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The SLI information guide

D2ultima

Do we still have an issue with the gtx970? I have a WindForce from Gigabyte and am thinking of getting a second. Same exact card and same OC. Side note would 750W be enough to push em both.

Praise Gaben

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Do we still have an issue with the gtx970? I have a WindForce from Gigabyte and am thinking of getting a second. Same exact card and same OC. Side note would 750W be enough to push em both.

nVidia is never going to fix the memory issue with the 970. They can't do it hardware-wise, and doing it through drivers would make it a 3.5GB card, so they'll never do it.

 

If you mean "has the problem getting SLI to work with 970s been fixed?", then I don't know. I didn't even know there was an issue until someone told me there was.

 

I would suggest getting a single 980Ti first before trying to SLI. SLI support is getting worse for the time being, and the single strongest card, even though weaker than two 970s in raw power, is much more consistent with its power.

I have finally moved to a desktop. Also my guides are outdated as hell.

 

THE INFORMATION GUIDES: SLI INFORMATION || vRAM INFORMATION || MOBILE i7 CPU INFORMATION || Maybe more someday

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  • 2 weeks later...

What about processor usage, is it high on multi GPU configurations????

It's increased slightly, however not by a large amount that I could see. I've often run games by forcing single GPU and on regular SLI and I've not seen a whole lot of difference in CPU utilization, though there IS some.

I have finally moved to a desktop. Also my guides are outdated as hell.

 

THE INFORMATION GUIDES: SLI INFORMATION || vRAM INFORMATION || MOBILE i7 CPU INFORMATION || Maybe more someday

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  • 2 weeks later...

lol i didnt even know that the titan xz was a dual gpu card

I hope you meant Titan Z and not Titan XZ because I don't know of any card named the Titan XZ  :mellow:

I have finally moved to a desktop. Also my guides are outdated as hell.

 

THE INFORMATION GUIDES: SLI INFORMATION || vRAM INFORMATION || MOBILE i7 CPU INFORMATION || Maybe more someday

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Do we still have an issue with the gtx970? I have a WindForce from Gigabyte and am thinking of getting a second. Same exact card and same OC. Side note would 750W be enough to push em both.

 

750w is fine. I use a 750Watt supply with my system and it runs an SlI 970 configuration. I saw a massive increase in performance across all major AAA titles on the market right now when I added the second 970 to the mix. Heck, whole reason I built my PC was to run SLI 970 and have an overclocked CPU for graphics rendering. I was enjoying performance on a single 970 on my laptop via external graphics amplifier before.

 

sidebar: With dx12 - we need to remember that vram stacking is confirmed. sli970 will render 7gb of vram that is Good and 8gb of vram total (will ONLY be a problem if it needs to "cap" one cards vram before pulling from the other). SLI970 > 980ti IF the game supports sli Benchmarks confirm

SLI 1070 Setup for sale!!!

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I hope you meant Titan Z and not Titan XZ because I don't know of any card named the Titan XZ  :mellow:

dont worry i did mean titan z and wait is the titan z better than the titan x because the z as almost double the cores?

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sidebar: With dx12 - we need to remember that vram stacking is confirmed. sli970 will render 7gb of vram that is Good and 8gb of vram total (will ONLY be a problem if it needs to "cap" one cards vram before pulling from the other). SLI970 > 980ti IF the game supports sli Benchmarks confirm

970 won't support that technology. SFR is possible with DX9 already (unsure about 11, but it should be) but the amount of memory and the memory bandwidth we have today is too much to transfer over the PCI/e interface and/or the SLI bridge. You'd need the cards to be configured like AMD's XDMA to make sense for most games. Some games where vRAM isn't transferred a lot and there's a very small amount of data being actively used at any given time might work, but those are not the majority of games like battlefield or GTA etc. We'll need Pascal GPUs to be designed for SFR to happen with all games. AMD is already there with XMDA in all the newer cards.

 

dont worry i did mean titan z and wait is the titan z better than the titan x because the z as almost double the cores?

Two Titan Black cards will beat a Titan X, yes. Especially properly overclocked with custom vBIOSes for power draw and overclockability/stability. But that's only in situations where SLI is applicable; and it's not always applicable (especially in new engines like UE4, or the influx of Unity engine games).

 

By that stretch a Titan Z should be capable of beating a Titan X, but the cooler won't be capable of handling any kind of serious OCs or anything.

I have finally moved to a desktop. Also my guides are outdated as hell.

