I've been going over and over this for a couple days now and I can't figure it out. Here's my issue. I've got 2 9800 gtx in SLI and can't seem to yeild any performance benifits out of them. In 3dmark06 my score in 12000 with 1 or both 2 running. Seems too low for one card to be honest. In Crysis I do see minor benefit in fps when doing in game counts but the looped time demo there is a small drop actually. I'll post this which I posted in another forum if you guys wouldn't mind reading it for me.
First I did a benchrun with SLI again
For 3dmark I got a whopping 11803...ouch
sm2.0 - 4377
sm3.0 - 5783
cpu- 3366
Obviously that sucks big time for 2 9800 in SLI.
I then took out one card and did another run.
The score was 11325
sm2.0 - 4500
sm3.0 - 5209
cpu- 3285
I then put the card in to PCI-E slot three and it booted up fine but told me that if I'm not running SLI to put it back into slot one. So I did cause I figure it knew better than me and didn't seem to wanted to do anything else anyway. Seemed normal though.
I swapped that card out for it's handsome twin and he put out an A for effort score of....forgot my drumsticks....
-11215
sm2.0 - 4437
sm3.0 - 5169
cpu- 3265
So as you can see these two cards pretty much tied for last place out of a 2 man sprint.
I then tried my Crysis benchmark. And played the opening sequences in SLI and with each card individually.
SLI did give me a small boost in certain areas. For the Assault Harbour scene in 1680x 1050 all setting on high no AA it gave me a 10-15 fps boost in the opening scene where the guys are sitting around chatting about how cool the suit is and in general gave me a few extra boosts or 5-10 frames here and there with many scene pushing virtually the same count.
I then did the opening scene of the game and was getting 50 to 60+ fps at the same res and detail level but with 4xAA turned on. Essentially getting AA for free from what I was getting before. On the Assault run I essentially free 4xAA over the single card scores.
So the SLI is making a difference just not as much as I'd expect considering how low the score with one card is to begin with.
I'm thinking I'm bottlenecked by the q6600 at stock perhaps.
Other interesting notes.
-3dmark refuses to acknowledge my 2 cards
-crysis benchmark heading shows MGPU. It recognizes both cards.
-Nvidia control panel recognized both cards but tells me I have 512 meg of video memory. Maybe it won't combined the total for both cards.
-SLI visual indicators often look bored. Bars go from full length to maximum shrinkage like Castanza just getting out of a cold pool.
-I redid a 3dmark run with the cards rearranged and got 12097 (total), 4368 (sm2), 6205 (sm3), 3269 (cpu)
My system is
q6600
xfx 780i SLI motherboard
2 9800gtx
4GB OCZ DDR2 800
PC P&C 750w PSU
Window Vista Ultimate 64bit
and I just got the newest driver for my cards.
First I did a benchrun with SLI again
For 3dmark I got a whopping 11803...ouch
sm2.0 - 4377
sm3.0 - 5783
cpu- 3366
Obviously that sucks big time for 2 9800 in SLI.
I then took out one card and did another run.
The score was 11325
sm2.0 - 4500
sm3.0 - 5209
cpu- 3285
I then put the card in to PCI-E slot three and it booted up fine but told me that if I'm not running SLI to put it back into slot one. So I did cause I figure it knew better than me and didn't seem to wanted to do anything else anyway. Seemed normal though.
I swapped that card out for it's handsome twin and he put out an A for effort score of....forgot my drumsticks....
-11215
sm2.0 - 4437
sm3.0 - 5169
cpu- 3265
So as you can see these two cards pretty much tied for last place out of a 2 man sprint.
I then tried my Crysis benchmark. And played the opening sequences in SLI and with each card individually.
SLI did give me a small boost in certain areas. For the Assault Harbour scene in 1680x 1050 all setting on high no AA it gave me a 10-15 fps boost in the opening scene where the guys are sitting around chatting about how cool the suit is and in general gave me a few extra boosts or 5-10 frames here and there with many scene pushing virtually the same count.
I then did the opening scene of the game and was getting 50 to 60+ fps at the same res and detail level but with 4xAA turned on. Essentially getting AA for free from what I was getting before. On the Assault run I essentially free 4xAA over the single card scores.
So the SLI is making a difference just not as much as I'd expect considering how low the score with one card is to begin with.
I'm thinking I'm bottlenecked by the q6600 at stock perhaps.
Other interesting notes.
-3dmark refuses to acknowledge my 2 cards
-crysis benchmark heading shows MGPU. It recognizes both cards.
-Nvidia control panel recognized both cards but tells me I have 512 meg of video memory. Maybe it won't combined the total for both cards.
-SLI visual indicators often look bored. Bars go from full length to maximum shrinkage like Castanza just getting out of a cold pool.
-I redid a 3dmark run with the cards rearranged and got 12097 (total), 4368 (sm2), 6205 (sm3), 3269 (cpu)
My system is
q6600
xfx 780i SLI motherboard
2 9800gtx
4GB OCZ DDR2 800
PC P&C 750w PSU
Window Vista Ultimate 64bit
and I just got the newest driver for my cards.