My Acer Aspire running Vista has integrated Nvidia Geforce 6150SE 256 MB graphics. Is it possible to ugrade to the eVGA e-GeForce 8500GT 512MB PCI-E Video Card? Could my pc's motherboard support this video card with this SLI technology?
The video specifications on the Acer website are: Integrated nVidia MCP61 PCI Express x16 Add-on card (selected models) If my pc can't support the 8500 gt card, then what card can it support?
Your PC probably will be able to support the 8500GT, IF it has a PCI express 16x slot. However, it's very unlikely it will be able to support two in SLI mode. No matter though, because IMO two 8500s in SLI is a waste of time, you may as well buy an 8600GTS.
I do have a question about SLI? Are two video cards required if they are SLI Ready? How can I find out type of Nvidia card my pc can handle, and if it can use a card with SLI technology?
Any card with SLI technology can be used on its own, in a single PCI express 16x slot. Just because a video card can run in SLI doesn't mean it has to. In your case you will almost certainly have to use a single card, as your PC is very unlikely to support SLI anyway. You will, however, be able to use any single card, whether it's SLI ready or not. One thing you may wish to consider though is that a powerful card may be too much for your power supply to handle, and as such you may want to upgrade that before you get a high end graphics card. With an 8500GT this will not be a problem, because the 8500GT is not a very powerful Graphics card.
SLI mode? Do SLI ready video cards have an option to use SLI or not use, if only using one card? Thanks
SLI mode can only be enabled if you have two of the same graphics card, so the process will disable automatically.