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GTX 580 Lightning in Sli

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Kohta

Member
Joined
Jan 24, 2011
Location
Zebulon, North Carolina
Well i decided to crack open the second GPU anyway, i wanted to run some tests but i can't get SLi to enable... it's giving me a box to close programs but the box is empty. Hurray.
 

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wow never mind, screw this, i uninstalled/reinstalled the driver and now none of my game sor benchmarks will launch, SLi is a pain in the *** compared to Crossfire, as bad as ATi drivers have been atleast Crossfire is plug n' Play.

Error...
B5XKU.jpg

After Error
vPvFs.jpg

And worst yet, 5 of my games/benchmarks it won't even start up, i get some CPU.GPU usage briefly and then it just idles back and nothing happends, i tried disabling Anti-virus, and reinstalling everything, already been at this for a couple hours, sending it back, i don't need SLi anyway, and i hope to god i never do after this.

The only games that run are the one's that don't require SLi or won't run in SLi, basically, the free to play or not-very GPU tasking games.
 
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I'm running MSI GTX 580 Lightning's and have no problems what so ever. You might want to see how many background Processes your running via the Task Manager and close some of them. TJ IMG_1284.jpg
 
I didn't realize i had to put a bridge on both prongs, i thought the other 2 were for 3 and 4 way SLi. Atleast with AMD/ATi's line up that's how it works. I'll try that.
 
You dont...AFAIK. I think that setup picture above is wrong (but functioning apparently). SLI is just as PnP as Crossfire. You just somehow ran in to an issue.
 
You dont...AFAIK. I think that setup picture above is wrong (but functioning apparently). SLI is just as PnP as Crossfire. You just somehow ran in to an issue.

Took it back out of the box and plugged both bridges up, and it ran with no issues.

3DMark11 P:12166
http://3dmark.com/3dm11/2059275?show_ads=true&page=/3dm11/2059275?key=iiWYlO7UB-NrHew6HNerhw

I will shutdown, remove one and try again just for the sake of the argument though.
12156 the second time around, there is no difference. Now my only question is, does that sound about right for the rig in my sig. with 2x GTX 580's
 
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The heat difference even with the inch and a half is expected, if they were touching it would be even worse (unfortunately). I'm glad to see that it appears to be working, but yeah, try it with the other connector, maybe one of the connectors is broken/or something and it is really only running through the one anyway.
 
Try running the Unigene heaven benchmark as well to see what kind of numbers that you get.

To be honest though, try the games that you plan on playing for the most part, ignoring crazy high resolutions a single 580 should be plenty.
 
Downloading the Unigen Heaven Benchmark now, forgot all about that one.

I'm running a single monitor at 1920x1080 and so far this is what iv'e jotted down.

Final Fantasy XIV
1920x1080 Completely Maxed/Highest Detail 16x QCSAA
Single GTX 580 Stock - Memory usage: 1988 MB - Avg. 23fps
SLi 2x GTX 580 Stock - Memory usage: 2088 MB - Avg. 54fps

Aion
1920x1080 All settings Highest/Enabled
Single GTX 580 Stock @ Starter area - Memory usage: 875 MB - Avg. 50fps (I don't know why this sucks so bad, i'm thinking it isn't optimized very well)
SLi 2x GTX 580 Stock @ Starter area - Memory usage: 507 x2 MB - Avg. 63fps - I play this one the most i don't know why the frame rate sucks so bad, my 5970 stock had no problem with it.

I did a Siege in Aion the other night with a single GTX 580 and got 27fps, this is terrible because my 5970 at the same settings got a solid 40-50 and nothing below that at any time.

I'm re-installing GTA IV since i mess around in that right much.

Speaking of GTA IV, Steam has a deal right now where you can get All the GTA games for $13, GTA 1, GTA 2, GTA 3, GTA Vice City, San Andreas, GTA IV, and the expansion Episodes from Liberty City, all for $13, not a bad deal IMO, I ended up buying them again since i didn't have any of the others.
 
Ran Unigen Heaven Benchmark on the default settings 1920x1080 and i tried saving the benchmark results to the desktop but once i exited i couldn't find it, anyway i got an average of 104 fps, that much i remember.

Here we go, ran it again and saved it.
 

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So now i run into a dilemma, I would feel bad for refunding it at this point since iv'e opened it, even though in my games it would make very little difference, (~20% gain) but there is no way i can fit my Sound Card in there with both of them.

I -can- get it under the first card, but it's so close that just slightly placing my finger on the heat pipes of the card makes it grind against the sound card, after alittle bit of heat/time it seems to sag alittle and start making the grinding noise against,, yes, it is that close, plus, it makes it more difficult to cool, unless you guys see something i don't, i either lose a GU or lose my sound card, the sound card makes a pretty big difference in sound clarity, don't really wanna have to buy another motherboard, but it seems that might be the case.

The PCIe slot at the bottom is a X4 slot, which will make both cards run x4, which would allow me to put the sound card in, but, i run into a problem, for some reason, the Antec 1200 case i have won't let me slide the back of the card in all the way, the tab hits the back of the case because of how the case is designed and the only fix i can think of for that, is to bend it over, but even then i don't think it's going to solve my issue, the sound card doesn't fit in the PCIe 2.0 slot because its pins are situated to far forward.
 

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More pictures to show how close it is. It's like i have to keep spending more money every time i spend money :bang head old lady isn't liking this.
 

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Yeah GTAIV from what I understand really doesn't do well with a multi-gpu setup (from reading about the various graphics improvement packages (ENB I think they are called)).

So it looks like the card is working, but just not giving you the performance that you are looking for. I would see if you could return the card w/o a 15-20% restocking fee, otherwise may want to give a try at the classies to see if you can put it in between those marks.

Here's some numbers in a thread that I posted a month or so ago, it is mainly for comparison between 1.5 and 3.0 gb cards, but also has SLI numbers.
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=684954
 
Yeah GTAIV from what I understand really doesn't do well with a multi-gpu setup (from reading about the various graphics improvement packages (ENB I think they are called)).

So it looks like the card is working, but just not giving you the performance that you are looking for. I would see if you could return the card w/o a 15-20% restocking fee, otherwise may want to give a try at the classies to see if you can put it in between those marks.

Here's some numbers in a thread that I posted a month or so ago, it is mainly for comparison between 1.5 and 3.0 gb cards, but also has SLI numbers.
http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=684954

Yeah iv'e seen that and a few othe rcomparisons from some deep looking and while many of them claim to have equal performance, i do have one game that likes to have 2000 MB +/- and with my matrix i have a real bad issue with that, GTA IV took only 1300 MB which is fine for the benchmark but after getting into the game MSI Afterburner was showing almost 1800 MB of memory usage and the cores on the GTX 580's are only taxed to 50%, so at that point it would be unoptimized, now if it was using 99% and still crappy frame rates or using more than 2800 MB then i could understand, but thats ok, i'll look around for some patches and see what i can find, Aion on the other hand i am worried about, the VRAM usage is low, but the cores are using 99% on both and the frame rates are horrible, they are worse than the 5970 and that's what worries me, a game developed with CUDA in mind is doing worse than a ATI 5000 card.
 
Hey Kohta, The pic I posted of my MSI GTX 580 Lightnings has two SLI Bridges, I run both when the all Dip switches are on, although you only need one in enable SLI. If you can mount a High CFM fan at the end of your cards your temps will drop 5c-10c. When I was running 3 Way SLI I mounted the fan at the end of my cards (se pic) Works great. TJ IMG_0726.jpg
 
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