What you need for an SLI set-up

[Taxation]

This is for those of you that want to get more,but are stuck with just one.
No, im not on about women, or another car, but on about graphics cards (gpu's).
Some times there is only one way to get better performance out of a system, and that is to add more graphics power to the machine.
there are 2 ways of doing this, getting a better graphics card, or buying another graphics card.

SLI was brought in during the 6600 era.
It enabled people to grab those extra fps that could lead them onto victory, or to just show off their "hard core" machine, along with their pastey white skin.

So lets get down to buisness.
STEP ONE Determine your NVIDIA SLI component and operating system needs
The following components are required:
An NVIDIA SLI-certified motherboard with NVIDIA SLI Connector*
Two NVIDIA SLI-certified add-in cards(must be the same core,eg 7600gt with 7600gt)
Windows XP operating system
* The NVIDIA SLI connector is only used with GeForce 6600 GT products and above.

STEP TWO Determine your power needs
To have a good stable sli sytem, the lower end cards, i would recommend having a 480W power supply
And higher end cards get a good 580W power supply.

Now Install all of the hardware

Connect the power supply
http://uk.slizone.com/docs/IO/24849/how2_diagramN.jpg

Then connect the cards with the SLI bridge, which should be included along with the rest of the goodies that came with the mobo.
http://uk.slizone.com/docs/IO/25206/how3_diagram4N.jpg

Once the new NVIDIA SLI-certified components have been installed in the system, they will be recognized by the operating system upon Windows boot-up. A Found New Hardware message will be displayed:
http://uk.slizone.com/docs/IO/25206/how3_diagram5N.jpg

STEP FOUR Installing the NVIDIA SLI Software
As part of the NVIDIA Unified Driver Architecture, NVIDIA drivers include a full set of controls for SLI systems.

Once you have installed the NVIDIA SLI components and booted up your system, do the following:

1)Install the nForce drivers (provided with the motherboard, if havent done so already)
2)Reboot the system
3)Uninstall any old NVIDIA graphics drivers from the system and reboot the computer. If there are no NVIDIA drivers installed
4)Install the latest NVIDIA graphics drivers (provided with the add-in cards or from the nvidia website)
5)Reboot the system.

After reboot of the system to the Windows desktop, you will see an SLI Capable System message
http://uk.slizone.com/docs/IO/25213/how4_diagramN.jpg

Still more to come
STEP FIVE Enabling NVIDIA SLI
1. Click on the SLI capable system message (noted above) to open the following window.
http://uk.slizone.com/docs/IO/25329/how5_diagram1N.jpg

2. Select the checkbox Enable SLI multi-GPU, then click Apply and OK to save the settings.

You can also access these settings by opening the Display Properties, clicking on the Settings tab and the Advanced button. Click the tab associated with your graphics card, then select NVIDIA SLI from the left-hand menu options.

The system will automatically reboot, and you will be greeted with the SLI has been enabled message
http://uk.slizone.com/docs/IO/25329/how5_diagram2N.jpg

You now have an NVIDIA SLI-enabled system and are ready to take advantage of scalable games and applications!

oh yeah, btw, SLI means scalable link interface :)

Instructions from the nvidia slizone website

[Pete]

nice writeup, my problem atm is i purchased 2x Nvidia 8800 GTX's, and have them running on XP64 (no problems here but SLI took a while to work right) and on Vista64Bit (only see's 1 card, the other fails to load drivers and will not SLI atm).

now that SLI works on 1 of my systems, i attempt the basic 3dMark06 as a means of testing performance, however regardless of 32bit/64bit OS, or SLI/NON SLI i notice that the benchmark result is always a poor 8600+ ish, all the time, the fps on each test is always the same in all places, and doesnt differ if the OS changes or the SLI is on or off, is this a simple problem with XP64/Vista 64bit drivers or is there something amazingly wrong happening.

IS 3dmark06 even capable of displaying a decent result for xp64/vista64 combined with the new 8800s, so far im seeing not much difference, is there even a better alternative to 3dmark as a means of testing my machines speeds with these different OS/SLI options.

[Taxation]

at the moment there are problems with the 8800 drivers (32 and 64bit)
give it some time and try out different drivers

[MadnessRed]

I know this is probably a stupid question but.

