GTX560 ti and 560 ti OC SLI ok?

Technically, you can SLI with any nvidia card. Just remember, your computer will only run as fast as its slowest part. So in other words, the OC version will underclock itself to match the slower card.

Not using the standard Nvidia driver you can't!

@OP, so long as they are the same GPU and Vram there shouldn't be a problem.

You would have no problem running that SLI. What you may consider doing is overclocking the non-OC card to match the new one. Fairly easy to do via some software like PrecisionX and GPU-Z.

With SLi the GPU's have to be the same and and so does the memory bandwidth rate and there was more than one 560Ti, what's the other card?

Use MSI Afterburner to oc the lesser card, works very well. You can set custom fan profiles, separate
voltage bump just for that card if required, etc.

I had 560Ti SLI for a while, runs very nicely. If you want a comparison, here's a 3DMark11 result with
the two I had at stock 900MHz, used with an i7 870 @ 4.27GHz (my previous gaming build):

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/6035982

and here are the cards oc'd to 985MHz (CPU @ 4.3):

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/6037434


Likewise, here's a single vs. dual card comparison, at stock 900 speed:

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/3dm11/6035191/3dm11/6035982

I've not had a chance to test them with newer CPUs like my 2700K @ 5.0, but the above should be
very relevant as the 870 was a good chip (lesser PCIe bandwidth offset by the lower latency chipset).

Hope this helps!

Ian.

Yep, that will work fine, and you will easily be able to run the lesser card at 850,
and probably without any extra voltage needed.

Btw, what games do you play? Crysis was the one game that really hammered my
previous setup, partly but not wholly because of the 1GB RAM limit. I upgraded to
two GTX 580 3GB SLI:

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/3dm11/6035982/3dm11/7898310

This gives about 45fps for Crysis with details cranked up to the max. For
other games though, 560Ti SLI worked very well, eg. FarCry2, Oblivion,
Stalker, etc. Even Crysis2 was quite good (improved engine I guess).
An example of the difference between games: FarCry2 gives 135fps
with 580 SLI.

Ian.

Andy71480 writes:
> WOW! That Is awsome ! an WOW STICKER SHOCK! I think I paid like 1250$ for my whole machine, ...

I cheat big time by going after eBay bargains constantly. I've bought some items new, including
my original EVGA GTX 460 FTW SLI config four years ago, but mostly I bag used bargains. There's
a number of cards I don't have yet though because they're still valued too highly for my budget, eg.
the 7970 and anything from the newer AMD series or NVIDIA 700 range (I'm not bothering with the
NVIDIA 600 series cards, or AMD 78xx).


> ... YA I am lookin to just get another year or two outta my machine. ...

As long as you don't try to play newer titles at high-res/AA/high-detail, you should be ok with
560Ti SLI. To a large extent my old 560Ti 1GB setup was working fine; it was just Crysis that was
trying to use more than 1GB. I originally obtained a couple of 580 1.5GB cards which helped, but
things got all mixed up with the After Effects testing I was doing at the time, so I ended up with a
couple of spare 580 3GB cards instead which I eventually used to replace the 560Tis (will likely
sell the 1.5GB versions sometime, don't need them now). This is my current setup:

http://www.overclock.net/lists/display/view/id/2415471

Btw, after I bought the 560Tis, I did briefly experiment with GTX 460 2GB SLI (cheap off eBay)
which confirmed that Crysis was definitely trying to use quite a bit more than 1GB VRAM, though
the 460s in question had much lower clocks (700MHz) which was quite a step down from my
original 460s (850MHz) and the 560Tis (900MHz) so I carried on with the 560Tis for a while.
Still, the 460 2GB cards are quite potent in SLI really, and they both oc no prob to 800 (I modded
them with heatsinks, etc.) Anyway, testing them revealed just how much RAM other tests were
trying to use, eg. 3DMark Firestrike Extreme (about 1680MB; I made some notes somewhere).


> I know that GPU's are growing in leaps an bounds. ...

Well, usually. NVIDIA's 600 series cards were disappointing, and a lot of AMD's recent launches
are just rehashed older cards (it's only the top-end models which are genuinely new). Both
companies do this, rebranding older GPU tech with a few tweaks. It's been a long time since we
had the kind of speed bump at mainstream price levels which happened with the launch of
cards such as the 8800GT and GTX 460 (AMD examples would perhaps be the 3870/4870
and 5850?).

If money was no object I'd probably buy a 780Ti (or two), but for the amount of time I spend gaming
(not really that much), I can't justify the expense.


> So once I am ready I am sure Ill come here like I did for my last build for advice. Although last Build
> was my first since I rebuilt Apple 2's HAHA mmm ...




> ... though that 3gb is soooo tempting!

I had a look on eBay US yesterday as I was talking to someone about using 580s with AE (best option
short of budget-busting new 780Tis or Titans), was surprised to see 580 3GB cards going for quite
high sums. 1.5GB cards are a lot more affordable, but a 50% VRAM increase over your current cards
really isn't worth bothering IMO.

One thing though: a 580 has good speed for sure, but it does generate a lot of heat (so imagine
two SLI), and some models can be rather loud under load. There are some editions which are much
better, such as the MSI 580 3GB Lightning Xtreme (I obtained five of them over time), which has an
832MHz core (reference for a 3GB is 783MHz), oc's like crazy (mine are happy at 950+), runs much
cooler & quieter, but they don't tend to turn up that often on eBay. Besides, for the prices some
people are often willing to pay, at that level you're probably better off just getting a 780Ti (or 290X
with a non-reference cooler) when you finally feel the need to move beyond 560Ti SLI, though as
I say that level of performance is overkill unless you're playing newer games.

This is why older cards in SLI/CF can be very effective for speeding up *older* games, because
newer cards tend to focus on boosting performance of newer 3D features. Tests such as Stalker
COP show this effect nicely when run on something like 3-way GTX 280 SLI, ie. cards that really
fly for DX9/10. Hence why one sees people listing older cards on eBay with comments like, "Selling
due to upgrading to newer card for playing <old game name>, though didn't see much of a speedup."

Review articles tend to test with newer games, which emphasise newer features. When older cards
are included in such tests, they can end up looking kinda horrible compared to newer cards. But
for older games, adding a 2nd older card can work really well. And this all gets really messy when
other factors such as CPU/RAM bottlenecks come into play, eg. X3TC.

Ian.

Try also fully disconnecting the PSU (unplug the cable) and leave it for a while with the
battery removed, that shoould give a more complete BIOS reset.

Ian.

Glad to hear you got it working!

I found my 560Ti SLI setup was easily quicker than a GTX 670, and oc'd was faster than a 680.

Ian.

By 3D do you mean as in 3D stereo mode? I've never used that so I'm not sure what to suggest,
or why it would be activating without you wishing it to. Have you tried resetting everything to
defaults in the NCP?

I've installed dozens of NVIDIA setups, never seen any of them turn on 3D mode on their own.
I expect it's just a setting somewhere which needs configuring correctly.

Ian.

I use MWSnap to take desktop/application shots (it's free): http://www.mirekw.com/winfreeware/mwsnap.html

Ian.