7600GT SLI Question

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DukeDave

DukeDave

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I have recently built my first SLI machine and am very happy with it's performance to date.

I have one question of all of you out there who have a great deal more experience with these things than me:

With 2 video cards installed, I now have the choice of 4 DVI connectors for my monitor, does it make any difference which card or even which connector on which card that I connect my monitor to?
 
Xazax310

Xazax310

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I believe you need to connected it to whatever one is the master card for it to work properly, unless your running 4 screens of course....
 
DukeDave

DukeDave

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Not so, in Sli mode only one output is used on the primary card.
Click to expand...


I only run 1 monitor, machine is used for all sorts of stuff but is primarily setup for games, I have the monitor connected to the 1st card (nearest the CPU) but was wondering if anyone knows if it makes any difference which connector I use?
 
Mousemonkey

Mousemonkey

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If your setup runs the same as mine, then in Sli mode the video signal will only be outputing from one DVI socket on one card, in my case the primary card (the one nearest the CPU) and the socket nearest the motherboard, when Sli is de-selected you will be in dual card mode at which point all of the DVI sockets are outputing and any can be used. HTH
 
XFXSupport

XFXSupport

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Mousemonkey is correct. When SLI is enabled you can only (or I should say your are supposed to only) get a signal from the dvi port "1" on the video card in the PCI-Express slot 1. Again I stress "supposed to" as I have seen it work otherwise. Disabling SLI in the Nvidia control panel will allow you to use multiple monitors.

XFX Support
 
DukeDave

DukeDave

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Thank you all for your help.

I have my monitor connected to the 1st connector on the 1st card and it has worked beautifully since I put it all together, I was just wanting to make sure that it was seup the best way I could.

PS: on a side note, for anyone that is interested, I have these 2 Silent Pipe cards installed and OC'ed slightly (605/775) and have not seen them go above 52 degrees C, I have to wonder what other people are talking about with thier cards overheating.
The recent addition of a Zelman CPU cooler has made the PC nearly completely silent too, you don't realise how loud they are until you cannot hear them.

Regards to all, Dave.
 
R

redwing

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What games do you play? Would you mind posting some typical fps (as well as the res/settings/image quality) you get?

I sold my old 7600GT to a friend of mine who was happy with it on 1280*1024, but he's just upgraded to a 1600*1200 LCD and he's considering adding an extra one for SLI (he can get it much cheaper than retail) to get his performance up to par with what it was before without having to reduce quality.

I tried to find some benchmarks that compare a 7600GT SLI to a 7900GS/GT or x1950Pro setup to see if it's worth it ... Tom's charts only show a 10-20% boost from going SLI on a 7600GT in the charts that I checked, which is kinda abysmal.

Since you have 2 x 7600GT, chances are you tried running a non-SLI rig with one of them previously ... maybe you can tell me how big a performance boost you get?
 
DukeDave

DukeDave

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Hey, happy to tell anyone who will listen about my experience with this equipment.

This is my first build since the Athlon XP 2800+ I had and my first experience with SLI, I must add that it has been good to date!

I only run at 1280x1024 @ 60Hz as my monitor only supports this as a max resolution, I don't mind, I'm 43 now and can't see as well as I used to but I do like all of the options turned on, I've never had that before.

In answer to your question "which games do you play", well, I will play just about anything, DOOM3, FEAR, Call of Duty 2, Halflife 2, Sim City 4, Need for Speed UG - UG2 - MW, V8 Supercars 2 - 3, C & C - all, UT 2004, that's at the moment, I want to play some others but I haven't got around to it yet.

The following link is to the review that I finally based my decision on, I had a limited budget and wanted to try SLI, from a technical point of view, to see what it was all about:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/326/

I don't yet have FRAPS installed but I can tell you that gameplay is very smooth @ 1280x1024, I like to have AA and AF turned up as far as I can, normally 8x and 16x respectfully, I can tell you that in FEAR at this resolution with EVERYTHING turned on the ingame flythrough that tests your settings gives me an average framerate of 68FPS and a minimum of 38FPS, I'm happy with that :)

To end, or else I won't stop, I have not regretted anything I bought and believe that I have received good value for money, even at the overinflated Australian prices.

Regards, Dave.
 
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redwing

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Thanks a lot for the reply.

FEAR, COD2 and other shooters is pretty much what my friend spends his gaming time on ... so if you say that the SLI boost is significant, that's good news for him. His dilemma is that he can obtain a 2nd hand 7600GT for 80$ (to compliment the one I sold him) - his other options are a 7900GS/X1950Pro in the 150-200$ range (+tax). If he can get similar performance from a 2x 7600GT setup, he'd much rather save some money and take the SLI path. Basically this needs comes from the fact that his native LCD res increased from 1280 to 1600.

Cheers
 
DukeDave

DukeDave

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No doubt 2x 7900gs would be better, it all comes down to the amount of money you have and are willing to part with.

I believe that 1x 7900gt would also be a good choice depending on your situation.
 
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