• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

Mixed GTX 1080's SLI Configuration

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

adenineX

Registered
Joined
Jun 20, 2016
Location
San Diego
I was wondering what the thoughts are on mixing a EVGA GTX 1080 SC and a Founders Edition in SLI. I have the SC card already and have been trying to get a hold of another one. I ordered a Founders card today just because one showed up on Newegg. They are both reference PCB's and the SC is just clocked a little higher out of the box. They should work well in a SLI set up, right?

Just wondering if I am missing something with this idea. Maybe I'll find another SC soon and sell the FE card. I already have two EK full cover water blocks waiting to put on these cards. I wish I could hold out for a FTW or Classified... I am not very patient.
 
They should work no problem, the faster card will likely just down clock to match the slower card automatically.
 
Probably shouldn't even need to do that, right? I'd def try it before flashing the bios on the cards.
 
If you already have two full cover blocks then don't buy an FTW or Classy... they're different PCB's.
 
They should work no problem, the faster card will likely just down clock to match the slower card automatically.

I dont think that is the case. I think they will just run at whatever speed they are clocked to. The cards dont need to run at the same speed for SLI to work. I had two GTX 660s and while they were the same model, one boosted higher than the other. Using Precision X I noticed that the actual clock speed in game did not match between the two. One ran a tad higher, but it did not have an effect on anything. I would argue that you should always set the clocks as fast as possible, regardless if they match or not. Consider physx which is typically set to GPU1, even in SLI configurations. While physx does not reduce the clock speed of the GPUs, it does increase the load on the GPU when being used, which in essence leaves less processing power for the GPU to use for rendering frames. If you set physx to the faster GPU, it would probably have slightly less impact on FPS when being used.
 
Back