Will these two GTX 260 cards SLI together OK?

[balane]

Hello.

I'm selling this card on Craig's List.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130400

The guy who wants to buy it and SLI it with his current card has this one;

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130433

Will they work well together or should he anticipate any issues?

Thanks.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

They should work.

 

[SHAQ]

They should work fine. They are both core 216. I think you can even SLI a 192 and a 216 core. Only the number needs to be the same AFAIR ie. 260-260, 275-275 but not 260-275 etc.

 

[bryanW1995]

I'm glad you asked. I have an msi oc gtx 260, and I just bought a standard clocked gtx 260 to sli it with. hopefully keysplayr, benskywalker, or one of our other nvidia experts will weight in presently.

I know that with amd cards you can mix/match even different cards of the same gen (say a 5870 with a 5850) and they just run at the lowest specs, but I've never tried sli until now.

 

[balane]

I've done a little research too and it looks like any two GTX 260 cards will work just fine together with updated drivers. The catch is that the faster one will be slowed down to the slower of the two but that's not a huge downer. If it were mine I would probably flash the BIOS of each to have matching clock speeds.

 

[happy medium]

Clock speeds mean nothing, they will work fine. Your good Bryan.
A gtx 260 192 core will not sli with a 216 core model.

Edit: they will no longer downclock to the slower card. They keep there clocks.
I know I read that somewhere.


http://www.slizone.com/page/slizone_faq.html

 

[bryanW1995]

he has no worries, they're both evga SC cards at identical clocks. there is just slightly different part #, could be just that one came with a free game or whatever.

 

[MarkLuvsCS]

I know that with amd cards you can mix/match even different cards of the same gen (say a 5870 with a 5850) and they just run at the lowest specs, but I've never tried sli until now.

SLI has to match type of card but Crossfire doesn't. Crossfire doesn't downscale to the lowest of cards either. There have been crossfire setups with 4870s+3870. I mean AMDs approach seems a better deal for consumers, purchase a card now and maybe next year pair them together. I'm guessing it probably doesn't work if u are trying to run DX11 capable cards paired with a DX10/9 only card.

Crossfire doesn't seem to scale quite as well as nvidia because its more flexible but each has its pros/cons. I'm just glad they finally worked out using multiple monitors under SLI/Crossfire. It was VERY annoying to disable SLI and reboot to use 2 screens then reboot and game.

 

[Keysplayr]

Those cards were made for each other. Even the factory o/c's are identical 626/2106.
Will work just fine. What board is this going into?

 

[bryanW1995]

SLI has to match type of card but Crossfire doesn't. Crossfire doesn't downscale to the lowest of cards either. There have been crossfire setups with 4870s+3870. I mean AMDs approach seems a better deal for consumers, purchase a card now and maybe next year pair them together. I'm guessing it probably doesn't work if u are trying to run DX11 capable cards paired with a DX10/9 only card.

Crossfire doesn't seem to scale quite as well as nvidia because its more flexible but each has its pros/cons. I'm just glad they finally worked out using multiple monitors under SLI/Crossfire. It was VERY annoying to disable SLI and reboot to use 2 screens then reboot and game.

Well, apoppin has tried just about every mode of xfire out there, we'll see if I can lure him over here to comment.

 

[bryanW1995]

keys, what about the gtx 192 and core 216? will they just use 192 shaders at the slowest clocks, will they not work together, etc?

 

[happy medium]

Well, apoppin has tried just about every mode of xfire out there, we'll see if I can lure him over here to comment.

Yea, Appopin = x fire master. And a good guy as well.

 

[balane]

Those cards were made for each other. Even the factory o/c's are identical 626/2106.
Will work just fine. What board is this going into?

Thanks. He didn't say other than that he has an SLI motherboard and an Antec 750 watt PSU. (He just told me his PSU moments ago.) He has a bridge and enough 6 pin connectors.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Well, apoppin has tried just about every mode of xfire out there, we'll see if I can lure him over here to comment.

http://game.amd.com/us-en/content/images/crossfirex/CF_combo_chart.jpg

I haven't heard of anyone Xfiring a 4800 series with a 3800 series.

