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Nvidia SLI issue with 2 x GTX 780 Cards

seanr28

seanr28

seanr28

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Joined
26 Jun 2013
Posts
233
Need some help please

I have a Gigabyte Z97X- Gaming 7 board with 2 x Asus Twin Frozr GTX 780 cards both installed anmd aworking but I dont ge the option to use SLI within the Nvidia Control panel, installed into the correct PCIE slots PCIx16 and PCIX8. using 1000 power supply

The only difference with thcards is that the primary has 6gb video memory and the secondary has only 3Gb of video memory (over-clockers advise that this would not matter)

Using latest Nvidia WHQL drivers

can anyone shed any light please?
 
You was advised wrong

You can't sli 6 and 3Gb cards :(

Edit - you can if you use coolbits, not sure if that still works though.
 
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that's just great! a mate of mine placed the order for it all, and whilst waiting for all items to come they sold the one of the 6Gb cards to someone else, then after delivering all equipment with the exception of the outstanding 6gb card advised that it was no longer available, but the 3gb version will be fine, so we then sourced a 3gb for good price!
 
whyscotty said:
You was advised wrong

You can't sli 6 and 3Gb cards :(

Edit - you can if you use coolbits, not sure if that still works though.
Click to expand...


i thought you could use two different cards in sli even with different vram limits, like with clock speeds wouldnt it just default to the card with the lowest vram?

i'm probably wrong

(i'm still pritty new to all this stuff haha)
 
You used to be able to (officially) but not now.

Same as Bridgeless SLI on older Nvidia series (though less bandwidth).
 
OC should give you a deal on 2x Titans Blacks for their boob and your disappointment. ;)

Its a shame as you ideally needed that extra Vram for your 4k set up.
 
apparently they don't hold stock even after its been paid for, if they wait for other items to come in first. Which is pretty bad I think.
 
enigma27 said:
You will still be limited by 3gb of Vram to run the higher resolutions even with SLI..
Click to expand...

Surely it depends what he intends to play before giving him the vram doom and gloom talk?

seanr28 said:
apparently they don't hold stock even after its been paid for, if they wait for other items to come in first. Which is pretty bad I think.
Click to expand...

They did this to me a year or so back on some clearance monitors, was one of the first to order but had requested a slightly longer delivery date to suit me, they sold and dispatched their entire stock to those who opted for delivery before me. The lack of queuing system will stop me doing this ever again, I'd rather let it sit in a dpd warehouse until I can pick it up. They had no problem taking my money instantly however.
 
pgi947 said:
Surely it depends what he intends to play before giving him the vram doom and gloom talk?



They did this to me a year or so back on some clearance monitors, was one of the first to order but had requested a slightly longer delivery date to suit me, they sold and dispatched their entire stock to those who opted for delivery before me. The lack of queuing system will stop me doing this ever again, I'd rather let it sit in a dpd warehouse until I can pick it up. They had no problem taking my money instantly however.
Click to expand...


yes for that exact reason I will probably not be using them again, its extremely bad practice and not good customer care!
 
If you're going 4k I would return all of them and then find some one with two 6gb.

I say that because as the old adage goes - PC gaming is only as good as its last game.

What I mean is, take a look at what we're about to get. Watchdogs is a modern day console port. It's been released side by side with the PS4. It uses 4.5gb of vram on Nvidia cards at 4k.

My guess is you're not buying these cards to play Minecraft, as thus I would not sink such a large amount of money into two 3gb cards.

At the end of the day I wish things were different and games were better optimised but we all know; they're not. They're second hand console crap.

I made the mistake of buying two GTX 295 single PCB just before BF3 launched. Thankfully I got both of them for £100 each, but when BF3 launched they became paperweights. They weren't even two years old !

The problem was VRAM. BF3 wanted just over 1gb on Nvidia (it differs on AMD) and there was absolutely nothing I could do to run that game. Even with the settings on minimum it was still running short of VRAM and still refused to work properly. Then Nvidia announced they were dropping support of the 2xx cards for BF3. Nice......

If this were a pair of what I class mid range disposable cards (like the 760 or 270 AMD) then I would say do it, but 780s ain't cheap and it could be less than a year before you brick wall and have to replace them.

Now just isn't a good time to buy a GPU with 3gb VRAM because they're all still really expensive.

Nvidia know exactly what they're doing too. They've always been really stingy with VRAM monitoring the market making sure they just about give out enough.

Ask yourself this.. Where is the 6gb 780ti ? there ain't one because Nvidia have instructed all of their AIBs not to make any which basically forces you onto the Titan Black, at £600+ each.

Why are they doing that? they don't want to sell something too fast too cheap with too much VRAM. If they did that no one would want to upgrade for as long as possible, then they would have nothing to sell you.

If you want the vram you have to pay the price of admission. It's no longer about GPU grunt it's now all down to vram. And when you ain't got enough of it all of the grunt in the world ain't gonna do you no good.

Been there, seen it. Never doing that again.

I would either go with something cheaper that you don't mind disposing of or make sure you do it properly. I would say If Watchdogs was anything to go by I would.... but as we all know as PC gamers, Watchdogs *IS* something to go by because PC gaming is horribly predictable.

Tons of terrible unoptimised console slop buckets.
 
Watchdogs is a steaming pile of dogcrap that's so poorly made it didn't even load for many.

Most will be fine for a while, tweaking some settings if required
 
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