My New Rig: K8NXP-SLI is up and running!

[Swatdog]

I think I will buy two 6800 Ultras but not XFX, the main problem is the XFX stock is [[email protected] ]Oh well there goes $400 down the drain.From what I can tell XFX is not really that good. My 15 year old son will be getting this system when I see what is comming out next.

$5000? Jeez! You could build my dream system (FX-57, 2x 6800 Ultras in SLI, PC-4400 memory, best WC system, four 74GB Raptor HDDs, and all the modding I want to do)!

Btw, can I be your son? I'll cook, clean, do the dishes, I'LL DO EVERYTHING!

 

[OldOne]

$5000? Jeez! You could build my dream system (FX-57, 2x 6800 Ultras in SLI, PC-4400 memory, best WC system, four 74GB Raptor HDDs, and all the modding I want to do)!

Btw, can I be your son? I'll cook, clean, do the dishes, I'LL DO EVERYTHING!

Yea, He tried to talk me into giving it to him when I first built it.I told him that he is going to have to wait, and that is when he start to

Skeetman I just took a good look at your sig and I am jealous.Your 6600GTs are smoking!!!!!

 

[Skeetman]

Skeetman I just took a good look at your sig and I am jealous.Your 6600GTs are smoking!!!!!

That is why I'm keeping these cards until the next gen cards come out. Like I explained in a previous post in this thread, I run all of my current games 1600x1200 without anti-aliasing. For me it would not be worth it to upgrade my video cards, considering dual GTs are $850 and dual Ultras are ~$1200. I only paid $1700 for my whole system, and I don't want to pay that much just to use 4x AA.

Although that is my personal decision, it is something for you to think about also. Do you play any games that stress your current system? It is easy to get caught up in trying to get high benchmark scores, but there really isn't a practical need for dual 6800 Ultras right now. Unless you want to run 1600x1200 with 4x AA, your current system will be fine.

I'm not trying to discourage you. If you have the money and want to spend it, go for it. You will have one of the fastest systems in the world. I just want you to make an informed decision. If you do get the Ultras, save your 6600 GTs and put them back in the system when you give it to your son (No 15 year old would complain about that system, even with the 6600s). Then put the Ultras in your new system if/when you build it.

Skeetman

 

[OldOne]

Ya it is easy to get caught up in the feeding frenzy, real easy when I have the money to do it .But you are right,I like to play BF1942 and will get Battlefield 2 when it comes out.
I burn DVDs also.My son and I get on together He flys and I door gun.What I have is plenty.Thanks for the reality check.

 

[Skeetman]

Ya it is easy to get caught up in the feeding frenzy, real easy when I have the money to do it .But you are right,I like to play BF1942 and will get Battlefield 2 when it comes out.
I burn DVDs also.My son and I get on together He flys and I door gun.What I have is plenty.Thanks for the reality check.

LOL, I've thought of it as a "feeding frenzy" before too. It is easy to catch the "overclocking bug". Pretty much everyone on this forum can attest to that.

I bet you and your son have a blast. I'm looking forward to BF2 also. It was one of the reasons I built this system. I never played BF1942, but I've been playing Battlefield Vietnam since it came out last year. Im really starting to hate EA, I hope we won't have to wait months for the inevitable patches. They did a shoddy job patching BFVN.

Skeetman

 

[OldOne]

LOL, I've thought of it as a "feeding frenzy" before too. It is easy to catch the "overclocking bug". Pretty much everyone on this forum can attest to that.

I bet you and your son have a blast. I'm looking forward to BF2 also. It was one of the reasons I built this system. I never played BF1942, but I've been playing Battlefield Vietnam since it came out last year. Im really starting to hate EA, I hope we won't have to wait months for the inevitable patches. They did a shoddy job patching BFVN.

Skeetman

I have played BFVN some but mostly DC Combat,and ya it is one of the few things we get to do together. He is trying to get me to start starwars something or another, not sure what it is. He has a life size cardboard Tuskin Raider.

Like I have said before, I just discovered overclocking and it has me hooked.

 

[pmrdij]

Skeetman,

funny that the first post i found on the GA-K8NXP-SLI here was from a fellow Portlander. anyhow i have the same board just with the Dual 6600GT GV-3D1 card. i began banging my head last night trying to get past 220FSB and after seeing your comment about the PCI Express Clock i'll be trying that tonight as i hope that's the weak link. thanks for that insight .

