI is not only inexpensive but a very smart option for users not willing to spend >$180 on a board.

So they come up with "750i won't overclock like 780i which in turn won't, like 790i". But I'd say 750i SLI is a very nice option for a board, though you get 8 lanes per card in SLI, they're PCI-E 2.0 so it's the same as 16 PCI-E 1.1 lanes.


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## Tatty_One (Mar 23, 2008)

btarunr said:


> NVIDIA already knows the consumer realises the present video-cards don't really don't bottleneck with 8 PCI-E lanes, and that 750i SLI is not only inexpensive but a very smart option for users not willing to spend >$180 on a board.
> 
> So they come up with "750i won't overclock like 780i which in turn won't, like 790i". But I'd say 750i SLI is a very nice option for a board, though you get 8 lanes per card in SLI, they're PCI-E 2.0 so it's the same as 16 PCI-E 1.1 lanes.



Agreed, however the 750i chipset seems to overclock better than the 780i (ceretainly in MSI's case), I have researched the chipsets in some detail as I am just about to go SLi and there is no performance difference between the 16 x 16 over the 8 x 8 with  PCI-E 2.0 on current gen cards as you have said, ATM the only reason to go 780i from  what I have seen is if you want to go tri SLi, I think I am going to get the MSI 750i Platinum.


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## PaulieG (Mar 23, 2008)

I've thuoght about a 750i board, but I keep hearing that they are NOT good for overclocking Quads. Can anyone give some insight on this?


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## Tatty_One (Mar 23, 2008)

Paulieg said:


> I've thuoght about a 750i board, but I keep hearing that they are NOT good for overclocking Quads. Can anyone give some insight on this?



I can only speak from the MSI 750i Platinum perspective and not all 750's but mefinks the MSI is probably the best of the bunch and it certainly does not suffer from Quad problems, in fact it beats some pretty impressive intel rivals in the quad overclocking department, it actually beat the x38 Maximus formula!  Not quite so good on High FSB's so IMO you need at least an 8.5 multi to get the most out of the board/chip but with the Xeon/Kentsfield 9 multi.....no worries.....take a look here:

http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews.php?/cpu_mainboard/msi_p7n_sli_platinum_750i_based_motherboard/5

Then read the rest of the review, the board does have it's weaknesses but I think you will agree, not bad at all!


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## trt740 (Mar 23, 2008)

Tatty_One said:


> I can only speak from the MSI 750i Platinum perspective and not all 750's but mefinks the MSI is probably the best of the bunch and it certainly does not suffer from Quad problems, in fact it beats some pretty impressive intel rivals in the quad overclocking department, it actually beat the x38 Maximus formula!  Not quite so good on High FSB's so IMO you need at least an 8.5 multi to get the most out of the board/chip but with the Xeon/Kentsfield 9 multi.....no worries.....take a look here:
> 
> http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews.php?/cpu_mainboard/msi_p7n_sli_platinum_750i_based_motherboard/5
> 
> Then read the rest of the review, the board does have it's weaknesses but I think you will agree, not bad at all!



this is a even better version but is a 780I http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130158


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## PaulieG (Mar 23, 2008)

trt740 said:


> this is a even better version but is a 780I http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130158



Nice board, but I'm looking at cost effective solutions, so i'm sticking to the 750i. Tatty, Do you think my Zerotherm Nirvana 120 will fit over that crazy MSI NB cooler?


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## trt740 (Mar 23, 2008)

Paulieg said:


> Nice board, but I'm looking at cost effective solutions, so i'm sticking to the 750i. Tatty, Do you think my Zerotherm Nirvana 120 will fit over that crazy MSI NB cooler?



It will but down facing not pointing towards the rear. Paul are you buying one? The 750 will be a downgrade from what you have. The 780 would not be.


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## Tatty_One (Mar 23, 2008)

Paulieg said:


> Nice board, but I'm looking at cost effective solutions, so i'm sticking to the 750i. Tatty, Do you think my Zerotherm Nirvana 120 will fit over that crazy MSI NB cooler?



Well to answer that, if it's the same size as a TRUE or bigger no, the TRUE needs to be side on as it's about 4mm too wide, if the Zero is 4mm or more smaller it will fit.


