Can you install a gtx 970 in a system that has gtx 980 in sli?

[kbenton00]

Hello,

 

I've been looking for the answer to the above question and I have yet to find any info.  I have a system that has 4 monitors

and I've looking to add a fifth monitor ( the 27" Asus ROG Swift) as a dedicated gaming monitor.  I would like to dedicate the

gtx 980 sli to the gaming monitor and then add a gtx 970 to the system to run the remaining 4 aux monitors.

 

Can this be done?

 

Regards,

KB

[Guest]

I'm afraid it cannot be done in SLI as the cards are not all the same.

[Soplias]

I dont think that is possible but on the other hand you could use it as a PhysX card.

[nicon]

Yea you can, you can dedicate it to PhysX or use it for another monitor (not for gaming though). You CANNOT sli the 980's with it though

[kbenton00]

I'm afraid it cannot be done in SLI as the cards are not all the same.

Assuming I understand your answer, the 970 would not be part of the sli... simply an add in card to run the aux monitors.

 

KB

[Spev]

Yea you can, you can dedicate it to PhysX or use it for another monitor (not for gaming though). You CANNOT sli the 980's with it though

Yeah, would be pretty much waste of money just to buy a 970 for PhysX tho IMO...how many games even utilize that?

[Godlygamer23]

Yes, you can do that. No issues.

[TheRetiredSlave]

Yes. You can always have secondary and/or tertiary GPUs doing whatever the hell you want. 

Since they're not the same, you obviously wouldn't be able to the extra 970 in SLI, but you can have it installed.

 

Source: I had tried to do this with a GTX 980, GTX 780, Radeon HD 6670, and the Intel HD 4600.. Everything works just fine, though they obviously can't be used together.

 

 

HOWEVER, I would not recommend doing it, because there's literally no performance gain from having a secondary GPU driving the extra monitors. All you'd be doing is putting more heat and less airflow in your case. Total waste of money.

My 980 is by itself now. The HD 6670 is being used as a coaster, and the 780 is waiting to be used in my brother's upcoming build.

[nicon]

Yeah, would be pretty much waste of money just to buy a 970 for PhysX tho IMO...how many games even utilize that?

No games. I thought that he just had one laying around, but to buy one just for that, NO WAY!

[Spev]

No games. I thought that he just had one laying around, but to buy one just for that, NO WAY!

Some tests even show that depending on the GPU you setup for Physx, it can actually DECREASE your performance in games, and it actually is more beneficial to just use 1 card. With a 980/970 I doubt that would happen, but if you paired a 980 with something older it could actually make your in game performance worse.

[Godlygamer23]

Some tests even show that depending on the GPU you setup for Physx, it can actually DECREASE your performance in games, and it actually is more beneficial to just use 1 card. With a 980/970 I doubt that would happen, but if you paired a 980 with something older it could actually make your in game performance worse.

For me, PhysX was actually running on my 660 Ti(folding card) and I switched it over to my 970 and I found no performance differences. Though, that game is shitty with optimizations.

[Guest]

Assuming I understand your answer, the 970 would not be part of the sli... simply an add in card to run the aux monitors.

 

KB

I should have been clearer, apologies. 

What I mean is that the cards cannot both be used for the same graphical processing task at the same time. Only one of the card types could be used for gaming at any given point while the other card type (the folding card) would only be being used for PhysX processing as it would not be part of the SLI config.

[asker509]

Yeah, would be pretty much waste of money just to buy a 970 for PhysX tho IMO...how many games even utilize that?

I would get a cheaper card for sure

[kbenton00]

Ok... this is what I found out.

 

1) Had 2x GTX 980 in SLI in slots 1 & 3 (had an empty slot between them)

2) Installed a GTX 970 in the empty slot between the 980's

3) System booted and Nvidia control panel would not recognize that it was running Nvidia cards.

     Only the main monitor displayed windows, all other monitors were blank.

4) Removed all cards and then installed 970 in slot 1

5) Reset system and Nvidia drivers needed a fresh install for the new card

6) After verifying that 970 was working correctly, removed it from system and re-installed original 980 in slot one.

7) Verified that system operated correctly with single 980

8) Reset system and installed second 980 in slot 2 (no empty slot between the two 980's)

9) Verified that both cards were working correctly in the system and that SLI was enabled correctly.

10) Reset system and installed 970 in slot 3

11)  Verified that all cards are now working correctly.  The 2 980's are in SLI and the 970 is driving all the aux monitors correctly.

 

So, either installing the 970 between the two 980's or not installing the drivers for it first caused my system to fail to operate correctly.

 

As for whether or not it is a waste of money... let's see; kids fed, clothed, and housed (check); wife has her household expense money (check); vacations to Disneyland and Ecuador paid for (check); plenty of disposable income and large savings/retirement account (check)... so not seeing any issues deciding to add a $350 card to my system if I feel like it.

(please take the above in the humorous mode it was meant to be)

 

Regards,

KB 

[-rascal-]

If you are running a LGA 1150 based system (you didn't mention anything about your system), then you are limited to total of 16 PCI-E lanes.