- (PmR)DeathInJune

 

[madgett]

I have this board GA-K8NXP-SLI as well, and I have 2 eVGA 6800 GTs and I can't get them to run in SLI. I've tried everything...from reinstalling drivers to switching them out and swapping them and I can't get them to register as SLI capable (within the SLI multi-GPU option)...in the NVIDIA properties dialog...

The device manager shows both of the cards installed with the same driver. I know everythings hooked up right. I have a 500W PSU, I even have two separate 12V connectors going to each card.

Any ideas on what's going on?

 

[Skeetman]

I have this board GA-K8NXP-SLI as well, and I have 2 eVGA 6800 GTs and I can't get them to run in SLI. I've tried everything...from reinstalling drivers to switching them out and swapping them and I can't get them to register as SLI capable (within the SLI multi-GPU option)...in the NVIDIA properties dialog...

The device manager shows both of the cards installed with the same driver. I know everythings hooked up right. I have a 500W PSU, I even have two separate 12V connectors going to each card.

Any ideas on what's going on?

Hi Madgett,
Did you set the sli card (the small card between the two 16x PCI-e slots) to the sli mode. The card is set to single GPU out of the box. If you did change it, you should try reinstalling it. I didn't get it in right the first time and I couldn't get sli to work. Reseated it and haven't had any further problems with sli.

Skeetman

 

[Skeetman]

Skeetman,

funny that the first post i found on the GA-K8NXP-SLI here was from a fellow Portlander. anyhow i have the same board just with the Dual 6600GT GV-3D1 card. i began banging my head last night trying to get past 220FSB and after seeing your comment about the PCI Express Clock i'll be trying that tonight as i hope that's the weak link. thanks for that insight .

- (PmR)DeathInJune

first of all... WELCOME TO THE FORUMS...
It really is a small world. Here I thought I had the only SLI rig in town

Any luck with a higher overclock? What are your system specs? Like I mentioned earlier, my system oc'd pretty easily. But I'm willing to help any way I can.

How is your videocard running. Have you done any benches with it yet? I'm interested in comparing results between your card, my two cards, and a single 6800 Ultra.

Skeetman

 

[Swatdog]

Hi Madgett,
Did you set the sli card (the small card between the two 16x PCI-e slots) to the sli mode. The card is set to single GPU out of the box. If you did change it, you should try reinstalling it. I didn't get it in right the first time and I couldn't get sli to work. Reseated it and haven't had any further problems with sli.

Skeetman

Do those secure pretty well or have a locking mechanism to keep them in place?

 

[madgett]

Hi Madgett,
Did you set the sli card (the small card between the two 16x PCI-e slots) to the sli mode. The card is set to single GPU out of the box. If you did change it, you should try reinstalling it. I didn't get it in right the first time and I couldn't get sli to work. Reseated it and haven't had any further problems with sli.

Skeetman

Yeah, I've switched that out and back in and out and back it multiple times to make sure that it wasn't that. I'm using a 20pin connector to the mobo, are you using 24pin? I emailed gigabyte and they said a 500W Modular power supply would more than enough supply enough power for the GTs, especially when I have the entire comp stripped down to powering only 1 WD raptor sata, the 2 cards (each getting 2 12V rails), and my mobo on 20pin. I have switched the bridge back and fourth (both possible ways) and I still get "Please remove graphics cards that are not compatible with SLI..." The cards are SLI capable and they both individually in normal mode work perfectly.

When you said that you had troubles when you switched the SLI mode switch did you uninstall the drivers then install both cards at once? Let me know what you think I could do next. Thanks a bunch for helping me out.

 

[Skeetman]

When you said that you had troubles when you switched the SLI mode switch did you uninstall the drivers then install both cards at once? Let me know what you think I could do next. Thanks a bunch for helping me out.

Your problem does sound odd, but it doesn't sound like a PS issue. When I set up my system, I only had one card in the first slot. I used that set up for installing windows, all drivers, etc. After I had it up and running stable, then I powered down, switched the SLI mode switch and inserted the second card. When it wouldn't run in sli, I reseated the sli mode switch and then it has run fine ever since.

Since you've tried so many things, you might as well try this. Insert just one card with the sli switch to a single card. Install video drivers and make sure that card is working fine, then change the sli switch and insert second card. I don't know if this will work, but its worth a shot. Let me know how it goes.

