Guru 3D SLI Users Guide (Part #2)

[StarvinMarvinDK]

Actually my score rose about 900points when I put the second card in the right slot

And I had some colour corruption that disappeared too

[cowie]

Originally Posted by Angushades

Hey StarvinMarvinDK don't worry about your mobo been a sli X8 in each slot it doesn't make any difference . not even 2 GTX uses the full 16 in each slot Ok. Don't go and waste your money on a new mobo because some dude has no idea whats his talking about. You should read up about that if you don't belive me , im pretty sure tomshardware did a study about that not long ago. Go check it out.

it seems you dont know what you talkin about smdk has 16x x2

and it only mattered in futuremark 3d tests

[Angushades]

Oh really...how is that? and why would that be? last i checked i still haven't seen any card that using the full of an AGPX8....So in real time gaming it doesn't matter huh? So its bad to own a 965 board that has only 8X no 16X in each lane for duel cards?

[cowie]

yo stop it ok i never said that,plus i have a 1x16 2 x8 mb i'm on now ok.
it scores a little less at same clocks in b/m's is all i said so go play now ok.

[cowie]

you act like tm the babyest baby winer waaaaaaaa no no go get a bottle
btw welcome to guru where the folks dont take no bs

[Angushades]

Ok Ill act my age now, sorry for the crap.

[JPennStar]

I just joined the SLI club for the second time. I had SLI 7900GTs for a couple weeks and I didn't like it, to much heat, not a good enough PSU, so I ended us selling it.

Now I'm back with an awesome PSU and a pair of 8800GTS 320MB, its nice to get back in the game. Now I'm spending time reading all about it.


Here's a link to the thread I made on my new rig.

[Estima8tor]

Well, I finally got my SLI working nicely after almost giving up on it altogether.

After adding my second card the first issue I had was heat. My asus mobo is passively cooled with a heat pipe set-up. The fist time I fired up a game the alarms on my asus monitoring program started going off because the chip-set temps shot up over 50c (normally around 42c max). I added a spot cool fan at the bottom of my case blowing toward the chip-set and bottom gpu which got my temps back to normal. My case has excellent cooling by the way - two 120mm fans and one 90mm side fan but it wasn't enough.

I also assumed that the second card I bought would overclock to the same speeds as my original card and it did, but it caused the system to become unstable and freeze in games. I was thinking it was a PSU or driver issue at first but I finally realized the problem and I down clocked a little from 600/1600 to 575/1550 and that stabilized the system.

Then I started to tweak the driver settings. I tried using AFR 1 & 2 but got horrible performance in some games (Stalker especially). After much tweaking I decided to set it on auto and use nvidia's pre-defined game profiles which works fine as long as the games you play are already in the profile set-up. That ended up being the best setting for my system and I'm getting nice a performance increase in all of my sli supported games. Some games I had to set up manually in the game profile to get good performance but most play perfectly on nvidia's pre-defined settings.

Now games like Stalker, FEAR and COD2 that were barely playable on max settings with a single card now play completely smooth in SLI. I'm going back and re-playing my single player games like FEAR and COD2 with all of the eye candy on and the difference is just incredible! Stalker looks and plays beautifully now where it was struggling with a single 7900GS on high settings.

3DMark05 score went from 9700 to 12,650 and 3DMark06 went from 5400 to 7660 and if I had a better cpu they would be even higher I'm sure.

I never really wanted to go SLI but I needed some extra power and didn't want to shell out for a new 8800 card right now. This ended up being a great alternative and I got my second evga 7900GS KO card on sale at newegg for $130.00 shipped.

[RanCor TDO]

Originally Posted by Estima8tor

Well, I finally got my SLI working nicely after almost giving up on it altogether.

After adding my second card the first issue I had was heat. My asus mobo is passively cooled with a heat pipe set-up. The fist time I fired up a game the alarms on my asus monitoring program started going off because the chip-set temps shot up over 50c (normally around 42c max). I added a spot cool fan at the bottom of my case blowing toward the chip-set and bottom gpu which got my temps back to normal. My case has excellent cooling by the way - two 120mm fans and one 90mm side fan but it wasn't enough.