SLi requires the PCI-E slots to run at a minimum of x8 electrically for SLi to be enabled in the drivers.

If your system is an Intel based system and have a motherboard that runs at:

1) x8 + x8 for two graphics cards or,

2) x8 + x4 + x4 for three graphics cards

Then THAT is your problem. SLi won't enable when the slot is running at x4 electrically.

[ZmanFTW]

As others stated already, as a dedicated PhysX card it CAN be done but it is gross overkill and a waste of a GTX 970. You may need to contact Nvidia and find out what the proper procedure for this would be. I'm guessing it has something to do with driver installation. Even a GTX 750 or 750 Ti would be plenty enough for PhysX. If you got money to burn then do 3-way SLI !!!

[kbenton00]

If you are running a LGA 1150 based system (you didn't mention anything about your system), then you are limited to total of 16 PCI-E lanes.

SLi requires the PCI-E slots to run at a minimum of x8 electrically for SLi to be enabled in the drivers.

If your system is an Intel based system and have a motherboard that runs at:

1) x8 + x8 for two graphics cards or,

2) x8 + x4 + x4 for three graphics cards

Then THAT is your problem. SLi won't enable when the slot is running at x4 electrically.

The motherboard is an Asus Rampage V Extreme running an i7-5930k cpu.  The slots are running at 16,8 and 8.

 

ZmanFTW,

I'm using the 970 to drive 4 aux monitors and not dedicating it solely to PhysX.  As for 3-way SLI, in reading up on running 980's in 3-way SLI in certain games the fps actually

drops.  So yes, I could have gone 3-way SLI but I get what I need from 2-way and with a monitor upgrade happening in the future I felt that running a 2-way with a dedicated aux monitor card was a better solution.  When I look at the specs of the 750 or 750ti then I see only 3 video ports (dvi-i, dvi-d and mini-hdmi) so it can't run four monitors as far as I can tell.

 

Regards,

KB

[Godlygamer23]

If you are running a LGA 1150 based system (you didn't mention anything about your system), then you are limited to total of 16 PCI-E lanes.

SLi requires the PCI-E slots to run at a minimum of x8 electrically for SLi to be enabled in the drivers.

If your system is an Intel based system and have a motherboard that runs at:

1) x8 + x8 for two graphics cards or,

2) x8 + x4 + x4 for three graphics cards

Then THAT is your problem. SLi won't enable when the slot is running at x4 electrically.

If the last slot is 2.0, it gets routed through the PCH now. At least, that is my understanding.

[ZmanFTW]

The motherboard is an Asus Rampage V Extreme running an i7-5930k cpu.  The slots are running at 16,8 and 8.

 

ZmanFTW,

I'm using the 970 to drive 4 aux monitors and not dedicating it solely to PhysX.  As for 3-way SLI, in reading up on running 980's in 3-way SLI in certain games the fps actually

drops.  So yes, I could have gone 3-way SLI but I get what I need from 2-way and with a monitor upgrade happening in the future I felt that running a 2-way with a dedicated aux monitor card was a better solution.  When I look at the specs of the 750 or 750ti then I see only 3 video ports (dvi-i, dvi-d and mini-hdmi) so it can't run four monitors as far as I can tell.

 

Regards,

KB

 

Never even heard of that being done. If 4 monitors are running off the 970 then they get no performance benefit from the 980's? By auxillary monitors do you mean monitors NOT used for gaming? Thank you for teaching me that this was even possible but I'm still a bit confused about the purpose/need for so many monitors. I would be happy with the ROG Swift...if you have money to burn please buy me one! I will gladly pay you Tuesday for an ROG Swift today!

 

Anyways...you should be saving for March 2015!

http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/nvidia-g-sync-worlds-first-144hz-ips-monitor-unveiled

[kbenton00]

Never even heard of that being done. If 4 monitors are running off the 970 then they get no performance benefit from the 980's? By auxillary monitors do you mean monitors NOT used for gaming? Thank you for teaching me that this was even possible but I'm still a bit confused about the purpose/need for so many monitors. I would be happy with the ROG Swift...if you have money to burn please buy me one! I will gladly pay you Tuesday for an ROG Swift today!

 

Anyways...you should be saving for March 2015!

http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/nvidia-g-sync-worlds-first-144hz-ips-monitor-unveiled

You are correct.. the aux monitors will not be used for gaming.... so they do not need the benefits of running on the 980's in SLI.  It is currently setup this way and is working great.  The center monitor is running the game (currently BF4), right monitor is running the battlelog and battlemap so I can keep an eye on the whole map, left monitor is running Asus AI suite so I can keep an eye on my overclock (currently 4.5Ghz on the i7-5930k) and Nvidia investigator to keep on eye on the gpu temps, and the top monitor is running twitch so I can monitor my stream (when streaming) and/or teamspeak and other misc programs.

 

As for the Acer monitor... been keeping my eye on that but not sure if I want to jump on it right away,,, most new products have growing pains as the Asus Swift can attest to.

 

Regards,

KB