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Can you SLI with 3 monitors ?

Catanonia

Catanonia

Catanonia

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I have the following.

2 x MSI GTX460 1024MB Hawk cards in SLI configuration.

2 x HP 22inch monitors attached to DVI on one card.

SLI works well with this.

Now added a 3rd monitor a 27inch LG Monitor / TV via HDMI Mini to the 2nd card and NVidia control panel will let me run all 3 monitors, but will not let me enable SLI as it says only can do it on 2 monitors !!!

Seems strange to me. Why is this ? IS it because I have plugged a monitor into the 2nd card via HDMI and it is a different type of monitor ?
 
ah, looks like all three monitors need to be connected to the same card. I can't get them all into the same card without some plastic adapter trimming. Where is the stanley knife !!
 
Stuggling.

I have 2 monitors VGA with DVI converters at 1680 in one card and the other monitor with HDMI at 1920 in the second card.

The GPU's are 2x1024MB GTX460 Hawks. Just can't get all 3 monitors to work with SLI. Keeps saying it is not possible. :(

Is there enough memory ? I Guess there is due to the fact can run 3 monitors non SLI.

I am assuming I need to plug all 3 monitors into one card.
 
Do you mean NVidia Surround mode? You'll need all the monitors set to the same resolution & refresh. Not sure how good this will look on your larger monitor as it will be running lower than it's native resolution?
 
ChileanLlama said:
Do you mean NVidia Surround mode? You'll need all the monitors set to the same resolution & refresh. Not sure how good this will look on your larger monitor as it will be running lower than it's native resolution?
Click to expand...

No just the 3 monitors working at 1680 for the HP's and 1920 for the LG but with SLI activated under NVidia control Panel.

I have tried all combinations with 2xGTX460 and can get any combination of 2 monitors with SLI activated.

But as soon as I try to add the 3rd monitor it gives me the message in NVidia panel

"Up to 2 displays are supported by GPU's in SLI mode"
 
Last edited:
Catanonia said:
No just the 3 monitors working at 1680 for the HP's and 1920 for the LG but with SLI activated under NVidia control Panel.

I have tried all combinations with 2xGTX460 and can get any combination of 2 monitors with SLI activated.

But as soon as I try to add the 3rd monitor it gives me the message in NVidia panel

"Up to 2 displays are supported by GPU's in SLI mode"
Click to expand...

That seems to be correct then. You can have one fully SLI accelerated display and one other display connected. You can't have more than 2 monitors when you want full SLI performance (Maximize 3d Performance).

So if you want 3 monitors active you'll either have to run Surround (SLI but across all 3 displays) or Activate all displays, but not have full SLI performance on one display.

Take a look at the Description in the Configure, SLI, Surround, PhysX section of the drivers and it should explain how the different modes work and the limitations.
 
ChileanLlama said:
That seems to be correct then. You can have one fully SLI accelerated display and one other display connected. You can't have more than 2 monitors when you want full SLI performance (Maximize 3d Performance).

So if you want 3 monitors active you'll either have to run Surround (SLI but across all 3 displays) or Activate all displays, but not have full SLI performance on one display.

Take a look at the Description in the Configure, SLI, Surround, PhysX section of the drivers and it should explain how the different modes work and the limitations.
Click to expand...

thanks, a bit of a bummer really for my plans. Currently I am switch modes when I want to play games and switching off one monitor via NVidia CP
 
Tell me about it. I'm running Surround in Windows 8 and the monitor re-detection when switching modes doesn't work and needs a reboot that takes ages...

Can't see why there's isn't a quick profile switch in the NVidia CP.
 
ChileanLlama said:
Tell me about it. I'm running Surround in Windows 8 and the monitor re-detection when switching modes doesn't work and needs a reboot that takes ages...

Can't see why there's isn't a quick profile switch in the NVidia CP.
Click to expand...

Yup would be nice to have quick profile.

Just played around and did a bit of band sawing on one connector so can get 2 x DVI and 1 xHDMI into one card at same time. Now when try to set SLI I get the message that the GTX460 can only run 2 monitors at the same time.

So there is my answer to the SLI and 3 monitor question. Ie you can only use 2 out of the 3 outputs on the GTX460 at the same time.
 
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