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Thread: Sli w/ different cards

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    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

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    stormrazer razer121's Avatar
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    Re: Sli w/ different cards

    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!
    Quote Originally Posted by TAKTAK View Post
    It was so small that mine wouldn't fit into it

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    Not a good person scaryjim's Avatar
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    Re: Sli w/ different cards

    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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    Re: Sli w/ different cards

    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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    stormrazer razer121's Avatar
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    Re: Sli w/ different cards

    Quote Originally Posted by scaryjim View Post
    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...

    My post is a pinch of salt i knew i should have kept my mouth shut
    Quote Originally Posted by TAKTAK View Post
    It was so small that mine wouldn't fit into it

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    Not a good person scaryjim's Avatar
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    Re: Sli w/ different cards

    Quote Originally Posted by razer121 View Post
    i knew i should have kept my mouth shut
    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

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    Re: Sli w/ different cards

    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.

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    Re: Sli w/ different cards

    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?"
    Main PC: Asus Rampage IV Extreme / 3960X@4.5GHz / Antec H1200 Pro / 32GB DDR3-1866 Quad Channel / Sapphire Fury X / Areca 1680 / 850W EVGA SuperNOVA Gold 2 / Corsair 600T / 2x Dell 3007 / 4 x 250GB SSD + 2 x 80GB SSD / 4 x 1TB HDD (RAID 10) / Windows 10 Pro, Yosemite & Ubuntu
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