I also assumed that the second card I bought would overclock to the same speeds as my original card and it did, but it caused the system to become unstable and freeze in games. I was thinking it was a PSU or driver issue at first but I finally realized the problem and I down clocked a little from 600/1600 to 575/1550 and that stabilized the system.

Then I started to tweak the driver settings. I tried using AFR 1 & 2 but got horrible performance in some games (Stalker especially). After much tweaking I decided to set it on auto and use nvidia's pre-defined game profiles which works fine as long as the games you play are already in the profile set-up. That ended up being the best setting for my system and I'm getting nice a performance increase in all of my sli supported games. Some games I had to set up manually in the game profile to get good performance but most play perfectly on nvidia's pre-defined settings.

Now games like Stalker, FEAR and COD2 that were barely playable on max settings with a single card now play completely smooth in SLI. I'm going back and re-playing my single player games like FEAR and COD2 with all of the eye candy on and the difference is just incredible! Stalker looks and plays beautifully now where it was struggling with a single 7900GS on high settings.

3DMark05 score went from 9700 to 12,650 and 3DMark06 went from 5400 to 7660 and if I had a better cpu they would be even higher I'm sure.

I never really wanted to go SLI but I needed some extra power and didn't want to shell out for a new 8800 card right now. This ended up being a great alternative and I got my second evga 7900GS KO card on sale at newegg for $130.00 shipped.

nice to see someone who loves sli like I do

i reccomend playing quake 4 maxed out, looks absolutly amazing. I installed it again last night and im almost complete :>

anyhow back to kicking some strogg arse.

[Estima8tor]

Originally Posted by RanCor TDO

nice to see someone who loves sli like I do

i reccomend playing quake 4 maxed out, looks absolutly amazing. I installed it again last night and im almost complete :>

anyhow back to kicking some strogg arse.

Yeah, I am loving the extra power. I need to re-install Q4 since I reformatted my system, never actually finished that game, lol.

The only problem I'm having now is using the AFR1 or 2, I get horrible performance when I enable either one. I'm using the "nvidia recommended profile" setting in the sli profile in the 94.24 drivers which seems to work great.

The new 162.18 drivers don't have the nividia recommended setting in the sli options anymore - looks like nvidia got rid of that option with the new drivers and it's the only setting that works good for my sli system.

I would like to be able to try the new drivers when they come out but I can't if they don't include the "nvidia recommended" settinging in the sli profile anymore. So I'm stuck using the 94.24 drivers.

[mcBu113t]

Does anyone know when nVidia will be releasing an SLi board that supports DDR3 memory?

[mito]

I'm having issues with SLI...

I'm running games at 1920x1200 and everything MAXED out, except perhaps for AA, which is medium.

using forceware 162.18, latest one from nvidia.com

Stalker runs at 70fps but some scenes the framerate drops to 20fps... it's frustrating...

Call of Juarez, the first level where you steal the gun from the old man, I was getting like 100fps, it was flying.... but after I reached the town (after the bridge), framerate drops to a horrible 20fps...

Splinter Cell Double Agent is OK, steady at 40fps... Never drops below 30fps.

Now FEAR Extraction Point, this baby flies at 150fps... IQ and GFX are awesome. Of course I'm running it at 1600x1200 (max everything)... Have to try 1920x1200

And I have yet to overclock my q6600....

[Estima8tor]

I had the same problem with the 162.18 drivers - sever fps drop in some games.

Try installing the 94.24 drivers. Then go into the global driver settings and set the SLI mode to the "nvidia recommended" setting instead of using AFR.

It got rid of all the nasty frame rate drop problems for me. It's worth a try.

[mito]

Originally Posted by Estima8tor

I had the same problem with the 162.18 drivers - sever fps drop in some games.

Try installing the 94.24 drivers. Then go into the global driver settings and set the SLI mode to the "nvidia recommended" setting instead of using AFR.

