Please help with my GTX295 SLI

[s0ul1984]

Hello to everyone and welcome to my Thread.


I need help with my two GTX295 cards. They really run games slow. From what I know a GTX295 has two GTX280, So having 4 GTX280 should be fine to play the latest games at high settings. For example Metro 2033 should be fine at max settings because on my other pc with a gtx285 it plays just about okay.

My pc specs are:

Monitor is asus VG236 with 120Hz
Asus Striker ii Extreme
Intel QX9650
GTX295 Quad
6GB DDR3 1333Mhz
1500W Thermaltake PSU

Everything is on default. I've never done any overclockings. I did enable on nvidia settings the options to maximise 3d performance.


Please help guys.

Thanks

 

[nforce4max]

Was there any changes prior to the drop in performance? 775 isn't the best choice for two gtx 295 in quad sli. Also there are more factors that can hinder performance. Even a slow hard drive can botch a good setup.

 

[s0ul1984]

Was there any changes prior to the drop in performance? 775 isn't the best choice for two gtx 295 in quad sli. Also there are more factors that can hinder performance. Even a slow hard drive can botch a good setup.

Hi and thanks for your reply.

Not sure really, when I wanted to go to gtx580 some friend of mine said just buy another gtx295 and you will have a very fast pc just like having the gtx580. According to some benchmarks it's almost the same. Is i7 better? I don't want to think of AMD because they were hell for me back in 2008. I have a 1.5 TB samsung hard disk.

It's strange because all 4 gpus are shown in nvidia settings. Sometimes if I dedicate one gpu to Physx some games like Crysis 2 and Turok work faster but for other games it just doesn't help at all.

A game called Fable 3 came just out. I installed it and started to play with max settings on 1920/1080 120Hz. Once I started the game I could feel I was on a Gtx260.

Is my PSU giving them enough power? Can it be that I might have to overclock my cpu to get any better performance?

Both cards run around 75 c at full load.

Once again thank you for your reply.

 

[swifty_morgan]

No it's not like having a gtx580. The 580 would have been better. The cards architecture is different and gives better performance..... performance doesn't have anything to do with frame rates...... reminds me that some people say 2 5770 is like a 5850.... BS. FPS is FPS, not performance. Some games will not respond well to "quad" sli set ups. Try disabling one of your cards and run the troubled game again. What happens ? sorry, missed your PSU.

 

[Helltech]

I would have went with the GTX 580 personally. =/

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Be aware that the GTX 295's performance in SLI, as with its successor the 590 and the equivalent from ATI, the 6990 are really poor performers when doubled up. In fact in some games, the 2nd GPU on the 295 should be turned off as you get better performance (i.e WoW) with just 1 GPU active. Here we see it losing substantial to comparable nVidia single GPU cards.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/world-of-warcraft-cataclysm-directx-11-performance,2793-5.html

The 590 jumps from a total of 881 total fps in Guru3D's game test suite to only 982 after adding a 2nd 590 .... only a 11 % improvement.

The 6990 jumps from a total of 762 total fps in Guru3D's game test suite to only 903 after adding a 2nd 6990 .... only a 12 % improvement.

See this article for specific info on the 295 in Quad SLI.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-295-quad-sli-gaming-test/13

 

[nforce4max]

Quad sli and crossfire haven't really improved over the past 5 years or so due to many limitations and complications involved. DX9 games can only scale with three gpus but Nvidia and ati have found a work around with the gpus rendering in blocks of two in a AFR mode. AFR is well known to have scaling issues that result in low margins of scaling and well known micro shutter. Quad sli is also very demanding for the whole machine. Tri sli and crossfire is best over all at the high end. I have ran two way sli my self and it is more stable. When you were only running a single gtx 295 you were running two way sli.

 

[s0ul1984]

Ohh my God!!!

I thought having the new Nvidia drivers will make these quad card work fine in all games. I mean I do understand that some old games don't really need a higher card than a GTX260. I am sure no games below 2007 needs a better card than a GTX260 with 240SP. Then I also thought having the latest drivers will help the pc to pick up all cards and make my pc play all games above 2007 till 2012 just fine.

So what you guys say is that Nvidia can't still handle something they created themselfs? When I picked up Striker ii Extreme I did alot of reading which made me believe the board will have both cards at 16. When I picked up another gtx295 I did not knew alot about benchmarks.

