Question about GTX 770 SLi

[Nuffehh]

At the moment, I have the one monitor @ 1920x1080, so at around Christmas time, I'm buying my self an EVGA GTX 770 2GB card, but I've been thinking.

Next year sometime, I want to go for a 3 monitor setup, with 2 GTX 770s.

Now, my question is, if I buy the 2GB version just now, and then buy the 4GB version, can I use the 4GB has the primary card and still get the power of the 2GB in SLi?

I'm not sure if you can, so if anyone could help me out with this one, thanks!

 

[phendric]

First, it's never been clear to me whether you can put 2 Nvidia cards with different RAM sizes in SLI. An SLI FAQ entry over on geforce.com seems to say that you can (http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/sli/faq#c19), but I've also read that the CoolBits mod may no longer work in recent driver versions.

Besides, if you're going to eventually go with a 3-monitor setup, and you want to game across all 3...then you're going to want cards with 3-4 GB memory; 2 GB won't cut it.

Don't know how set you are on the 770, but AMD has historically had better multi-monitor support than Nvidia.

 

[Nuffehh]

First, it's never been clear to me whether you can put 2 Nvidia cards with different RAM sizes in SLI. An SLI FAQ entry over on geforce.com seems to say that you can (http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/sli/faq#c19), but I've also read that the CoolBits mod may no longer work in recent driver versions.

Besides, if you're going to eventually go with a 3-monitor setup, and you want to game across all 3...then you're going to want cards with 3-4 GB memory; 2 GB won't cut it.

Don't know how set you are on the 770, but AMD has historically had better multi-monitor support than Nvidia.

So probably two 780s @ 3GB VRAM would be my best bet if I'm going for nVidia cards?

Or two GTX 770s @ 4GB...

 

[jinayhvora]

i would say 770s 4GB

 

[chugot9218]

If you have a 2gb and a 4gb SLI you are basically losing out on 2gb of VRAM on the 4gb card. I have SLI 2gb 670's and Planetside 2 at 5760x1080p brings me pretty close to my VRAM limit. However, for most games I find triple monitor gameplay somewhat awkward, and am happy with the performance I receive gaming only on my main monitor. My next upgrade will be to 4gb cards, but not for a few years. I had inquired to one of the mods on here with lots of experience in SLI, and he basically recommended I get either a 120hz monitor or an IPS monitor for gaming. In the future I will probably go with that setup, one high quality monitor as my primary gaming screen and 2 60hz monitors flanking it for productivity tasks and work.

 

[Nuffehh]

Just going to stay with one monitor and one graphics card, thanks for the responses people!

 

[phendric]

However, for most games I find triple monitor gameplay somewhat awkward, and am happy with the performance I receive gaming only on my main monitor. My next upgrade will be to 4gb cards, but not for a few years. I had inquired to one of the mods on here with lots of experience in SLI, and he basically recommended I get either a 120hz monitor or an IPS monitor for gaming.

This. I had a triple-monitor setup for a couple of years, and found that I spent more time gaming on a single monitor than on 3. When I had to move my rig to a smaller space, where I only have room for a single monitor, I stuck with a 120 hz BenQ monitor that I really like for gaming. 120 HZ means ultra-smooth, but I still need 2 cards in SLI to reach anything close to 120 hz for many games.

 

[hizodge]

However, for most games I find triple monitor gameplay somewhat awkward, and am happy with the performance I receive gaming only on my main monitor. My next upgrade will be to 4gb cards, but not for a few years. I had inquired to one of the mods on here with lots of experience in SLI, and he basically recommended I get either a 120hz monitor or an IPS monitor for gaming.

This. I had a triple-monitor setup for a couple of years, and found that I spent more time gaming on a single monitor than on 3. When I had to move my rig to a smaller space, where I only have room for a single monitor, I stuck with a 120 hz BenQ monitor that I really like for gaming. 120 HZ means ultra-smooth, but I still need 2 cards in SLI to reach anything close to 120 hz for many games.

Everything this guy said x10.

 

[Nuffehh]

However, for most games I find triple monitor gameplay somewhat awkward, and am happy with the performance I receive gaming only on my main monitor. My next upgrade will be to 4gb cards, but not for a few years. I had inquired to one of the mods on here with lots of experience in SLI, and he basically recommended I get either a 120hz monitor or an IPS monitor for gaming.

This. I had a triple-monitor setup for a couple of years, and found that I spent more time gaming on a single monitor than on 3. When I had to move my rig to a smaller space, where I only have room for a single monitor, I stuck with a 120 hz BenQ monitor that I really like for gaming. 120 HZ means ultra-smooth, but I still need 2 cards in SLI to reach anything close to 120 hz for many games.

So, you're saying get one monitor @ 120hz (or even 144hz), and setup SLi so that both cards are 'powering' (don't know the word :S) to the one monitor?

So just put both in SLi and put the primary card to the ONE monitor?

 

[chugot9218]

No, there are separate SLI settings. One is to essentially span the monitors with one resolution, turning your 3 monitors into one that has a 5760x1080p resolution. One thing I noticed and did not like about this is that if you use the Windows snap-to feature to snap a window to the side of your screen, it ends up taking up 1 and 1/2 of a monitor for each. This is the mode you need to be in to game at 5780x1080p as far as I know. The other option uses both GPU's to run 3 monitors separately, and they act like individual monitors with extended desktop, and you set which is your primary, and this will be the screen active applications full screen to.