neilmcc

I intend putting together a gaming computer and want to know if 2 graphics cards with a motherboard supporting SLI would be better than one more expensive graphic card. For instance would 2 ATI Radeon 4890 cards be better than 1 Nvidia GeForce 2GB GTX 285 card?

Phædrus2401

A single high-end video card is the best solution in almost every situation. Running two video cards in SLI/Crossfire will only give you perhaps 10-25% more performance than a single card, cost twice as much, require an 850-1000W power supply, a more expensive motherboard, and a larger, better cooled case. It just isn't cost-effective. A single 4890 should suffice for playing any game on its maximum settings on a 1680x1050 display.

Also, the Nvidia SLI/nForce boards are very buggy with Intel CPUs, and I recommend against them, especially if you plan to overclock. Recently a user tried to overclock their Q6600 on an nForce 680i board and hit a wall at 3.0GHz. One our tech team members exchanged it with them for a Gigabyte board with an Intel P45 chipset and they managed to get the CPU up to 3.4GHz with a lot less hassle than it took to get to 3.0GHz on the Nvidia board.

neilmcc

Thanks for that answer. For the motherboard I was thinking of the Gigabyte GA-EX58-Extreme that has a Intel X58 Express chipset - is this a good choice?

Phædrus2401

That depends on a number of things. Which depend on a number of other things. Could you make a post in the Building section and start over from the beginning so we know what your budget is, what hardware you've been looking at, what you want this computer to be for, etc.

Tyree

DDR3 RAM has issues so we don't recommend using it and obviously not Mobo's that use it.
A 775 chip build will perform equally/better for considerably less money.