Probs with 8800 GTX In Sli

[badvock]

lol of course more money than sense besides i might get run over by a truck tomorrow. Also i do seemt o recall mentioning that a 30" dell is on the wishlist, just waiting for some more money to come through and wham!

ExceededGoku, Thanks for the tip there, tbh i didn't think of a throttling issue. I know the cards run hotter than the previous rev 7 series but lookin at the temps they aren't any higher than most reported temps in the reviews I have read. Am gonna try both cards on the gf's asus a8n32sli board and see what happens.

[badvock]

Well it seems the problem lies with the mainboard. The msi board has 1 16x pcie that drops to 2 8x pcie in sli mode. I tried the cards in the gf's asus a8nsli 32 board and seperately i got scores of 13K in 3d mark 05. pop them back in the msi board and the scores drop back to 5: with just 32 fps average on the return to proxyon demo. I cant see how the drop to 8x on the pcie slots would affect the scores so drammatically so i can only assume that there is some kind of incompatability with the board, there isn't much in the bios to change so perhaps a bios update may solve the problem. will e-mither msi to see if they can solve the issue, either that or a new mainboard.

[Clunk]

Well it seems the problem lies with the mainboard. The msi board has 1 16x pcie that drops to 2 8x pcie in sli mode.

[Noni]

Thats the problem, 8800GTX's need 2xPCI-E 16X slots.

[badvock]

A point worth conceding, however there are 2 points worth making here.

1. Nice of Nvidia to let everyone know that, I know it seems obvious when you think about th power of the cards but there are "non techies" out there who will not know these things.

2. It still doesnt explain why having 1 card in 1 slot in non sli mode (so port should be at x16) gives such low performance ratings on this board. I should still be able to get 14K plus rather than the 5k I have been getting

Still at the end of the day It's just a matter of swapping the mainboard for my gf's Asus A8n32 sli board so it's not like I have to spend any money. It's just a pain in the arse as the system is Phase change cooled so it's actually quite a big job. Still it's the excuse I have been looking for to buy that Lian Li V200 case I have been wanting, just gotta figure out how I am gonna mod it to fit the refrigeration unit in the bottom

[YorkieBen]

if you are going to have a mobo with heatpipes dont put it in a V2000 (or any other case with an inverted mobo setup) because the heatpipes wont work

[Robert]

20" Viewsonic? Man, thats serious bottlenecking, only one card is working to use that display !

I would either-

Return one card or get a 30" Dell.

I garuntee you, one 8800GTX is enough for a 20" Viewsonic.

Return one card mate.

In regards of your problem 3D Mark is nothing, you buy a card for gaming, not for 3dmark scores. Is your FPS increased?

Thanks!

Rubbish. New games will come out (ala Crysis which WILL stress that)...so 1680*1050/1600*1200 is perfect.

[Jinx]

2. It still doesnt explain why having 1 card in 1 slot in non sli mode (so port should be at x16) gives such low performance ratings on this board. I should still be able to get 14K plus rather than the 5k I have been getting

You say that you have one of the swappable card slot things to change between SLI and non-SLI on your board.....if you're not swapping that around each time that you're benching between 2 cards and then one, then the PCI-E slots are still only running at 8x.....that would still bottleneck.....

[s_kinton]

A point worth conceding, however there are 2 points worth making here.

1. Nice of Nvidia to let everyone know that, I know it seems obvious when you think about the power of the cards but there are "non techies" out there who will not know these things.

I too was very suprised to read on a launch day review that the GTX cards required 2x 16x PCI-E slots in sli, as id never heard this before. Im suprised nvidia didnt make a bigger deal of this, as alot of people will not realise the requirement.

I have a MSI K8N SLi Platinum, which is practically idetical to your currnet board i.e. 2x 8x PCI-E slots

[badvock]

You say that you have one of the swappable card slot things to change between SLI and non-SLI on your board.....if you're not swapping that around each time that you're benching between 2 cards and then one, then the PCI-E slots are still only running at 8x.....that would still bottleneck.....

Yer, I was swapping the card to change slot speed, and i was still getting low scores. I am still convinced that there is some sort of issue with this combination of parts. Now am considering just moving over to the new 680i Board and a conroe 6400 I mean if you are gonna do something you may aswell do it by spending stoopid ammounts of money

[Clunk]

youll have fun with the 680 boards, looks like plenty of teething troubles at the moment with those. I would ditch one of the cards for now and wait until there is a stable reliable sli board, but i wouldnt hold your breath

[badvock]

Well system specs have now been changed, after i decided to go conroe (seemed too much hassle swapping boards and i needed an excuse for a conroe)

System Specs now are:

Conroe 6600 (on vapochill XEII @ -35)
2Gb Corsair TwinX DDR2 XMS2, PC8500 (1066), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-15, EPP
2x XFX 8800GTX
EVGA 680i Mobo
Soundblaster XFi Platinum
Tagan 900W PSU

And guess what..... I am STILL having the same problem :/

All drivers are up to date and they are all on a fresh install of XP SP2. . Temps all look ok so I dont think throttling is taking place to be honest I have just about given up. I thought it may be a driver issue but no'one is reporting similar problems that i can see so I doubt this is the issue. Fear looks ok at full res with max details resulting in 100% of frames above 40 but even aquamark only returns a score of 62 in single card and 100k in SLi (my mates 7900 gtx returns 140K)

I dont think that both cards could be faulty (though it could happen) I have tried them both in the system on their own with similar results, I.e. Crap There is no overclocking on the board or processor at the moment and all bios values are at stock. Please anyone if you have any advice, tips or fixes I would be most appreciative of any help you can offer.

Thanks in advance

[Clunk]

Just so we know....

1 x 8800GTX on its own in the number 1 pci-e slot is slow?

2 x 8800GTX in SLI with the slots at 16x (any jumpers to set manually?, bios setting perhaps?), SLI enabled in the Nvidia drivers (if needed), Bridge on properly (if needed) and its still slow?

[badvock]

all of the above clunk, Both slots run at x16 by default so no bios settings, sli bridge tried on both slots (on top of cards) no joy whatsoever. I have had 1 bench in a week where a single card ran a score of 15K+ in 3dmark 05 then nothing but problems since. I reckon the cards are goosed so I will be off back to Scan on Monday for replacements.

[Clunk]

Thats a bugger....still, at least you have a nice conroe system out of it

[badvock]

Twas the cards that did it. Took em back to scan who did a quick test and confirmed the problem. Replaced em with EVGA versions and just benched at 14509 at stock values, but I know i can do better