 

[bryanW1995]

whoops. yeah, um, an sli bridge could be important for me, huh? ruh roh.

 

[Keysplayr]

Thanks. He didn't say other than that he has an SLI motherboard and an Antec 750 watt PSU. (He just told me his PSU moments ago.) He has a bridge and enough 6 pin connectors.

Ok good. SLI bridges are usually supplied with SLI motherboards. At least every one I've ever owned came with one. Some came with two if Tri-SLI was supported.

 

[Keysplayr]

keys, what about the gtx 192 and core 216? will they just use 192 shaders at the slowest clocks, will they not work together, etc?

The only two mismatched cards I've ever heard of working together, were the 9800GTX and the 9800GTX+. The only real difference being 65nm and 55nm. Clocks were different as well, but that doesn't matter.

I don't know for sure that a 192 shader GTX260 will work with a 216 in SLI. I've never had the opportunity to test that. I'll inquire about it. I'm just not sure enough to say "Yeah, go ahead you'll be fine".

Ok, forwarded the question for a definitive yes or no and circumstances/driver/OS flags.
I did a quick search around the web, and what I see are about 50% say it works, and 50% say it doesn't. Just hold tight and I'll get your real answer.

 

[aka1nas]

The only two mismatched cards I've ever heard of working together, were the 9800GTX and the 9800GTX+. The only real difference being 65nm and 55nm. Clocks were different as well, but that doesn't matter.

I don't know for sure that a 192 shader GTX260 will work with a 216 in SLI. I've never had the opportunity to test that. I'll inquire about it. I'm just not sure enough to say "Yeah, go ahead you'll be fine".

Ok, forwarded the question for a definitive yes or no and circumstances/driver/OS flags.
I did a quick search around the web, and what I see are about 50% say it works, and 50% say it doesn't. Just hold tight and I'll get your real answer.

I have a 216 SLI'd with 2x 192sp cards, it works fine. The Core 216 variants still just report as a GTX 260 in their model string. Chris Ray also did a demo thread on SLiZone with such a setup when the 216 first came out.

 

[happy medium]

I have a 216 SLI'd with 2x 192sp cards, it works fine. The Core 216 variants still just report as a GTX 260 in their model string. Chris Ray also did a demo thread on SLiZone with such a setup when the 216 first came out.

Thank for that info..I didn't know that.
Do you lose the extra sp's on the gtx260 216?

 

[Keysplayr]

Thanks Aka1nas. Yeah, it does work. Not known if the full 216 or just reverts to 192 shaders though. But at the very least, you'll have GTX260 192 SLI. Still pretty potent.

 

[aka1nas]

You get the full 216 SPs, the driver isn't really smart enough to disable them on the fly.

There's also no downclocking of faster cards, all 3 of my 260s run at different clocks and they still detect and run at their default clocks.

 

[balane]

Well he purchased my GTX 260 with the contingency that it would SLI with his card. He came over last night and I installed it on a computer of mine so he could see that it worked OK. I asked him to email and let me know how everything worked. This morning I woke up and found an email from him that it was working great and the system really flies. He's very pleased with it.

So all's well that ends well. Thanks for everybody's help. Cheers.

 

[Keysplayr]

Well he purchased my GTX 260 with the contingency that it would SLI with his card. He came over last night and I installed it on a computer of mine so he could see that it worked OK. I asked him to email and let me know how everything worked. This morning I woke up and found an email from him that it was working great and the system really flies. He's very pleased with it.

So all's well that ends well. Thanks for everybody's help. Cheers.

Cheers!

 

[aka1nas]

Well he purchased my GTX 260 with the contingency that it would SLI with his card. He came over last night and I installed it on a computer of mine so he could see that it worked OK. I asked him to email and let me know how everything worked. This morning I woke up and found an email from him that it was working great and the system really flies. He's very pleased with it.

So all's well that ends well. Thanks for everybody's help. Cheers.

Awesome, congrats.