All I did was went here: http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=603&card2=637#

From here I picked up these specs:

GTX 295

Manufacturer:nVidia
Series:GeForce GTX 200
GPU:GT200b x 2
Release Date:2009-01-08
InterfaceCI-E 2.0 x16
Core Clock:576 MHz x2
Shader Clock:1242 MHz x2
Memory Clock:999 MHz (1998 DDR) x2
Memory Bandwidth:223.8 GB/sec
FLOPS:596.16 GFLOPS
Pixel Fill Rate:32256 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate:92160 MTexels/sec
Max Power Draw:289 W
Noise Level:Moderate
Framebuffer:1792 MB
Memory Type:GDDR3
Memory Bus Type:64x7 (448 bit)
DirectX Compliance:10.0
OpenGL Compliance:2.1
PS/VS Version:4.0/4.0
Process:55 nm
Shader Processors:480 (240)
Pipeline Layout:Scalar MADD+MUL
Texture Units:160 (80)
Raster Operators 56 (32)

Looking at these settings plus another card on top of these specs I thought it will be just much faster than a gtx580. I mean the Bandwidth of GTX295 is 223.8 GB/sec plus another card will make it over 446 Bandwidth. That's how I thought cards would work with the new drivers.

The GTX580 specs are:
Manufacturer:nVidia
Series:GeForce GTX 500
GPU:GTX 500
Release Date:2010-11-09
InterfaceCI-E 2.0 x16
Core Clock:772 MHz
Shader Clock:1544 MHz
Memory Clock:2004 MHz (4008 DDR)
Memory Bandwidth:192.384 GB/sec
FLOPS:1581.056 GFLOPS
Pixel Fill Rate:37056 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate:49408 MTexels/sec
Max Power Draw:244 W
Noise Level:Moderate
Framebuffer:1536,3072 MB
Memory Type:GDDR5
Memory Bus Type:64x6 (384 bit)
DirectX Compliance:11.0
OpenGL Compliance:3.2
PS/VS Version: 5.0/5.0
Process:40 nm
Shader Processors:512
Pipeline Layout:?
Texture Units:64
Raster Operators 48


Why the hell do they make a motherboard with sli when they can't cope with sli? Why the hell do they make two cards in one when they can't come with each other?

I hate how these Nvidia guys play with our minds. I really thought I most have had some settings mixxed up. Sometimes I thought a jumper has to be changed on the motherboard so that it can detect all cards but when I checked the nvidia control panel I saw that there were 4 gpus which means all 4 are on and active.

It's too much to buy a GTX580 when from spec two gtx295 are faster.

I'm really sad.

Thanks guys for your reply.

 

[bystander]

The problem is you are comparing a single GPU to a card with 2 GPU's on them and when you put 2 together, it's like having 4 GPU's. Each time you add a GPU to the mix, the gains are smaller and smaller.

 

[Helltech]

It's becuase you don't have SLI, you have QUAD-SLI. One of your cards is already "technically" SLI. Albeit without some the hassle of restrictions of SLI.

Plus you can't really compare video cards the way you are trying.

The architecures are completely different.

SLI works fine, no one has ever claimed Quad-SLI or even Tri-SLI works perfectly. The same goes for ATI, the technology just isn't there yet.

 

[s0ul1984]

Thanks for the reply guys.

What should I do now? Get a GTX 590 or two GTX580?

The thing is I have over 70 games installed on my pc. Most of them are running like in Direct x9 and not 10 as they should. I have to lower the graphics so that they are playable. Some of the games of course run fine. Those that were made below 2007 are working fine but those above 2007 do really lag alot.

Helltech.. I can see that I made a huge mistake to take another GTX295 and have 4 GPUs but again I really thought they will work fine. You see Nvidia created cards to work in quad sli but it does not, so we as users are really placed in hell.

Once again thanks for sharing your facts with me.

 

[Helltech]

Well I wouldn't put all the blame on Nvidia and ATI, I think a lot has to do with the game manufacterers and how they optimize games.

Regardless, personally I would sell the 295s each to two different people who can use them.

How long have you had the second 295? Where did you get it?

You can still get a pretty nice price for a 295, its a beast of a card yet.

What resolution do you run? (If I missed it in the thread I'm sorry).

I don't think the GTX 590 is worth it at all. One GTX 580 should suffice depending on your resolution.

 

[s0ul1984]

Well I wouldn't put all the blame on Nvidia and ATI, I think a lot has to do with the game manufacterers and how they optimize games.

Regardless, personally I would sell the 295s each to two different people who can use them.

How long have you had the second 295? Where did you get it?

You can still get a pretty nice price for a 295, its a beast of a card yet.

What resolution do you run? (If I missed it in the thread I'm sorry).

I don't think the GTX 590 is worth it at all. One GTX 580 should suffice depending on your resolution.

I bought the first GTX295 5 months ago and the second one just two months ago.

I got both cards from ebay.

I'm playing at 1920/1080 on an Asus VG236H.

