Sli on my Gtx 550 Ti HELP

[Royalfelix]

Hey guys so i have been trying to get my cards to work in sli mode but this is my situation, i have two geforce gtx 550ti 1gb video cards but i play starcraft and i get the same fps with one video card as from the "two" not sure if there even active!

system stats.

cpu amd pheonom x6
8 gb ram
1tb hard drive
m4n75td mother board
2x geforce gtx 550ti video cards

like i said i get the same fps rate with one video card as with the "two" so i dont know if there working on sli mode... any help would be great! suggest a good benchmark program or what i can do to see if im using both video cards on sli please help!

 

[Royalfelix]

using windows 7 gamer edition

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Well it is a Blizzard game ..... WoW gets no benefit froim SLI and even runs w/ a penalty. My two sons play and they turn off SLI (one has GTX 295, one has twin 560's) when playing Blizzard games.

 

[4745454b]

I would double check to make sure SC2 even uses SLI.

Gamer edition? No such thing. Go buy a legit copy of windows.

 

[jyjjy]

I believe SC2 can actually use SLI but the game is so heavily CPU dependent it may not make much or possibly any difference. Here you can see some benchmarks;
http://www.techspot.com/review/305-starcraft2-performance/page7.html
With Ultra settings at 1920x1200 even an i7 at 3.7ghz got very little performance increase from anything better than the GTX 275. Lower settings or resolution would only increase the bottleneck.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

sell both of the gts550's as they are crap and poor value for money and get a single faster card.

 

[Royalfelix]

Great zZzZzZz what sli video cards would you guys suggest for playing sc2 and diablo3 when it comes out?

 

[Royalfelix]

and i do have windows 7 gamer 2010 thats what it says

 

[jyjjy]

The "gamer" edition of Windows 7 is not an official version. It is a bootleg pirated version.
Is there a reason you are stuck on SLI rather than using one card? I would just return the cards you have now and get a single GTX 560 Ti or HD6950.

 

[Royalfelix]

well my goal is to get max fps, and im guessing that 2x 1gb cards would do better then 1x 2gb card? correct me if im wrong

 

[mdd1963]

The GTX550's are massively overpriced given their sub-GTX460 (768MB) level of performance...; concur with selling them both and getting a single 6950 or GTX570.

 

[Royalfelix]

i think i just might end up doing this.... my price range is 300 bucks

 

[Royalfelix]

whats do u guys think about the GeForce GTX 480

http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6075097&CatId=1839

 

[Royalfelix]

i should be studying for my damn mechanic ase test instead im learning about computer builds! so what am i looking for in these numbers higher lower exc...

Memory Interface: 256-bit

Memory Type: GDDR5

Video Memory: 1024MB

Stream Processors: 384

Core Clock: 900 MHz

Memory Clock: 4212 MHz

Shader Clock: 1800 MHz

Memory Bandwidth: 57.6GB/sec.

 

[jyjjy]

The GTX 480 is outdated, hot and power hungry. The updated version is the GTX 570. Here is one for $315;
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814162075

 

[Royalfelix]

that looks nice but what ever i get has to be from compusa thats where i bought my videocards at and thats where ill get the full credit for them.. which would let me get my 300 bucks into a single video card hmm wonder if they have that one there



cool they do got it, hmm ill call the store on monday see if i can get that one, is that my best bet u think? as far is trying to get better fps, in starcraft and hopefully soon diablo 3?

and i still dont get the stats wouldnt a 2gb be better then a 1.2 gb?

 

[jyjjy]

i should be studying for my damn mechanic ase test instead im learning about computer builds! so what am i looking for in these numbers higher lower exc...

Memory Interface: 256-bit

Memory Type: GDDR5

Video Memory: 1024MB

Stream Processors: 384

Core Clock: 900 MHz

Memory Clock: 4212 MHz

Shader Clock: 1800 MHz

Memory Bandwidth: 57.6GB/sec.

You should be ignoring all of these things basically. What matters is performance. Look at benchmarks rather than trying to combine a list of hardware specs in your head into a questionable facsimile of general performance.
To make things simple here is a recent and reasonably accurate general performance chart for current cards at 1920x1200;

The main factors to consider outside of performance should be heat/cooling, power efficiency and overclocking potential if you are interested in such.

 

[jyjjy]

Looking on compusa if you like rebates then this is a good deal;
http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7303441&CatId=3669
If you don't care about the rebate then I'd probably get this card as it has the best cooling available;
http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7303352&CatId=3669

 

[Royalfelix]

the gtx 570 is at the 120% benchmark thats pretty good? i think im gonna go with that... i still dont get whats the deal with the sli not being a better performer for the game >_<
jyjjy thanks for your help seems u know your stuff. why isnt sli a better performer? i think thats my last question

 

[Royalfelix]

so if price didnt matter which of these 3 would u say would be the best? Galaxy 57NKH3HS4GXK GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) and the 2 on ur link.

 

[jyjjy]

In general it is best to save SLI or Crossfire as an upgrade path rather than a starting point. Not all games scale well in a dual card setup and you need to use profiles for games that do. There are also often heat/airflow issues with dual card setups that can be a big headache along with other quirks. Also with regards to memory the situation is the opposite of what you said earlier. Memory in SLI is redundant, not cumulative. Each card needs to have the same information in memory to work properly in conjunction so by adding a second card the effective amount of memory stays the same and only the processing power is increased. So the GTX 570 you are looking at actually has more useable graphic memory than your two 1gb GTX 550 Ti's despite physically having 756mb less.
To get back to your initial post while the GTX 570 is a wiser choice in general for SC2 specifically you still aren't going to see much of an increase in frame rates. The issue there is that the game is highly CPU dependent, not that you were lacking in graphical power as I pointed out in my first post in the thread. The game also unfortunately only uses two cores so that you have a x6 processor isn't really relevant. You could possibly overclock the processor if you haven't already.

 

[Royalfelix]

i havent i know how to but i dont know what i should set it at, in ai tweaker... what frequency is a good margin?

 

[jyjjy]

so if price didn't matter which of these 3 would u say would be the best? Galaxy 57NKH3HS4GXK GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) and the 2 on ur link.

The MSI Twin Frozr II is the best of those. The Asus DirectCU II is also a great card but it is huge and takes up 3 slots. On your motherboard there would be no room between it and a second card if you want to add another for SLI at some point in the future.

 

[Royalfelix]

So lets say i go with the msi twin frozr II will this give me my better fps in starcraft? i really dont care about sc2 but im guessing that diablo3 will req same setup for good fps so thats what im preparing for. my computer scores are

processor 7.6 overclocked 3.7

ram 7.6

graphics 7.8

gaming graphics 7.8

primary hard disk 5.9 <--- why so low? hitachi hds721010cla332 ata device

 

[jyjjy]

If that's the "windows experience index" it isn't very accurate or worth being concerned about. The GTX 570 should pretty easily handle anything you throw at it at resolutions of 1920x1200 and below. Basically there is one game you won't be able to max out and play smoothly and that's Metro 2033 which just requires an insane setup.