Considering sli,how much hassle is involved?

[skipsneeky2]

Hello everyone.

I am seeking advice on sli and the issues it can present or how hassle free it could possibly be but here are my current system specs and the proposed parts for a sli configured system...this will be my first sli set up.

2500k@ 3.4ghz stock for now
gigabyte h67m-d2-b3 motherboard
8gb dual channel kingston hyperx 1333mhz memory
evga 2gb gtx560 @ 925/2100 or ti speeds
thermaltake 600w tr2

proposed parts for sli...

P8Z68-V ProG3 motherboard $205
another evga 2gb gtx560 $245
corsair ax850 psu $175

Figured if i match the speeds of the second gtx560 to that of the first i technically will have dual gtx560 ti 2gb cards and pulling off numbers from guru3d based off one of my favorite games BC2 dual gtx560ti cards in sli at 1080p outperform a 7970 by nearly 15fps which makes this configuration appealing to me.

Main games i play are BF3 and BC2 with a growing interest in other titles perhaps like Skyrim but since this is my first sli configuration,is there anything i need to know or a heads up on possibly issues or any tips or how reliable sli is?

 

[MrK6]

In your case it's really a waste of money. It'd be worth it to either grab the 7970 (or even a 7950) and overclock that instead, in which case it will be cheaper and crush your proposed GTX 560 2GB setup, or wait to see what Kepler has to offer.

 

[Nintendesert]

Yeah, there's no way I would spend $625 to SLI a 560. That's pretty insane. At that price point I'd get a 7970 and save some money. D:

 

[skipsneeky2]

Yeah, there's no way I would spend $625 to SLI a 560. That's pretty insane. At that price point I'd get a 7970 and save some money. D:

If you ignored the cost of the motherboard and the psu,the total cost is $245.

The motherboard of course i want mostly to oc my 2500k and have a motherboard ready for ivy bridge and i have intended to purchase the 2500k with intentions of buying a new motherboard for overclocking.

Would you trust a $60 best buy 600w psu to go along with a $550 7970?I bought the psu back in october trusting it to power up a old core 2 duo e8200 i had sitting around in a x48 and to power up a radeon 6750.

 

[3DVagabond]

Exactly which 560 are you thinking about. There's so many. If it's a regular GTX-560, which is an O/C'd 460, I wouldn't even consider it. If it's a 560ti it makes more sense, but I'd still lean towards a single card solution. Personally, I would run the current card, whatever it is, until the GK104 came out, if I was planning on going nVidia.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

SLI isn't really all that problematic, assuming you can troubleshoot minor issues that may or may not crop up.

A 850 watt PSU isn't needed for your setup, not even with SLI. You probably wouldn't even need to change your current one.

You kind of have to factor in the cost of the board, since it's required. However you also need to factor in overclocking your i5-2500k as part of the benefit since currently you have a H67 board and thus overclocking is limited to just a few turbo states.

I personally probably wouldn't SLI highly clocked GTX 460 2GB cards, but many others have. The biggest problem is it isn't as great a price/performance deal as it could be.

7970 isn't a good option either though, don't let the 1% of the 10% tell you otherwise.

 

[SickBeast]

I had GTX 460 SLI and I was happy with it at first. As time went by, though, I began to notice a lot that I didn't like about it and I wound up selling one of my cards as a result.

What I didn't like:

- many new games did not support SLI and it sometimes takes a month or more for a profile to come out

- the two cards really waste a lot of power when you're not gaming

- in my case I had too much GPU power and not enough memory

- performance tended to fluctuate wildly between blisteringly fast and stuttering and not performing well at all

- I had to really tweak the settings in each game to get the most out of my setup

 

[skipsneeky2]

SLI isn't really all that problematic, assuming you can troubleshoot minor issues that may or may not crop up.

A 850 watt PSU isn't needed for your setup, not even with SLI. You probably wouldn't even need to change your current one.

You kind of have to factor in the cost of the board, since it's required. However you also need to factor in overclocking your i5-2500k as part of the benefit since currently you have a H67 board and thus overclocking is limited to just a few turbo states.

I personally probably wouldn't SLI highly clocked GTX 460 2GB cards, but many others have. The biggest problem is it isn't as great a price/performance deal as it could be.

7970 isn't a good option either though, don't let the 1% of the 10% tell you otherwise.

Going from a corsair ax750 psu to a ax850 price wise is like a lousy $5,wanting some overhead it wouldn't kill me to go for the ax850.

The h67 was a temporary solution i already sold the i3 2100 i originally had in the build and i did get the 2500k with plans of a z68 motherboard purchase anyways.

I had a thermaltake tr2 750 back in feb of last year that took out a i7 2600k and a gtx580 and both were stock so trusting this psu has been hard ,the only reason i got another tr2 was as a hold me over till i ponied up the dough for a respectable motherboard and gpu set up which is coming up like in a few days,so the psu is going buh bye.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

I had GTX 460 SLI and I was happy with it at first. As time went by, though, I began to notice a lot that I didn't like about it and I wound up selling one of my cards as a result.

