Sli w/ different cards

Hi all,

Just a quick question regarding SLI with nvidia cards. I will be coming into possession of a gtx 580 in a week or two, but its the 3gb version, now its clock speeds aren't very much different from the original model, but i was wondering whether that extra memory would stop me from pairing it with another bog standard gtx 280?

Thanks in advance for any and all replies :)

I'm pretty sure you can sli them together but not how you might think, i belive you will only be able to use that second 280 as a physics card (so no sli bridge involved)

From memory i belive you can sli correctly together any cards that are the same models (gtx 560 with a gtx 580) dont hold me on that one though mind!

OK, I'm first up going to assume that it's a typo where you say "bog standard GTX 280", and that you actually meant GTX 580. ;)

Hmmm, tricky. SLI has always been a lot pickier about mismatching cards than Crossfire. My inclination would be to assume it probably won't work, and be happy about it if it did. Quite happy to be contradicted if someone else knows for sure though ;)

EDIT: and re: razer's crosspost above: don't believe a word of it ;) Crossfire works within ranges, but AFAIK SLI *requires* identical chips in the cards, and can be fussy about BIOS difference even with identical cards (I've heard of a few people having problems SLIing two 8800GTXs together despite them being identical in all meaningful ways). Unless NVIDIA have massively altered the way SLI works I don't believe you can SLI a GTX580 to anything other than another GTX580...

Thanks for the response guys, to be honest, i've just realised how pointless a second *580* would be atm, a single one would definitely destroy any games or editing software i throw at it, especially with my old card handling physx. Just nice to know where my options are if this rig ever starts to struggle. Thanks for the help.

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Originally Posted by scaryjim

OK, I'm first up going to assume that it's a typo where you say "bog standard GTX 280", and that you actually meant GTX 580. ;)

Hmmm, tricky. SLI has always been a lot pickier about mismatching cards than Crossfire. My inclination would be to assume it probably won't work, and be happy about it if it did. Quite happy to be contradicted if someone else knows for sure though ;)

EDIT: and re: razer's crosspost above: don't believe a word of it ;) Crossfire works within ranges, but AFAIK SLI *requires* identical chips in the cards, and can be fussy about BIOS difference even with identical cards (I've heard of a few people having problems SLIing two 8800GTXs together despite them being identical in all meaningful ways). Unless NVIDIA have massively altered the way SLI works I don't believe you can SLI a GTX580 to anything other than another GTX580...

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My post is a pinch of salt :rolleyes: i knew i should have kept my mouth shut :mrgreen:

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Originally Posted by razer121

i knew i should have kept my mouth shut :mrgreen:

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It's always worth pitching into a conversation as you may have some useful information that no-one else can provide. You just need to be ready for the fact that someone might pick you up on it if you make a mistake :devilish:

It's unlikely the OP has one, but some of the high end boards have those Lucid Hydra chips which allow mix and matching - I've not heard anything overwhelmingly positive about them.

It *should* work but will only use 1.5GB on each card. SLI (assuming it works correctly and you have 2 GPUs within a certain range) should work at the lowest settings between the 2 cards. VRAM, clockspeeds etc

The question is "do you need 2?" and "How big is your PSU?" :)