Do latter versions of videocards have different firmware?

[MichaelD]

My title isn't very clear...but I'll explain here.

I have been thinking about trying out SLI. I currently have a EVGA 7900GTO; the card is about 4 months old.

I'd need another card for SLI, obviously. Assuming I bought another EVGA 7900GTO, would it have the same firmware? If it did not, assuming the core/memory clocks were the same, would that affect SLI?

Thanks.

 

[xtknight]

By firmware you probably mean BIOS. BIOSes are updated over time and video cards in production are updated, just like motherboards. If I recall, SLI should work regardless of the BIOS and I think it may even work among different manufacturers but don't quote me on that.

 

[MichaelD]

Thanks, xtknight. Yes; I meant bios...dunno why I said firmware...it was early. 😕

I was thinking that SLI would be like RAID is with hard drives; you always want identical HDs with RAID. Same manuf, capacity and version/firmware.

I guess as long as I had another 7900GTO, the diff in performance would be negligible b/t two absolutely identical cards, and an older/newer 7900GTO.

 

[CP5670]

Since the 80 series drivers, you don't need the cards to have the same BIOS or manufacturer and can mix and match cards as long as they're based on the same model.

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: CP5670
Since the 80 series drivers, you don't need the cards to have the same BIOS or manufacturer and can mix and match cards as long as they're based on the same model.

I did not know this. Thank you very much!