What I didn't like:

- many new games did not support SLI and it sometimes takes a month or more for a profile to come out

- the two cards really waste a lot of power when you're not gaming

- in my case I had too much GPU power and not enough memory

- performance tended to fluctuate wildly between blisteringly fast and stuttering and not performing well at all

- I had to really tweak the settings in each game to get the most out of my setup

Humm seems to be a direct opposite to what I've experienced.


Exactly which new games came out without SLI support?

 

[scooterlibby]

I've been doing it since back when I tried 2x7600GT's. It was always a hassle up until the last two generations. No problems with 2xGTX260's I had or the current 2xGTX580's I have running now. Quite love this current setup and don't plan on upgrading for quite awhile.

 

[skipsneeky2]

I've been doing it since back when I tried 2x7600GT's. It was always a hassle up until the last two generations. No problems with 2xGTX260's I had or the current 2xGTX580's I have running now. Quite love this current setup and don't plan on upgrading for quite awhile.

How do you set up sli?Just put the cards in ,install the sli bridge, plug in the monitor to the top card boot up and install the drivers and enable it in the control panel then rock and roll or will be it enabled by default?

 

[gramboh]

You don't need a Corsair AX series PSU, yes they are awesome, but you can save money.

Look at the XFX "XXX" Edition 750/850W, they go on sale for $90/$110 and are 80+ Silver, Seasonic platform and extremely highly rated by Jonnyguru.

I picked up a Seasonic X-760 (80+ Gold) which is the same PSU as the AX750 for $119 no rebate on sale at NCIX a month ago. There are people running 2600k + 580 SLI highly OC'd/volt modded on that PSU, so 560 would be a breeze.

Good call on the 2GB cards though. I have a 1GB 560Ti I bought back in May, and thought about going SLI on my Ivy Bridge build, but don't really want to put money into a 1GB setup. I'm probably going to sell my 560Ti and get a 670Ti or 7950 depending on pricing.

 

[Grooveriding]

Biggest hassle with SLI is waiting for game profiles for new games, managing the additional heat output, more possibility for driver issues and microstutter if you happen to notice it.

Multi-gpu is certainly no longer an awkward and clunky setup though and tends to work well more than it doesn't. The only gripe I have from the above is waiting on profiles and/or profiles that scale well.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Humm seems to be a direct opposite to what I've experienced.


Exactly which new games came out without SLI support?

SWTOR
Skyrim had terrible scaling

These are just the two recent ones that *I* have played. In fact, SWTOR runs better with one card, than two.

What I find interesting is that I came to the same exact conclusion that SickBeast did. I gave one of my cards to my Dad.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Skyrim didn't really have poor gpu scaling, it had cpu bottlenecking due mostly to it's inherited poor coding that has since been optimized.

Haven't played SWTOR, but there is this:

Hopefully this is helpful to everyone,

If you're having issues getting the SLI to show up or working you might wanna try this.

1) First you need to 1st download Nvidia Inspector (At the time of this post I was using NVIDIA Inspector 1.9.5.9)
2) Run Inspector and click on the edit button to the right of the Driver Versions display
3) At the top of the Profile Settings Window will be a Export button, Select Export all profiles (NVIDIA Text Only) and save the file.
4) Edit the Text file you just saved, search for "swtor"
5) you should see this line

Executable "swtor.exe"

change it to

Executable "swtor.exe" Launcher="Star Wars - The Old Republic/launcher.exe"

6) Save the file and then click the Import button in the Profile Settings Window and select Import all profiles (NVIDIA Text Only)
7) Check your SLI profile now, WRC 2011 should now be replaced with Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Not that it helps now, but I figured I'd post it.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Skyrim didn't really have poor gpu scaling, it had cpu bottlenecking due mostly to it's inherited poor coding that has since been optimized.

Haven't played SWTOR, but there is this:



Not that it helps now, but I figured I'd post it.

This is good information. But that has been some of the arguements against SLI/XFire, is having to fiddle with settings. It is definitely not as 'turn key' as a single card. But some people don't mind fiddling and enjoy it. I do to a certain extent, but eventually I tend to view it as a time sink.

 

[qliveur]

I got my 2 GTX 460 768MBs so cheap ($125 for both), that I don't really mind the hassle.

Lack of support for new titles can be annoying, though.

 

[Hauk]

There's a higher cost associated in running multi-gpu in both up front cost and power consumption. Setup is mostly insuring you have the right hardware, cooling/spacing, and selecting SLI/CF during driver setup. There's really nothing else to it. I look at profile support as I do any early adopter issue, you're a tester. I wait a few months before buying any game. I'm just now playing Skyrim on a fresh build with nV's latest drivers.

It's all preference. I've run single and multi-gpu in both mid range and flagship. If you lose sleep over the bang for the buck proposition, perhaps multi-gpu is not for you. If you don't mind plunking down extra cash for supporting hardware, go for it.