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## Tatty_One (Mar 23, 2008)

trt740 said:


> It will but down facing not pointing towards the rear. Paul are you buying one? The 750 will be a downgrade from what you have. The 780 would not be.



780i over 750i.....what do you think the differences are?  the MSI 750i overclocks a Quad better than an x38 Maximus Formula (although I appreciate the review I posted is just one review, there are a couple of others though), the MSI 750 boards only difference (real world) over the MSI Diamond 780i board is that the 750i chipset does not support Tri SLi.  Unlike the NVidia Reference design (EVGA, XFX etc) both MSI boards are 8 phase (6 phase reference) and both MSI boards have all solid state capacitators unlike the Reference that have only part solid.


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## Grings (Mar 23, 2008)

It was also said that 650's wouldnt overclock as well as 680's, but they also were often quicker (and were crap with quads)


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## trt740 (Mar 23, 2008)

Tatty_One said:


> 780i over 750i.....what do you think the differences are?  the MSI 750i overclocks a Quad better than an x38 Maximus Formula (although I appreciate the review I posted is just one review, there are a couple of others though), the MSI 750 boards only difference (real world) over the MSI Diamond 780i board is that the 750i chipset does not support Tri SLi.  Unlike the NVidia Reference design (EVGA, XFX etc) both MSI boards are 8 phase (6 phase reference) and both MSI boards have all solid state capacitators.



listen to Tatty he turned me on to these boards ( I do thy bidding my master) . I might buy the 780 for SLI


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## Tatty_One (Mar 23, 2008)

Grings said:


> It was also said that 650's wouldnt overclock as well as 680's, but they also were often quicker (and were crap with quads)



Yup, I had an Anus 650i (P5N-E Sli) and it was a fantastic overclocker and as you said, crap with quads but I think thats because it had only 2 phases.....unlike the MSI 750i that has 8 phase, thats more than NVidia's 780i reference


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## Tatty_One (Mar 23, 2008)

trt740 said:


> listen to Tatty he turned me on to these boards ( I do thy bidding my master) . I might buy the 780 for SLI



nnnoooooooooooooooooo MSI 750i is the ONLY way to go IMO


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## PaulieG (Mar 23, 2008)

trt740 said:


> It will but down facing not pointing towards the rear. Paul are you buying one? The 750 will be a downgrade from what you have. The 780 would not be.



Well, I would be switching out my IP-35. The reason I want the Nvidia chipset is for the unlinked memory...but I don't want to spend 780i money, nor do I need tri-SLI. Everything else seems very similar.


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## PaulieG (Mar 23, 2008)

Tatty_One said:


> nnnoooooooooooooooooo MSI 750i is the ONLY way to go IMO



I think you're selling me on the MSI 750i board. It seems like a great value too...


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## Tatty_One (Mar 23, 2008)

Paulieg said:


> I think you're selling me on the MSI 750i board. It seems like a great value too...



Well all I can say, from all the reading I have done over the last month (and thats a lot!) is that it would appear that the Diamond 780i is more or less the No1 780i board out there ATM across the board and the Platinum 750i is even better!  Why get a 780i if you can get a 750i that has identical spec apart from 8 x 8 SLi which as I said, makes no difference on PCI-E 2.0 (cannot use all the bandwidth available in any case) and no Tri SLi, everything else on the boards are identical, just look at the price of the EVGA 780i board and compare it with the MSI 750i board, then think that the MSI has more phases, all solid state capacitators, better cooling, free CPU cooler and overclocks better........bargain!


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## PaulieG (Mar 23, 2008)

Tatty_One said:


> Well all I can say, from all the reading I have done over the last month (and thats a lot!) is that it would appear that the Diamond 780i is more or less the No1 780i board out there ATM across the board and the Platinum 750i is even better!  Why get a 780i if you can get a 750i that has identical spec apart from 8 x 8 SLi which as I said, makes no difference on PCI-E 2.0 (cannot use all the bandwidth available in any case) and no Tri SLi, everything else on the boards are identical, just look at the price of the EVGA 780i board and compare it with the MSI 750i board, then think that the MSI has more phases, all solid state capacitators, better cooling, free CPU cooler and overclocks better........bargain!