 

THE INFORMATION GUIDES: SLI INFORMATION || vRAM INFORMATION || MOBILE i7 CPU INFORMATION || Maybe more someday

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have 2 Gigabyte GTX970 G1 Gaming, one is flashed with 1.3v custom bios from the GTX970 Owner Club post and one is stock bios...

Can I sli both of them without any problems or do I have flash both of them or use the stock bios for both of them?

 

Link to the bios:

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/327032-gtx-970-owners-club/

 

 

Thanks

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Case: Cooler Master K280        Cooling: Cooler Master Seidon 120m (Back)        Fans: Noctua NH-F12 PWM x 2  (Front)    PSU: Cooler Master 700W    

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I have 2 Gigabyte GTX970 G1 Gaming, one is flashed with 1.3v custom bios from the GTX970 Owner Club post and one is stock bios...

Can I sli both of them without any problems or do I have flash both of them or use the stock bios for both of them?

 

Link to the bios:

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/327032-gtx-970-owners-club/

 

 

Thanks

You can use any comparible vBIOS with the cards. If they're both G1 gaming cards, they should work. I would suggest later flashing the custom vBIOS on the second card so it overclocks and is stable enough etc, but that's up to you.

 

I and a lot of notebook users use custom vBIOSes on our cards too (actually most of us in our community DON'T use stock vBIOSes), and often people flash one card before the other to make sure we don't brick anything, boot, check if working, then flash the second.

 

The only issue is that I can't predict how the voltages in SLI will work on the second card.

I have finally moved to a desktop. Also my guides are outdated as hell.

 

THE INFORMATION GUIDES: SLI INFORMATION || vRAM INFORMATION || MOBILE i7 CPU INFORMATION || Maybe more someday

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You can use any comparible vBIOS with the cards. If they're both G1 gaming cards, they should work. I would suggest later flashing the custom vBIOS on the second card so it overclocks and is stable enough etc, but that's up to you.

 

I and a lot of notebook users use custom vBIOSes on our cards too (actually most of us in our community DON'T use stock vBIOSes), and often people flash one card before the other to make sure we don't brick anything, boot, check if working, then flash the second.

 

The only issue is that I can't predict how the voltages in SLI will work on the second card.

Alright thanks alot man :)  still waiting for my mobo... it takes so long to reach me :(

CPU: Intel i7 4790       Motherboard: Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 5       RAM: Crucial Ballistic Tactical Tracer 8x4 (32GB)       GPU: Gigabtye GTX970 G1 Gaming 2-ways SLI

Case: Cooler Master K280        Cooling: Cooler Master Seidon 120m (Back)        Fans: Noctua NH-F12 PWM x 2  (Front)    PSU: Cooler Master 700W    

Operating System: Windows 8.1 64bit     Storage#1: Kingston 120gb SSD v300    Storage#2: WD 1TB Blue      Display(s): AOC i2757FH 27 Inch IPS Monitor
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  • 3 weeks later...

Can I upgrade to an AMD R7 360 if I have a Nvidia GT 240?

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If I have two 970 strixs in SLI with the SLI bridge will I be able to power my monitor through one displayport ???

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If I have two 970 strixs in SLI with the SLI bridge will I be able to power my monitor through one displayport ???

Yes, that's normally how it works. You don't need to connect anything to the second video card unless you want that card running a display (not in SLI mode)

I have finally moved to a desktop. Also my guides are outdated as hell.

 

THE INFORMATION GUIDES: SLI INFORMATION || vRAM INFORMATION || MOBILE i7 CPU INFORMATION || Maybe more someday

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Yes, that's normally how it works. You don't need to connect anything to the second video card unless you want that card running a display (not in SLI mode)

 

Thank you very much :D

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Something to add, if it's not done yet.

Quad SLI does not equal to 4-way SLI. On some motherboard spec sheets, it will say supports quad SLI. This does not mean you can go out and grab 4 GTX 980Ti and SLI them, it will not work. Quad SLI means, a single video card will have 2 gpus in it, such as the GTX 690. When you buy 2 of them and run them in SLI, it's Quad SLI because each video card has 2 gpus. In a 4-way SLI configuration, you will have 4 video cards and each video card will only have 1 gpu.

 

Quad SLI

2x GTX 690

Number of gpus on each GTX 690 = 2

Total number of gpus combined = 4 (quad SLI)

 

4-Way SLI

4x GTX 980Ti

Number of gpus on each GTX 980Ti = 1

Total number of gpus combined = 4 (4-way SLI)

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AMD ThreadRipper 2!

