Overclocking 980ti SLI?

[ThatNewGuy01211]

Super new to pcs, finally overcame my CPU temp problem due to my pump pooping out. So now that thats fixed im attempting to overclock. Watched an msi afterburner tutorial but saw no mention of sli. Not sure if afterburner will individually register and let me overclock individually. And gpus seems to randomized to generally try to overclock both at the same time. I may very well and probably have no idea what im talking about, but, can anyone help me to understand?

[ThatNewGuy01211]

Currently overclocking that card i believe that is perma running if you will. Overclocked to +120 core and 500 memory safely. Just not sure what to do with the other card 

[amdorintel]

sli is a very specific case these days, so maybe sell the other card, and keep the better card

[ThatNewGuy01211]

Thank you for your response @amdorintel. So in what you are mentioning, should I remove the cards and install and overclock both one at a time and see which gives better performance? I do play BF5, but have been reading that SLI has been disabled for the game? Not sure on that one. But, should i now take out the one i have for sure overclocked and then try to do the other. And then survival of the fittest? 

[ThatNewGuy01211]

19 minutes ago, amdorintel said:

sli is a very specific case these days, so maybe sell the other card, and keep the better card

Also for this. Should I benchmark each to be sure which is better or will the fact that i can potentially overclock one a bit more than the other be enough to tell me which is the better card? 

[amdorintel]

Just now, ThatNewGuy01211 said:

Also for this. Should I benchmark each to be sure which is better or will the fact that i can potentially overclock one a bit more than the other be enough to tell me which is the better card? 

yeah because there is a sort of silicone lottery with pcb boards, not sure about your card in particular, but do do benchmarks and see.

[ThatNewGuy01211]

1 minute ago, amdorintel said:

yeah because there is a sort of silicone lottery with pcb boards, not sure about your card in particular, but do do benchmarks and see.

Alright gonna power down then remove a card then benchmark the overclocked and take down score. then overclock the other and benchmark then compare. Thank you for your assistance!

 

[ThatNewGuy01211]

So I unplug the one I believe to not be in use, afterburner doesn't bring up a graphics card at all? not sure what i did or what else needs to be unplugged for it to register. 

[ThatNewGuy01211]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Believe the PCI E cords were spliced maybe? I have not the faintest idea with these lol but maybe they are the problem? My novice is showing lol afterburner shows no card and only graphing at the bottom for my cpu

[ThatNewGuy01211]

What im looking at currently. Empties are obviously from other now detached card

[ThatNewGuy01211]

Have 3 sets of pci e cords that ive tried plugging in and nothing shows in afterburner. Also dont have the option to sleep the computer anymore since taking out a graphics card? Just shutdown and restart

[ThatNewGuy01211]

Alternatively, could i have just left both cards in and removed the bridge and overclocked and benchmarked them individually that way?

[Mick Naughty]

Just plug the monitor into the card start up the pc and oc it that way. Don’t need to take the card out. 

Just disable sli and move the monitor. 

But since you got it out, if ab isn’t seeing it, reinstall it. Messing with power cords won’t fix the software. 

[ThatNewGuy01211]

thank you @Mick Naughty this is what i eventually figured out yesterday and overclocked them that way. One lets me take it a bit farther with oc than the other (one was +120 core +500 memory vs. 155 core and 500 memory) so I've opted for the latter. Now a buddy of mine told me i should take that one and put it in slot one? Does this matter? I know i have 4 slots but technically my "better" card is in slot three with the card that was being used still in slot 1. Also gonna be looking into OC'ing the CPU but thats a post for a different place most likely

[Mick Naughty]

The cards go in the slots that support sli. If you have a fancy board, then you can use the forth slot.

 

as far as which card should go where, it doesn’t matter. They will run the exact same assuming that can be driven properly. You can use the stronger card as the main card, but that isn’t a slot preference as that can be any card. 

 

I use the lower card normally as it gets taxed the most and will have the best temp. 

[ThatNewGuy01211]

Yea the cards were/are in slots one and three. Slot one is the card that i believe was mostly used. The set up was gifted to me by my employer. But the card in slot three did better with OC and like you said my card is down there with lots of flow and room. Its all in a giant obsidian case lol not sure which model but shes bigg

[Mick Naughty]

Being blower fans the difference won’t be huge. 

 

Do which ever. I normally ran surround with my cards so they each had monitors to drive. I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Now that you know where they clock, need to test and ensure they stay there during games.