Free CPU cooler?


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## Tatty_One (Mar 23, 2008)

Paulieg said:


> Free CPU cooler?



yes, the latest release of the board is called the "Zilent" and comes with the Zalman VF9700 (I think it's that one) cooler................


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## trt740 (Mar 24, 2008)

The only trouble with both board is they will not support the 1600 Fsb 45nm chips 9770 etc.


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## Tatty_One (Mar 24, 2008)

trt740 said:


> The only trouble with both board is they will not support the 1600 Fsb 45nm chips 9770 etc.



BIOS update? works for most boards...think 965's and 1333FSB however in this case you may well be right but would you want it to?  isnt 1600FSB chips/boards specifically designed for ONLY DDR3???


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## trt740 (Mar 25, 2008)

Tatty_One said:


> BIOS update? works for most boards...think 965's and 1333FSB however in this case you may well be right but would you want it to?  isnt 1600FSB chips/boards specifically designed for ONLY DDR3???



not sure but msi says they don't work on there web site for these boards.


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## JrRacinFan (Mar 25, 2008)

All I know is I want one of those Asus P5N-D's!


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## Thompson5439 (Mar 25, 2008)

I have been running my MSI 750i stable for a month now with a x6800 at 3.4. 
I just ordered a Q9450 from tankguys and will report back on how well it overclocks.
Should get the Q9450 by the end of this week.


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## Tatty_One (Mar 25, 2008)

JrRacinFan said:


> All I know is I want one of those Asus P5N-D's!



The reviews suggest that your better option would be the MSI 750i Platinum.


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## Tatty_One (Mar 25, 2008)

Thompson5439 said:


> I have been running my MSI 750i stable for a month now with a x6800 at 3.4.
> I just ordered a Q9450 from tankguys and will report back on how well it overclocks.
> Should get the Q9450 by the end of this week.



That would be good thanks, I am ordering one tonight, I ordered it yesterday (well I thought I did) but for some reason it didnt happen!


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## Tatty_One (Mar 25, 2008)

trt740 said:


> not sure but msi says they don't work on there web site for these boards.



Yup, thats because the board is DDR2, 1600FSB boards will be ONLY DDR3 I beleive.


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## Unknown Soldier (Mar 25, 2008)

Tatty_One said:


> The reviews suggest that your better option would be the MSI 750i Platinum.



I've been coming to the same conclusion, but I'm looking at buying the ASUS just because it's so much cheaper. At least here in Japan, the MSI is only about 10USD less than a 780i board!

Would I be committing a massive mistake if I buy the ASUS?


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## Tatty_One (Mar 25, 2008)

Unknown Soldier said:


> I've been coming to the same conclusion, but I'm looking at buying the ASUS just because it's so much cheaper. At least here in Japan, the MSI is only about 10USD less than a 780i board!
> 
> Would I be committing a massive mistake if I buy the ASUS?



IDK to be honest but I cannot beleive that there is so little difference in price (not questioning you, just surprised), in the UK the difference is £70 thats $140!!! remember there are to models, exactly the same but the "Zilent" is more expensive because it comes with the Zalman CPU cooler, the other model is a fair bit cheaper here without the CPU cooler.


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## Unknown Soldier (Mar 26, 2008)

Tatty_One said:


> IDK to be honest but I cannot beleive that there is so little difference in price (not questioning you, just surprised), in the UK the difference is £70 thats $140!!! remember there are to models, exactly the same but the "Zilent" is more expensive because it comes with the Zalman CPU cooler, the other model is a fair bit cheaper here without the CPU cooler.



Yeah I realize that, but it doesn't seem to be that particular model. There was nothing about "Zilent" and no indication of a CPU cooler--yet the price tag is about $290 at every store I look at. An XFX 780i is a little over $300. Meanwhile, the ASUS is going for closer to $230--which still seems to be over-priced, but I think that's generally the way things are for a lot of parts here...


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## JrRacinFan (Mar 26, 2008)

I really thank you Tatty! That MSI board does look like it would fit the bill better, and help with some futureproofing. 2 PCIe's versus 3 on the MSI, 2 IDE's versus 1 on the Asus. I like it alot.


