GA-MA78G-S2H vs DS3H

I was all set to order the S2H from NewEgg today and they dropped the
price of the DS3H to the same as the S2H and it is labled as "customer
choice award".

The primary difference between the 2 is the S2H has an Nvidia video
chipset and the DS3H has an ATI video chipset. Also, the DS3H has an
eSata connector.

I do a little bit of gaming (World Of Warcraft), but I primarily do 3D
Studio Max, Cinema 4D and Adobe After Effects work.

I will eventually be upgrading to a dedicated video card, but in the
meantime does the video chipset matter for me?

Dave wrote:
> I was all set to order the S2H from NewEgg today and they dropped the
> price of the DS3H to the same as the S2H and it is labled as "customer
> choice award".
>
> The primary difference between the 2 is the S2H has an Nvidia video
> chipset and the DS3H has an ATI video chipset. Also, the DS3H has an
> eSata connector.
>
> I do a little bit of gaming (World Of Warcraft), but I primarily do 3D
> Studio Max, Cinema 4D and Adobe After Effects work.
>
> I will eventually be upgrading to a dedicated video card, but in the
> meantime does the video chipset matter for me?

For Crossfire or SLI video card configurations (two video cards working
together, generally of the same brand and type), the software driver
for the video card, enforces policy based on chipset used. A board
with Intel or ATI chipset, supports Crossfire. A board with Nvidia
chipset, supports SLI (Nvidia video cards). So the video card
driver uses branding information, to decide whether to allow
two video cards to work in tandem (like alternate frame rendering
or AFR).

So the chipset matters, if the motherboard has two video card slots.
If there is only one video card slot, the video card driver does
not care which chipset is used when only a single video card is
involved. The limitation is only applied to SLI or Crossfire.

You will also find video cards now, which have two GPU chips
inside the same video card. Examples are 9800GX2 and
3870 X2. In that case, the package contains 2 GPU chips
and a PCI Express switching chip to glue them together.
The 2 GPU chips in that case, are not connected directly
to the motherboard chipset, and go through the PCI
Express switch chip. And then the driver allows those
two GPUs to work together, no matter what motherboard
the card is plugged into. Things might change, if you
tried to use two of those dual GPU cards (I expect
the normal branding policy would apply again).

For regular usage (where you purchase a single card with
plenty of horsepower), then it doesn't matter what chipset
you use on the motherboard. The latest batch of cards have
just come out, and you should consider the effects of
the pricing strategy on those new cards, before rushing
out and purchasing something. You can get a quite powerful
card for $200.

Paul

On Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:38:25 -0500, Dave blather'd thus:

> I was all set to order the S2H from NewEgg today and they dropped the
> price of the DS3H to the same as the S2H and it is labled as "customer
> choice award".
>
> The primary difference between the 2 is the S2H has an Nvidia video
> chipset and the DS3H has an ATI video chipset. Also, the DS3H has an
> eSata connector.
>
> I do a little bit of gaming (World Of Warcraft), but I primarily do 3D
> Studio Max, Cinema 4D and Adobe After Effects work.
>
> I will eventually be upgrading to a dedicated video card, but in the
> meantime does the video chipset matter for me?

Ironic?





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