5820K & 6800K 3-way SLI mobo support list

 

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Something to add, if it's not done yet.

Quad SLI does not equal to 4-way SLI. On some motherboard spec sheets, it will say supports quad SLI. This does not mean you can go out and grab 4 GTX 980Ti and SLI them, it will not work. Quad SLI means, a single video card will have 2 gpus in it, such as the GTX 690. When you buy 2 of them and run them in SLI, it's Quad SLI because each video card has 2 gpus. In a 4-way SLI configuration, you will have 4 video cards and each video card will only have 1 gpu.

 

Quad SLI

2x GTX 690

Number of gpus on each GTX 690 = 2

Total number of gpus combined = 4 (quad SLI)

 

4-Way SLI

4x GTX 980Ti

Number of gpus on each GTX 980Ti = 1

Total number of gpus combined = 4 (4-way SLI)

Good to note, I'll update it under the "what can I SLI" section

I have finally moved to a desktop. Also my guides are outdated as hell.

 

THE INFORMATION GUIDES: SLI INFORMATION || vRAM INFORMATION || MOBILE i7 CPU INFORMATION || Maybe more someday

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I have a question.

I saw this video ( 

) he has an i7 4790k, which allows you to use only 16 PCI-E lanes. He is using 3 GTX 760 in SLI. How is this possible if SLI requires the cards to be in 8x slots?
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he has an i7 4790k, which allows you to use only 16 PCI-E lanes. He is using 3 GTX 760 in SLI. How is this possible if SLI requires the cards to be in 8x slots?

 

 

First, I will clear up some fairly common misconceptions about SLI.

 
7 - Your CPU and motherboard have an effect on what you can SLI and how many cards you can SLI. You need to count PCI/e lanes, essentially. Mainstream i7 CPUs (like the i7-4790K) have only 16 lanes; so 2-way SLI (with each card running at 8x bus speed) will be the max the CPU can support, unless the motherboard has a PLX chip to support more cards in SLI.

^ click above

I have finally moved to a desktop. Also my guides are outdated as hell.

 

THE INFORMATION GUIDES: SLI INFORMATION || vRAM INFORMATION || MOBILE i7 CPU INFORMATION || Maybe more someday

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  • 4 weeks later...

Should I sli two 950s i already have one but I'd have to buy a new mb or just buy a r9 380.

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Should I sli two 950s i already have one but I'd have to buy a new mb or just buy a r9 380.

I'd suggest the R9 380 4GB wholeheartedly. SLI nothing under a 980Ti if you can help it.

I have finally moved to a desktop. Also my guides are outdated as hell.

 

THE INFORMATION GUIDES: SLI INFORMATION || vRAM INFORMATION || MOBILE i7 CPU INFORMATION || Maybe more someday

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You should have mentioned Nvidia Inspector SLI bit tweaking. Really useful for better compatibility.

Dark Souls prepare to die edition doesn't support SLI but you can get SLI working with the right bit. Wish AMD had this ability but it's crap right now in terms of tweaks ever since RadeonPro took a dump.

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You should have mentioned Nvidia Inspector SLI bit tweaking. Really useful for better compatibility.

Dark Souls prepare to die edition doesn't support SLI but you can get SLI working with the right bit. Wish AMD had this ability but it's crap right now in terms of tweaks ever since RadeonPro took a dump.

 

 

Now that that's done, let's get into the benefits of SLI. There's some benefits I'll list that most people don't actually know.

 
 
5 - SLI can actually be forced on some games that don't actually support it... such as Skyrim's RCRN or ENB modded states. If you pick the correct thing, (which in the case of Skyrim is "Force Alternate Frame Rendering 2"), then you can still enjoy the benefits of SLI even while using a large amount of graphical mods and keeping your lovely framerates. Another possible way, or a way to fix some incompatibility issues even with a "supported" driver, may be to use SLI compatibility bits via nVidia Inspector. Here is a (rather short; I know there are much more elsewhere) list of games and compatibility bits that improve them; it's a good start, so good luck! http://www.forum-3dcenter.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=509912
Please note: some engines (like Unreal Engine 4, ID Tech 5 and Unity) do not support SLI at their base level, and it is NOT a "game" issue. For games on such engines, there is no "forcing" SLI.

I have finally moved to a desktop. Also my guides are outdated as hell.

 

THE INFORMATION GUIDES: SLI INFORMATION || vRAM INFORMATION || MOBILE i7 CPU INFORMATION || Maybe more someday

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