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## Tatty_One (Mar 26, 2008)

JrRacinFan said:


> I really thank you Tatty! That MSI board does look like it would fit the bill better, and help with some futureproofing. 2 PCIe's versus 3 on the MSI, 2 IDE's versus 1 on the Asus. I like it alot.



Your welcome, I have done a fair bit of research on both the 780i and the 750i boards and it seems that with each chipset the MSI Diamond (780i) and Platinum (750I) are the best of the bunch, for overclocking, cooling, stability and features.  Currently, unless you want to go tri SLi there is not really any reason to get the 780i over the 750i as on the MSI boards the other features, phases and capacitators are the same.  Of course the 780i boards are 16 x 16 as opposed to 8 x 8 on the 750i but that makes no difference on current cards with PCI-E 2.0 enabled motherboards.


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## PaulieG (Mar 26, 2008)

Tatty_One said:


> Your welcome, I have done a fair bit of research on both the 780i and the 750i boards and it seems that with each chipset the MSI Diamond (780i) and Platinum (750I) are the best of the bunch, for overclocking, cooling, stability and features.  Currently, unless you want to go tri SLi there is not really any reason to get the 780i over the 750i as on the MSI boards the other features, phases and capacitators are the same.  Of course the 780i boards are 16 x 16 as opposed to 8 x 8 on the 750i but that makes no difference on current cards with PCI-E 2.0 enabled motherboards.



Just an FYI guys, I do have a brand new MSI 750i Platinum for sale if anyone is interested.


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## Wastedslayer (Mar 26, 2008)

I was thinkin the same thing about these 2 motherboards, but I want to run my E6750 at 2000Mhz FSB and 4Ghz do you think the 750i can handle it?


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## Tatty_One (Mar 26, 2008)

Wastedslayer said:


> I was thinkin the same thing about these 2 motherboards, but I want to run my E6750 at 2000Mhz FSB and 4Ghz do you think the 750i can handle it?



Probably not this early in it's life TBH, from reviews and other forums owners seem to be getting between 470 and 490FSB but everyone seems to expect with the next BIOS release it will probably go to 500mhz but the board is young and most have to develop a little through BIOS updates, what is fairly certain though from my research is that the MSI 750i overclocks better than the MSI 780i and the MSI 780i seems to overclock better than any of the other 780i boards so by getting one you would be pretty much assured of getting the most out of an SLi board IMO, you should certainly get more out of it (E6750) than you are at the moment and as the MSI board is cheaper than your current board, with a bit of decent ebaying it shouldnt cost you anything.....just my thoughts.


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## trt740 (Mar 27, 2008)

Wastedslayer said:


> I was thinkin the same thing about these 2 motherboards, but I want to run my E6750 at 2000Mhz FSB and 4Ghz do you think the 750i can handle it?



no both have a max of FSB of about 475 FSB


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## Kord (Mar 31, 2008)

If the 780i boards are not an option, you might want to consider the new SLI boards from ASRock. The Penryn1600SLIX3-WiFi is a 680i board they're just about to release. It has pretty amazing specs, so don't scoff yet 

FSB up to 1600MHz
Supports all 775 CPUs ( including QX9770 )
4 x DDR2 RAM slots (8GB)
3-way SLI ( 2 x PCIe 16x, 1 x 8x )
Here's a review on OCWorkbench. They had an E6550 running at 1880MHz FSB (6x469)... not stunning, but not too bad for a budget board... actually, I was just impressed when they didn't say it was crap for overclocking.

If overclocking is a priority, you might want to check the 650i-based Penryn1600SLI-110dB board, instead. As people have said, it might be a better overclocking board. OCW reviewed the Penryn1600SLI-110dB a few weeks back. And these German guys even considered it a very stable _übertaktungsfreudiges_ board, for some reason.

Those ASRock boards are so cheap you could get one and wait for the 790i boards to drop in price, or the 2nd-gen boards to arrive. The Penryn1600SLI costs about $100, and I'd guess the SLIX3 will be around $130-$140. I'm considering that option because the 790i boards are over £220 here, and the 1600SLI is £50.


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