Going from 8800GTX to SLi'd GTXs, anything needed?

Anyone??

It seems like u have everything u need hardware-wise. Just remember not all games allow u to run sli.

If nTune is installed it'll ask if you want to enable SLi the first time you boot up windows.

The BIOS sometimes needs changing, and some SLi mobo's have a 'SINGLE / DUAL GPU' chip actually on the motherboard that need's to be swapped around (Looks like Laptop Ram)... but other than this, you should have no problems since SLi is really great and your PC will now be eat benchmarks for breakfast, and small children if they get close enough.

I find nTune essential... so best to install it before you add the SLi setup. Whilst I dont rate nTune too highly for its O.C settings (doesnt really test it), it's good for all the other settings.
I think I prefer ATi's catalyst though because it shows you the actual real-time 3D Image differences.

I don't have any desire to OC though, so is there any point in having such a tool?
At best I would probably just OC them to see what sort of increase they gave in 3Dmark or something. Other than that, I wouldn't have any desire, because they're going to be quick enough anyway!

OC'ing is not compulsory but there may be times when you might wish for an on screen display showing the FPS's, CPU temps, GPU temps and various fan speeds.

Well I have benched my current set-up in 3DMark06 and it gave me 10.5k so I can bench with stock GTX's after, if you like
I really have no idea what sort of score I'm going to get, as I'm obviously CPU bottlenecked!

have you checked your PSU to make sure that it has 2 6 pin connectors available for the other 8800GTX???? < thats the only thing stopping me going to SLI, my PSU only has 2 6 pin connectors which my first 8800gtx is using.

Just install it, plug in the power and the bridge, make sure you have the latest drivers and chekc to make sure SLI is enabled in the nVidia control panel.

I'd suggest going with the 171.23 beta drivers off guru3d as the game profiles work forcing fsaa and the sli mode is correctly displayed. edit: I use them and like them but see there is even a newer Win XP 32 bit one now. 174.20 -
http://downloads.guru3d.com/ForceW [...] -1866.html

Either way, The drivers will sense both cards and ask you if you want to enable sli. It's very simple. You can also enable and disable it yourself in NV control panel.



Things to check is (obviously) powering the cards, installing the SLI bridge, and also whether your motherboard needs to be set for SLI. My MSI P6N SLI platinum needs a SLI selector card flipped around for 8x/8x rather than 16x/1x for the speeds of the two 16x pci-e slots. I'm not familiar with your mobo off hand (whether it's 16x/16x and you don't have to change anything) so just wanted to mention this as a precaution.

so your getting a score from one card? if i were you go into the bios and make sure you have SLI on, also you may have a board with a hardware switch(normally located between the PCI-Ex slots.

I don’t know how much you should gain...

You only gain 1,100 points with an extra $400 card???? WTF, I was thinken more like 2-3k. That is what came to my mind because I have been considering getting my second GTX also...

Sorry, should have explained myself more!
Systemlord said he would be interested to see stock GTX vs. stock GTX's in SLi, hence one card score and then two s/shots with SLi.
I checked the mobo manual and it makes no mention of a hardware switch.
I know the 570SLi chipset can only run x8 SLi, but I know I'm going to lose maybe 5% if that off FPS.
It's just odd that one card shows x16 and the other x8, I had assumed both would show x8?

Here's a couple of pictures just after I'd put everything back together.
The cables are a little jumbled behind the cards now!


Sorry, they're not great quality, they're just off my Z8.

Oh and my RAID card is a little tight below the 2nd GTX!
Temps on one of the cards is quite a lot higher than the other (in GPU-Z), PCB is about 5C higher and GPU core is about 13C higher.
I guess that's just because the cards are close together and airflow isn't as good.
I'm happy though, be interesting to see if bumping the resolution a lot would lessen the CPU bottleneck.

Nice Lukebird. Now fire up crysis and try the Paradise Lost level at 19x12 or 16x10 with fsaa. You'll see huge gains in those GPU crushing levels.

Should be getting my 24" (or possibly a full HD TV) in a week or two, so I'll have to try it then.
Until then, I'm stuck at 1280x1024!!
Doubt the GTXs are really doing anything!
Thanks though, much appreciated for putting my mind at rest!

I'd grab the 174.20's if I were you. Even the 169.28 had SLI improvements in crysis as a main issue addressed, so the 169.21 are really kinda old now, especially for SLI. With the newe 17x drivers you can force AA easier in the game profiles, which at 12x10 you will want to do in some games that don't have an in game option. Oblivion with HDR, UT3, etc. Also (you probably already do this), but I set my game profiles to force 16xaf for games that don't have an in game AF option. (Oblivion, Crysis, etc.)

Yeah, COD4 isn't one you will need that second GTX for, not at 12x10 anyway.

IMO, with SLI you don't want to wait for NV to put WHQL's on their site. They are so slow(to offer new drivers) and you can get newer WHQL's even at Guru3d. Take your pick: http://downloads.guru3d.com/Videoc [...] )_c10.html

Like I said, I have not had any issues running 8800GT SLI with the Win 32-bit 171.23's.

Didn't realise there was a such a thing as WHQL beta drivers...
I'll try those tonight and see how CoD4 performs. There's no way it can be power a issue throttling the cards and I doubt they are being throttled because of heat (up until the BSOD, the symptoms could have indicated either of those) so it must be a driver issue.
I'll try the ones you're running and see if it's ok, if not i'll try the newer ones
Thanks!

With the advancement of graphics cards today (exploding faster than ever) I think we'll always be processor bottlenecked. Also it will be a while before games are fully optimsed four quad cores yet alone 8 cores.

Yeah very true. I'm quite happy with my 6000+, but I would move to K10 if there was something I felt would be an upgrade I would notice.
I doubt to be honest a Phenom @ 2.5GHz is really much of an upgrade.
A B3 FX or whatever dual/tri/quad would be a nice upgrade.
But until such times, I'm quite happy with my 6000+.
I may even dabble in OCing

Oh and systemlord, when you said you'd be interested to see stock GTXs in SLi, any other benches you want me to run?
I have my replaced RAM sat on my desk, so I'll install that later and probably re-tighten the timings to 4-4-4-12 @ 2.0V, update the drivers for my cards and run 3DMark to see what I get.
If there's anything else you want to see, give me a shout
I forgot to add to my other post as well, I've tried to lessen the biggest bottleneck in having RAID'd Raptor's. They are frankly phenomenal!

Crysis is GPU bottlenecked... I don’t think I have played a game in the last 5 years where my processor was @ %100 capacity. Granted an OC will make things a tiny better but nothing like adding a second GPU..or RAM

Yeah, I expect it to be the ram and not the drivers by what you've said. Go back to your original ram and timings for testing. And then, Since you've been crashing, chkdsk/r may fix your problems.