Quad SLI, 3 Screens Stuttering - Please Help

Hello,
I’m having a problem I hope someone can help with. I have the following system which I just recently added the second video card for SLI and two additional matching LCD screens:

- Intel i5-3570K CPU 3.5GHz (overclocked to 4.1GHz)
- 16GB DDR3 Memory
- SATA3 480GB SSD Drive
- 2 Asus GeForce GTX690 graphics cards (2 GPUs each - Quad SLI).
- 3 Samsung 1920x1200 60Hz Displays
- NVIDIA Surround 5970x1200 (bezel corrected) Resolution
- Windows 7 (64bit)

My problem is that in most games I’m getting horrible stuttering, even though my framerate is at 55-60FPS (vertical synced). The stuttering if fairly constant in some games, somewhat sporadic in others. I don’t think this is any kind of SLI micro-stutter because on a single screen at 1920x1200 it’s perfectly smooth with Quad SLI. (I always have the NVidia SLI Visual Indicator turned on so I know SLI is working and seems to be scaling well)

Does anyone have any idea what the problem might be or how to figure out what’s causing the issue?

Thank you,
-James

My guess would be the 2gb of vram on the cards trying to push those 3 monitors. 2gb is barely enough at 1080p...not nearly enough at 5760x1200.

Sell off those 690s and grab a single 980ti and see how that works out for you.

Thank you for the quick reply.. Ok, so even though these cards have 4GBs memory, it's really only 2GB per GPU? So with AFR each GPU is rendering one frame at 5970x1200 with only 2GBs to use. I think I just answered my own question...

Thanks!

The memory doesn't combine, correct. It is mirrored across each set of 2gb (per gpu).

Yep sadly

Well I just bought a new GTX 980ti.. Anyone want to buy a couple 690s? lol

EarthDog said:

My guess would be the 2gb of vram on the cards trying to push those 3 monitors. 2gb is barely enough at 1080p...not nearly enough at 5760x1200.

Sell off those 690s and grab a single 980ti and see how that works out for you.

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Just wanted to say thanks EarthDog for setting me straight here. I got my new 980ti and everything runs perfectly smooth now! Even though technically it's a tad slower than my two 690s. But they were obviously suffocating with only the 2GB of VRAM.

Thanks again,
-James

jamesbp2015 said:

Just wanted to say thanks EarthDog for setting me straight here. I got my new 980ti and everything runs perfectly smooth now! Even though technically it's a tad slower than my two 690s. But they were obviously suffocating with only the 2GB of VRAM.

Thanks again,
-James

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Thanks for coming back to update us James!
Glad you're happy with the new 980Ti and that it solved your issue

It's amazing how much a powerful single card can do to improve minimum framerates!