SLI another Twin Frozr III 570 or Gigabyte Superoverclock 570?

el_simmo

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I'm looking to go sli with my existing MSI 570 GTX Twin Frozr III. The conundrum I have is this:

Do I sli another Twin Frozr III? These are actually a bit more expensive than when I first bought mine (I got it on offer with overclockers) and most places are out of stock.

Or, do I go for the Gigabyte 570 Super Overclock with the 845Mhz factory overclocked core? This is a bit cheaper than the Twin Frozr III.

The questions regarding this decision boil down to this:


- Are there any advantages or disadvantages to sli-ing with exactly the same make and model of card? I.e. is it more stable? Could I overclock both cards easier?

- Since I could overclock either card manually, is the Twin Frozr III better for overclocking than the Gigabyte? I.e. does it have better cooling features? Has the Super overclocked Gigabyte pretty much reached its maximum overclock at those factory settings?

- Will I lose all or most of the functionality of MSI's Afterburner by using a Gigabyte card in an MSI/Gigabyte configuration? Will using Afterburner on an MSI and Gigabyte sli setup interfere with the Gigabyte card in some way? Is MSI's Afterburner a superior overclocking tool when using an MSI card or is something like RivaTuner sufficient?


System Specs:

Asus P6X58D-E
Intel i7 960 @ stock 3.20Ghz
Corsair AX850 PSU
MSI 570 GTX Twin Frozr III
4Gb Crucial 1066 RAM (will be upgraded with extra gfx card for 8-12Gb 1600/1866)
Additional OCZ 120Gb SSD to be purchased at same time as extra gfx card.
 

x Heavy

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I run two MSI 580's at about 980 clock.

You can find another matching card or set the one aside for a spare and get two new cards.
 

el_simmo

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Are you suggesting then that having 2 570 Twin Frozr IIIs is more beneficial than a 570 Twin Frozr III and a Gigabyte 570 Super Overclock?
 
GTX 570 SLI is giving a performance boost close to/better than GTX 590 depending on the game. The scaling of CF/SLI improves the performance by 40-80% and sometimes reaches more depending on the game.

a GTX 570 SOC, still 1 card with higher clocks.

And yes you can OC the cards even in SLI.
 

CF/SLI FAQ
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/245454-33-crossfire-faqs
 

monsta

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With SLI its always best to stick to the same cards, especially with overclocking them , even more so with afterburner as it does the overclock in tandem, don't believe you will be able to achieve this with adding a gigabyte card.
 

benski

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SLI no longer cares if your cards are running at the same clock speed or voltage, they changed it 3 or 4 drivers ago. And MSI afterburner lets you clock the cards individually (although I can think of no good reason not to have the clocked the same), you just uncheck "synchronize settings for similar graphics processors" in the general settings menu. I've run one EVGA card and one Palit card for about a year without any issues.

 

chesteracorgi

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Running two sli'd cards at different clock speeds begs the hardware to mistime the interleaved images. While the Nvidia standard allows for sli'ing cards of different speeds, the hardware must still interpolate the images and your result becomes less smoth. If you want to try, crank one of your cards while leaving the other at a constant speed. I think you'll find that in graphic demanding games you will have a greater problem with microfracturing and image stability.
 

benski

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There would have to be a pretty big difference in clock speeds for a human to notice, a percent or 2 I don't think you could tell. In no way am I recommending running them at a different speed though. It's pointless when you can use afterburner and it clocks them the same by default, but it does work and the cards don't both automatically switch to the primary cards clocks and voltages like they used to unless you do so with an overclocking utility.
 
As far as i know for CF configuration, you need to match both Core Clock & Memory Clock or One of the cards will raise/lower its clock speeds to reach the other card's speeds.

For SLI configuration, new drivers are quite different. If you use Nvidia cards with different clock speeds in SLI mode, none of them will change their clocks and they will perform at their default clock speed.

But some reported "When SLI was first introduced (and up to the time of 79xx series), the cards used to sync clocks with each other, but with the newer drivers they don't sync anymore".
 

el_simmo

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Nov 8, 2011
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Thanks for the great responses everyone, some really useful information there ilysaml.

I have decided to opt for another Twin Frozr III. I had to pay a bit more for it than the Gigabyte (and more than the last time I paid for a Twin Frozr III) and it is also awaiting stock at overclockers.co.uk so I'll probably receive it some time next week.

Feeling pretty happy with my decision though. :)