Skeetman

 

[Swatdog]

nVIDIA requires that the video card has to be in the system before you install the drivers. So I would do what Skeetman did and take the second card out, turn SLI off, uninstall the drivers, reinstall the drivers, restart, and then put the second on back in.

 

[madgett]

I really appreciate all the help you guys have been giving me. I did what you suggested and still to no avail...however, this may be of interest to you guys in helping me solve this problem:

I have the dual dvi eVGA 6800 GT cards, and when I have them in the SLI configuration (which doesn't work) I get 2 monitors, (1) Digital Display and (1) analog display options showing up in my Display Properties dialog box under the settings. Do you guys have the same thing? Shouldn't I have only 1 monitor option -> my digital display rather than 2? This just seems odd.

Also, when I hook both my LCD Flat Panels up to the first card in the SLI configuration I then get 3 monitor options in the Display settings...shouldn't I have only 2?? When I have (1) card in normal mode, I get the right monitor displays (1) Digital or (2) Digital, but no analog option anywhere.

Could this be a BIOS issue with the eVGA 6800 GTs?? This doesn't seem like a motherboard issue because the SLI configuration (non-working) is showing up the displays but I'm getting 1 extra display in SLI mode than I should (this weird analog one). Note: I've never hooked up analog to my mobo and there is no on-board video. What do you guys think? Check your display settings and see how many monitors and what shows up. Thanks.

 

[Swatdog]

You have one messed up system....

 

[madgett]

Well, both cards work perfectly individually, so best thing is to see if someone else using SLI gets this extra monitor...and if they don't I'm RMAing my eVGA cards back and never buying eVGA stuff again...not worth it if they can't get their bios right on their cards.

 

[mista ting]

MORE PICTURES PLEASE!!!!!!!!

 

[Swatdog]

Well, both cards work perfectly individually, so best thing is to see if someone else using SLI gets this extra monitor...and if they don't I'm RMAing my eVGA cards back and never buying eVGA stuff again...not worth it if they can't get their bios right on their cards.

Did you try flashing both card's with a different BIOS?
Go here: http://www.mvktech.net/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=26&func=selectcat&cat=2 and re-flash your BIOS using the BFG BIOS or something. Do it to BOTH cards.

 

[pmrdij]

first of all... WELCOME TO THE FORUMS...
It really is a small world. Here I thought I had the only SLI rig in town

Any luck with a higher overclock? What are your system specs? Like I mentioned earlier, my system oc'd pretty easily. But I'm willing to help any way I can.

How is your videocard running. Have you done any benches with it yet? I'm interested in comparing results between your card, my two cards, and a single 6800 Ultra.

Skeetman

thanks for the welcoming (Kingston/Thursday's is good for Beer no? god i love that place)

managed to get the system to 2.475GHz after the PCI-Express clock change you noted. used a Multiplier of 9, FSB of 275, CPU Voltage of 1.6v, HTT @ 3x and the Memory running @ 2.5-4-4-8 (2T on Auto). max temps after 24 hours of running Prime95 was 37C (my sig isn't showing for some reason but i've a Koolance/Innovatek water system).

as for Benches i only got in some Doom III and 3DMark03 runs before installing VMware and hosing things..apparently having two NICs installed and VMware is not a good thing as it stopped responding when installing the Virtual Network.. anyhow using no AA/AF 3DMark03 scored close to 15000 (148xx if i recall). demo1 in DoomIII with 2xAA/16xAF at 1280x1024/HQ was well over playable FPS (78.1 if i recall). i'll have to re-run everything after getting my install cleaned up here by Tuesday and post some screens.

every so often when i boot up or restart it hangs at the IDE but i'm thinking about upping the Core Voltage by .1 to see if that helps but really jumping my reset pins with a screwdriver isn't that much of a pain (Lian-Li V1000 --> best case i've ever owned/touched but of all things no RESET BUTTON ).

madgett

one thing i encountered with the newest batch of Beta's (71.81, 71.90 and 71.84 before it went final) was that after doing a clean install of Windows the SLI option wasn't there in the drivers and functionally speaking definitely wasn't working. what i found fixed this was that after i installed the drivers from scratch and restarted when the balloon came up alerting that the system had a SLI enabled setup if i clicked that and enabled SLI right there and restarted from then on SLI was at the finger tips. i would have replied sooner but by now i'm sure you've read about my VMware mishap . hope this helps.

- (PmR)DeathInJune