All Sli cards are PCI-E x 16

The SLi motherboard I have seen only have 1 PCI-Ex16 slot.

So how do you fit a second card in?

[teknokid]

it cant be an sli motherboard then.
BTW 64bit sli drivers are only just starting to come good.

[djgandy]

I know this is probably a stupid question but.

All Sli cards are PCI-E x 16

The SLi motherboard I have seen only have 1 PCI-Ex16 slot.

So how do you fit a second card in?

Most the boards split 8x - 8x for the pci-e slots. It doesn't really matter though. There is still plenty of bandwidth in PCI-E 8x

[Nox]

it cant be an sli motherboard then.
BTW 64bit sli drivers are only just starting to come good.

Stop blaming 64bit!!! its no worse than 32 bit - for anyone to have 32 bit vista certified drivers they must also have 64 bit drivers.

and the reason 64bit drivers are only just starting to come good, is because 32 bit drivers are only just starting to come good...

Nox

[teknokid]

lol, but my mic doesnt work and it does on normal vista

[Nox]

user error :)

Nox

[teknokid]

well what can I change then? sounds like a turbine on the other end.

[Nox]

only change the part that makes it sound like a turbine :)

Nox

[teknokid]

well it works fine in xp....

[rh7an]

is it worth getting another 8600gts to go with the 1 i already have or is it better to buy a 8800. will there be much graphical difference between 2 8600's and a single 8800?

[djgandy]

http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_ ... &chart=378 (http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_sli2007.html?modelx=33&model1=864&model2=806&chart=378)

http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_ ... &chart=318 (http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=1057&model2=1058&chart=318)

GT beats 2 8600s easily. Up to you though. I wouldn't spend another £100 on a GTS when I could sell it for a few bob and get a GT

[teknokid]

8800gt anyday, or even ati 3850..

[JDowdall]

yah wat tekno said

[steve0]

Oh,cool !Good infos!Thank you for share it!

[richgill]

hope some1 can help, i have been looking in to this SLI thingy, i am not too sure if i have it or not, ihave a ASUS PN5-D motherboard and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX260

[Unsounduser]

hope some1 can help, i have been looking in to this SLI thingy, i am not too sure if i have it or not, ihave a ASUS PN5-D motherboard and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX260

Yes it does

Intel® Core™2 Quad / Core™2 Extreme / Core™2 Duo / Pentium® Extreme / Pentium® D / Pentium® 4 Processors
- NVIDIA® 750i SLI chipset
- ASUS EPU (Energy Processing Unit)
- ASUS Precision Tweaker 2
- Support PCIe2.0 Dual x16 SLI
- ASUS Q-Shield

[UKGouki]

the write up is slightly out of date as with the new nvdia drivers utilising cuda etc.. from 180.** and up SLI will now work on multi monitor setups :D and if you have identical monitors can actually Span some games accross both i.e GRID CRYSIS COD4/5 and many others :D


This is a WHQL-certified driver for GeForce 6, 7, 8, 9, and 200-series desktop GPUs.

Exciting New Features:

* Added support for GeForce GTX 295 and GeForce GTX 285
* Enables NVIDIA SLI technology on SLI-certified Intel X58-based motherboards with all SLI-certified GPUs.
* Enables NVIDIA SLI Multi-monitor support, giving you the ability to use two monitors with your GeForce graphics cards in SLI mode. Now you can easily switch between multi-monitor desktop mode and full screen 3D gaming mode. Learn more here.
* Enables NVIDIA PhysX acceleration on a dedicated GeForce graphics card. Use one card for graphics and dedicate a different card for PhysX processing for game-changing physical effects. Learn more here. (Note: GPU PhysX is supported on all GeForce 8-series, 9-series and 200-series GPUs with a minimum of 256MB dedicated graphics memory. This driver package automatically installs PhysX System Software version 8.10.13).
* Supports GeForce Plus Power Pack #2. Download these free PhysX and CUDA applications now!
* Added support for the new NVIDIA CUDA Video Encoder with H.264 optimization

Blazing Fast Performance:

