SLI Question

[pspfreak]

Why do both cards being used in SLI have to be the same Model of card? Like a gtx 770 and gtx 770 together. Why Cant I do 560ti and 770?

[DjArtifact]

Why do both cards being used in SLI have to be the same Model of card? Like a gtx 770 and gtx 770 together. Why Cant I do 560ti and 770?

It has to be the same core.

[Art Vandelay]

You can only do it with the same model of the card, with the possible exception of the GTX 560 448 core edition and the 570 together, since they have the same chipset, but that has not been confirmed.

 

With AMD cards, I think you can do a 7950 and a  7970 together if you downclock the more powerful card.

[Godlygamer23]

Because NVIDIA requires it to be that way. Besides, the 560 Ti in this instance would seriously bottleneck the 770.

[Godlygamer23]

With AMD cards, I think you can do a 7950 and a  7970 together if you downclock the more powerful card.

AMD video cards do it automatically. The 7970 would effectively become a 7950.

[Godlygamer23]

You can only do it with the same model of the card, with the possible exception of the GTX 560 448 core edition and the 570 together, since they have the same chipset, but that has not been confirmed.

The GTX 680 and GTX 670 cannot be paired together even though they use the same GPU, and have the same amount of VRAM(stock) and the same bus too.

[Art Vandelay]

The GTX 680 and GTX 670 cannot be paired together even though they use the same GPU, and have the same amount of VRAM(stock) and the same bus too.

The 670 is a cut down 680. They are not identical at all.

[Godlygamer23]

The 670 is a cut down 680. They are not identical at all.

The GPU is the same. Parts of it are just disabled. Everything else is the same.

[TechSage]

It's sort of like a team of two. If a person in the team has crutches and the other one is very athletic then that team would be horrible. Hence, why you can't pair a 560Ti with a 670. They just won't be compatible. But what you CAN do is, pair an MSI GTX 770 with a Gigabyte GTX 770. I also remember linus saying you can even SLI 2 cards with different VRAM sizes (2GB with 4GB etc) but I'm not positive about that.

[Godlygamer23]

 I also remember linus saying you can even SLI 2 cards with different VRAM sizes (2GB with 4GB etc) but I'm not positive about that.

It sometimes works. But NVIDIA allows you to use a mod called Coolbits that enables you to disable the extra VRAM on the one card so you can do SLI.

[TechSage]

It sometimes works. But NVIDIA allows you to use a mod called Coolbits that enables you to disable the extra VRAM on the one card so you can do SLI.

That's a handy feature, I didn't know that. Thanks! :D

[OddlyShapedTree]

It is meant to keep things simple, so you can run the same driver on both the cards, it would be very messy if you had a 770 and a 780 with different drivers. They would interfere with each other. It just makes things simpler.