Using a 7950GX2 or 7900GX2 card by itself (not Quad SLI)

[dancingmatt]

Morning all

I'm really interested in the 7900GX2 that Scan are selling, but I can't get my head around how it'll actually work.

It's basically 2 7900GTs working in SLI on one board and the earlier version of the 7950GX2. It only has 2 DVI connections and I've read that they are both technically running off one of the GPUs. So if you have one or if you have a 7950GX2...

- Does it come up in Windows as two cards with one monitor each?
- Or one card with two screens ?

- Do I have to switch SLI on and off? (I'm only intending to buy one 7900GX2, not going for Quad SLI)
- Or does it act as one much-more-powerful card?

- When running in "SLI", can I still use both monitors? Or does one get disabled?

Please help - I can't find much info out about any of this and whilst I like the extra power it offers, I use two screens so need that to work too!

Thanks loads

DM

[Sumanji]

Don't know about all the technical details, but afaik SLI does not support multiple monitors

[charleski]

Don't know about all the technical details, but afaik SLI does not support multiple monitors

To clarify - the nvidia drivers support *either* SLI or mulit-monitors, but not both at the same time.

[Carlm]

Does the 7950GX2 support multiple monitors with the one card? if not Ive made an expensive mistake

[dancingmatt]

I get that running in SLI doesn't support multiple monitors, but I don't really understand whether I have to enable SLI with the 7900GX2 or not - since it's using only 1 PCIe slot. I'm not running it with another card.

DM

[charleski]

I'm using the 91.37 drivers tweaked by TweaksRUs (added a couple of lines to the .inf to make it recognise the 7900GX2). SLI was enabled by default. Works fine.

@Carlm: Yes, the 7950GX2 supports multi-monitors, but you can't use SLI at the same time. The same is true for all SLI configurations.

[dancingmatt]

Can you please share where to get those drivers from charleski?

Mine has just arrived, it's HUGE. It's also a day early (actually ordered it to arrive tomorrow) but thankfully I was able to get to the delivery. The 7900GX2 is also in a sealed antistatic bag, but the bag has been torn open in the middle, apparently so someone could stick a Scan warranty sticker on top of the heatsink. Lots and lots of bubblewrap around it, but still, a tore open antistatic bag? Very odd.

When I get the rest of my rig, just hope it works...!

DM

[Steve B]

the cards are OEM, so they dont have a box. the anti-static bag was probably one of the ones that it came in, as i think these were bought in for the panther quad-sli systems, just before nvidia announced the GX2

[charleski]

Yeah, Steve B is right. The cards must have been opened by Scan and used to build Quad SLi systems which then became redundant when the 7950GX2 was released, so they decided to sell them on (probably taking a loss, as the prices I saw quoted for the original Quad SLI cards were extreme).

The TweaksRUs drivers are here, though you'll need to add a couple of lines to nv_disp.inf to make them recognise the 7900GX2.
In the [NVIDIA.Mfg] section add
%NVIDIA_G71.DEV_0293.1% = nv4_MB_NV3x, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0293
(dev_0293=7900GX2, dev_0294=7950GX2, but both have the same core/memory config)
and in [Strings] add
NVIDIA_G71.DEV_0293.1 = "NVIDIA GeForce 7900/7950 GX2"