* Boosts performance in numerous 3D applications. The following are some examples of improvements measured with Release 180 drivers vs. Release 178 drivers (results will vary depending on your GPU, system configuration, and game settings):
o Up to 10% performance increase in 3DMark Vantage (performance preset)
o Up to 13% performance increase in Assassin's Creed
o Up to 13% performance increase in BioShock
o Up to 15% performance increase in Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts
o Up to 10% performance increase in Crysis Warhead
o Up to 25% performance increase in Devil May Cry 4
o Up to 38% performance increase in Far Cry 2
o Up to 18% performance increase in Race Driver: GRID
o Up to 80% performance increase in Lost Planet: Colonies
o Up to 18% performance increase in World of Conflict

full write up for sli on multimonitor direct from nvidia >>
Download the NVIDIA® GeForce® Release 180 driver to enable NVIDIA® SLI® Multi-monitor support, giving you the ability to use two monitors with your GeForce® graphics cards in SLI mode. Now you can easily switch between multi-monitor desktop mode and full screen 3D gaming mode without any additional system settings. Multi-monitor aware games – such as World in Conflict, Supreme Commander Forged Alliance, and Flight Simulator X – surround you with amazing graphics to immerse you in the game. In addition, you can enjoy the flexibility of having 2, 4, or even up to 6 displays based on your GPU and motherboard configurations
Source
HERE CLICKY (http://www.slizone.com/object/sli_multi_monitor.html)

enjoy!

[TankJon]

SLI has been around for yonks and was a 3DFX invention. SLI meaning Scan Line Interleave.
I had 2 3DFX Voodoo 2's in SLI (Almost 10 years ago now). Was connected with a little ribbon cable. If I remember correctly both cards had 8mb of onboard memory...

It never really took off though then because of the lack of support and the fact it was so flakey and a Voodoo SLi setup was a continual source of annoyance. I eventually gave up on it and sold both Voodoo 2s and got a Voodoo 3.

Its only been since Nvidia bought out 3DFX some years ago and revisited the idea of SLi that its become popular again ...and actually working properly ...mostly!

In my opinion I would always go for a high end single card solution until the drivers and game support gets better for SLi.

[Pixulated]

Woah thanks a lot for this, now all I've gotta do is put it together myself, wish me luck!

[Bradmax57]

maybe coming upto 3 years this can be unstickied? or at least revamped as the pictures in the original post look nothing like the nv control panel today!

[Mindset]

if you have two nvidia cards - can you run 3 or 4 monitors from it?

[UKGouki]

if you have two nvidia cards - can you run 3 or 4 monitors from it?

yes as long as you have vista or win 7 as your op system multi monitor sli only works on vista due to needing DX10 to actually work :D you can run upto 6 monitors on xp with 3gpus on a triple sli capable motherboard But 1 gpu will be for 2x diplays only as triple sli again only works on vista/win 7.

if sli is disabled with 3gpu's you can run 6 monitors even on windows 2000 or if you want full spaned desktop with 3 monitors on 1 gpu in sli on XP you will need 2 identical gpu's and a Matrox triplehead to go with 3x identical monitors :D

[Mindset]

I have an old Matrox 650 card at the moment and want to upgrade to Vista/Win7 and get two cards in sli to run the 3 monitors. Would one of them have to run on analog or can they all run on digital outputs?

[UKGouki]

I have an old Matrox 650 card at the moment and want to upgrade to Vista/Win7 and get two cards in sli to run the 3 monitors. Would one of them have to run on analog or can they all run on digital outputs?

depends what version of triple head to go you get and as long as there identical monitors etc..

[Mindset]

I thought most modern cards could support 2 monitors as std anyway so why would I need a triple head as well?
My thinking is 2 cards with 2 outputs each could run max 4 monitors - no need for triple head?

[UKGouki]

I thought most modern cards could support 2 monitors as std anyway so why would I need a triple head as well?
My thinking is 2 cards with 2 outputs each could run max 4 monitors - no need for triple head?

yes you can do it this way but need to have vista or win7 as your op system if on xp you would need tripple head also if you wanted full spanned gaming/desktop still would need triple head:D

[Mindset]

+1 UKGouki:)

[robyrantor2]

nice work man