It got rid of all the nasty frame rate drop problems for me. It's worth a try.

nice...

isn't 94.24 too old for my rig?

What about Vista64? I haven't even installed it yet.

[mito]

Under nVidia Control Panel I am setting AFR 2.

That seems to solve the issue of low framerates in Stalker and Juarez.

Why AFR 2?

[mito]

I learned something yesterday regarding SLI and poor perfomance.

I crank things up (1920x1200 details = MAX) and do not OC.


Please check my config and the following storyline:

1. Installed Win XP and forceware 158 (comes with evga cd);

2. avg fps: stalker=75 / juarez=50 / scda=60 / fear=150;

3. Installed forceware 162.18, nightmare begins;

4. avg fps: stalker=10 / juarez=19 / scda=60 / fear=150

5. Downgrade to forceware 158;

6. same fps

7. go to nVidia Control Panel -> 3d settings -> Manage 3d settings -> Program Settings

8. set SLI Perfomance Mode to Force Alternate Frame Rendering 2

9. voilá!!!

[Burnt_Ram]

Originally Posted by mito

Under nVidia Control Panel I am setting AFR 2.

That seems to solve the issue of low framerates in Stalker and Juarez.

Why AFR 2?

some games run better with AFR, some AFR2. just the way it is, and that can change from driver to driver.

[Marri]

let me know if u guy come up with a working proformance boosting profile for Supreme Commander or atleast better settings for SLi...

[BlackZero]

I have just ordered a q6600 with an asus a5n-e sli mobo, 2 gb corsair. I have also just ordered a leadtek 8800gts 640mb only to read that this card only does sli on dual sli x16 pci-e boards, The above board only does dual x8 pci-e in sli mode.

Any one had any experience of running a similar setup?

[MikeMK]

Marri - I dont think you will ever get a huge boost from Supreme Commander as your CPU is just as if not more important to that game as pure GPU power. Infact its one of the few games that really makes use of more cores.

Protocol - im pretty sure ive read of people who have 8800's working on dual 8x SLI boards. However, if you can return the board and swap it at no cost, its probably worth getting yourself a 680i based board. For quads, either the EVGA or the DFI seem to be best.

BTW - i take it you are changing that 240watt PSU for something rather more meaty?

[BlackZero]

Hey Mike,

Just got an email from supplier confirming that I can upgrade to the p5n32-e plus sli which supports dual x16 pci-e in sli mode.

Yes the psu will be upgraded along with a new case, just a 450 watt for the time being.

No disrespect to my faithfull 240 watt from hp, served me well currently running an x1950-pro oc to 620+ on core and 1500 on mem effective, with 2 hd's, a dvd, a cd-rom, 2 case fans, and a zalman vf700-cu keepimg the x1950-pro at mid 50s at full load while overclocked.

cant complain.

[Burnt_Ram]

Originally Posted by Protocol_48

I have just ordered a q6600 with an asus a5n-e sli mobo, 2 gb corsair. I have also just ordered a leadtek 8800gts 640mb only to read that this card only does sli on dual sli x16 pci-e boards, The above board only does dual x8 pci-e in sli mode.

Any one had any experience of running a similar setup?

i run 8X SLi, and its fine. mind you i probably loose a bit of speed, but it's neglegable according to any of the articles i've read.

[Bani]

can anyone tell me if there is a program that let u check if your SLI setup is working propperly when running games ?

[MoosePower]

Hey guys I'm thinking about purchasing a second 7950 cheap off ebay. I was wondering if I would see a dramatic performance boost? The games I play most are Oblivion and cnc3. I play on 1280 by 1024, but will soon upgade to a 22 inch lcd. Also the card I would most likely get is a bfg, and I was wondering if it would have compatability issues with my evga 7950? The BFG would have a slower core and memory speed, but I should be able to fix that with a small oc.

[Paladinchan]

real quick.. what you would guys say is the best size (watt and amp) Power Supply is best for a pair of 88GTS's

nvm.. i picked up a Cooler Master Power Pro 850W today.. good deal... it should take care of it