Actually you're right. It's the makers of games that don't know how to make games correctly. From what I can see with these cards, I agree with you that it's the games that just don't work well with quad core cards. I'm just wondering why quad core cpu don't have any problems dealing with softwares. A game called bulletstorm works perfect.

The good thing is I have chnaged my mind about computers. I will stick with this system for another year or two and then never play games again. It is costing me too much to be up to date with pc hardwares and the mistakes that the makers of software (Games) make.

I just disabled one card completely and those games that were running slow in quad work better.

Ahh my dream was not to have these lag problems with two of these gtx 295 and now I have this problem which can't be fixed.

 

[Helltech]

Hmm, well you have a couple of problems, the GTX 200 series was also still young when it came to SLI. It wasn't untill the 400 and 500 series we saw scaling get nearly perfect.

Next, I wouldn't be done with games, it really doesn't take that much to keep up with games. I'm playing all of the games I want at max settings with only 2 GTX 260s.

What resolution are you playing at? Also you aren't trying to put AA and AF settings to max? I would never have AA over 4x, not only is it very taxing but 4x is very satifactory. The same methodology applies to AF as well, very taxing without much visual improvement over 4x.

If you have those turned up turn them off.

Another feature that can cause problems in games is Verticle Sync, it works both ways. Sometimes having it enabled can cause problems, sometimes not having it enbaled can cause problems.

Honestly, one GTX 295 should be pretty beastily.

You're right though, it might have cost you a lot of money, but with proper research before you buy hardware you can save a lot of hair pulling and not spend so much money. Instead of being upset that computers "cost a lot to game" (they really don't), just take this as a learning lesson to look before you leap. Ask around on forums like this for help, instead of taking advice from your friend, he obviously didn't know what he was talking about.

 

[swifty_morgan]

In all honesty you'd only need 1 card..... unless running more than 1 monitor. One 580 would be more than enough.

 

[s0ul1984]

Hi again and once again thanks for your reply.

Most of the time I game at 1920 X 1080. In nvidia settings under Adjust image settings with preview I use "Use my preference emphasising"

In games I always turn off Anti Aliasing and place anisotropic filtering at 4 or 8. Well the Verticle Sync always made my game run better and cleaner. So Verticle Sync is always on.

Is there no independent software that can find the best settings for games and then shows them to you? Like adding the game to that software then the software checks your system and also the game then applies the best settings for you. I know by default games do that but I always have to change it. Sometimes games by default go at 800 X 600 which is a mistake or error.

Once again thank you for all your e-mail.

 

[s0ul1984]

Be aware that the GTX 295's performance in SLI, as with its successor the 590 and the equivalent from ATI, the 6990 are really poor performers when doubled up. In fact in some games, the 2nd GPU on the 295 should be turned off as you get better performance (i.e WoW) with just 1 GPU active. Here we see it losing substantial to comparable nVidia single GPU cards.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/world-of-warcraft-cataclysm-directx-11-performance,2793-5.html

The 590 jumps from a total of 881 total fps in Guru3D's game test suite to only 982 after adding a 2nd 590 .... only a 11 % improvement.

The 6990 jumps from a total of 762 total fps in Guru3D's game test suite to only 903 after adding a 2nd 6990 .... only a 12 % improvement.

See this article for specific info on the 295 in Quad SLI.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-295-quad-sli-gaming-test/13

This is very sad. I most say extremely sad.

I thought adding another card would give same as the first card. Let's say GTX590 gives 881 FPS so if adding another one it should be 1762 FPS. What is stopping the cards not to be faster? I mean why do they create sli cards or motherboard when you don't have the power with them? I'm really in dark when it comes to understand this. I feel like buying fake thing.

We all should go on strike and not buy these cards at all. Let these guys think to improve what they make.

 

[nforce4max]

The problem is you are comparing a single GPU to a card with 2 GPU's on them and when you put 2 together, it's like having 4 GPU's. Each time you add a GPU to the mix, the gains are smaller and smaller.

People used to say "diminishing returns" about sli/crossfire when I first signed up here.

 

[nforce4max]

This is very sad. I most say extremely sad.

I thought adding another card would give same as the first card. Let's say GTX590 gives 881 FPS so if adding another one it should be 1762 FPS. What is stopping the cards not to be faster? I mean why do they create sli cards or motherboard when you don't have the power with them? I'm really in dark when it comes to understand this. I feel like buying fake thing.

We all should go on strike and not buy these cards at all. Let these guys think to improve what they make.

Quad sli/crossfire does not scale any ware near as well as two way sli/crossfire and may be many years before they have the solutions available while systems being able to fully cope with the work loads. Two way doesn't even scale 100% vs a single card. Also there is overhead that comes with each card/gpu for the cpu and system memory i/o.