With proper case, cooling, mobo, spacing, it can be fun. I'm currently running a couple MSI 560ti 448's at 925 core. To not appear bias, I'll admit I'm fighting a 7950CF urge.

A vote for multi.. http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q62/steelsix/IMG_1076.jpg

 

[Silverforce11]

SLI and CF always require extra tuning to get it to work great, if you don't mind a bit of troubleshooting once in awhile, go for it. It's not a simple plug n play.

 

[Ieat]

It really depends on luck of the draw. If your lucky you won't encounter any real problems. If not it can be a headache. My first attempt at sli were 2 Galaxy gtx 460 768mb cards. The stupid things wouldn't let me sli (the option wouldn't appear) if I tried to install drivers after a certain revision. I ended up selling one then both because... well you need to be able to update drivers. I eventually went to sli again with 2 Zotac gtx 460 2gb cards. Aside from being horrible overclockers in sli they have pretty much been problem free for the 4 months that I've owned them.

 

[BD231]

If you're getting a new board anyway it's a perfect move being that you'd of had to spend the money in the first place. At least you can make some of it up selling your old stuff. 2 560's with 2gb's is going to last you a *very* long time so you'll definitely get your money's worth. While I was using 2 460's it was entirely plug and play, and be that you have 2gb's of vram tweaking will be as hard as putting every bit of eye candy on max and enjoying the show.

I'd say go for it, however if you do just an FYI, you don't need a $200 dollar PSU for 2 560's. I bought a cheap 750 coolermaster for $65 bucks (19 amp rails, 680 total on the 12 volt line) slightly used and it has absolutely no trouble running my 460's on a heavy OC. Just a thought though, if you want to save some bucks you can do so without skimping.

 

[skipsneeky2]

If you're getting a new board anyway it's a perfect move being that you'd of had to spend the money in the first place. At least you can make some of it up selling your old stuff. 2 560's with 2gb's is going to last you a *very* long time so you'll definitely get your money's worth. While I was using 2 460's it was entirely plug and play, and be that you have 2gb's of vram tweaking will be as hard as putting every bit of eye candy on max and enjoying the show.

I'd say go for it, however if you do just an FYI, you don't need a $200 dollar PSU for 2 560's. I bought a cheap 750 coolermaster for $65 bucks (19 amp rails, 680 total on the 12 volt line) slightly used and it has absolutely no trouble running my 460's on a heavy OC. Just a thought though, if you want to save some bucks you can do so without skimping.

The psu of choice for me has such a huge overhead,like 70amp on a single ramp,as mentioned before i got a crappy ass thermaltake tr2 last year that took out a i7 2600k and gtx580 so basically this psu will ensure if the temptation for like a freaking 7990 or gtx690 should arise in like a year or whatever,i would have the greenlight without needing to replace my psu ensuring unless the psu fails,i would be replacing my sli set up and cpu well before the psu.

Comparing reviews with a few of the game titles i enjoy from guru3d crossfire 1gb gtx560 cards do outperform a 7970 and ill be matching 2 2gb cards at ti speeds and finally having a motherboard to oc my 2500k so things should be very interesting,so i am pretty excited.

Later today or possibly Thursday the set up should be complete,so i will update on how everything goes and if i run across any problems along the way so thanks for the support guys.

 

[BD231]

Woah, all makes sense now, didn't catch the death of that hardware that must have been a heart breaker . I'll be sure and check back for the updates .

 

[Hauk]

A couple posts back, Ieat mentioned the SLI option not appearing after a certain driver revision install. He's referring to 290.xx and above conflicting with certain mobo ethernet drivers. nV's drivers install fine, cards show up fine, just no SLI option in nV control panel.

It just happend to me using latest drivers for everything and ethernet driver from mobo CD. I checked mobo manual to find the specific Broadcom chip used and downloaded a newer driver from Broadcom's website. Problem solved. nV's aware of the issue, it'll hopefully be solved in future driver releases. Have the latest drivers for everything that requires a driver install, mobo ethernet chip included. This was the first issue I've ever had running multi-gpu and was easily solved. Hopefully no issue for you, good luck!

 

[imaheadcase]

I had GTX 460 SLI and I was happy with it at first. As time went by, though, I began to notice a lot that I didn't like about it and I wound up selling one of my cards as a result.

What I didn't like:

- many new games did not support SLI and it sometimes takes a month or more for a profile to come out

- the two cards really waste a lot of power when you're not gaming

- in my case I had too much GPU power and not enough memory

- performance tended to fluctuate wildly between blisteringly fast and stuttering and not performing well at all

- I had to really tweak the settings in each game to get the most out of my setup

1. It works or it does not work. You don't "need" a profile for lots of games. I've yet to find a game you can't force it to work with the profile with just like to .exe. Yes some games don't , but most do.

2. How do they waste power when they idle when not in use? GPU idle like CPU when not in use.

3. You mean system ram? Because i don't know a game that would use all the GPU ram and have problems..

4. IT works or it does not work. The speed up/slowdown you said can apply to single GPU cards.

5. Tweak what settings..SLI works or flat out does not work. No tweaking needed.