a question about SLI

[koga]

I have two geforce 6600's. They are not GT or GS They do not have the SLI bridge connector pin on them. They are in an asus A8N and the card is switched to "two video cards." Under display properties it says my video cards are sli capable and I have sli turned on.

My questions....

A) Do all SLI cards have the SLI bridge connector pin on them?

B) Would the SLI option be available to me under display properties if SLI capability wasnt truely there?

 

[prozac26]

A) If you want to run two cards in SLI mode, then you need a SLI bridge.
B) If you have two cards running with the SLI bridge, and enabled in BIOS, then you will have the SLI option under the display properties.

 

[koga]

Thats what I am saying, there is no bridge, and I still have the option in display properties for sli

 

[waylander]

I think that what is happening is that the driver is detecting two video cards but unless you actually have the bridge in place you aren't getting SLI performance. There is an option in display properties under advanced that allows you to see the loading of each video card (basically two translucent bars that show you how hard each card is working). Enable this and try to play some games with SLI enabled. I think you will see that only one of the bars will move, the other should be at zero.

 

[koga]

I have already enabled load balancing. When I play COD2 is has a bar on the left that grows from the middle up and down from the middle, i dont believe there is two bars when I do this, just one that expands from the middle.

 

[guyinyourattic37]

A.) No 6600s don't
B.) It is the data travels via the PCIe x16 slot

Go down to the the 6600 series and read what is says.

 

[koga]

that site says they do support SLI, they just dont use the bridge, they use the mobo bus, and therefore its inferior...at least thats what i gathered from the site?

 

[guyinyourattic37]

Yep.

 

[mesarectifier]

If all this talk above is depressing, I will put forth the opinion that to get a real performance increase you should invest in a single 7 series card, for better frames and effects. You could get some money from those 6600s to start you off, can't be much more $$$ for an improvement.

 

[koga]

I am already doing a stepup program that evga offers from the 6600 to a 7900 gt KO 256, hopefully that will be a huge improvement, through my gaming career I have always been a little behind always using mid level cards, with the stepup program finally I will be able to afford at least one higher end card.