Can I SLI 2x960 cards on this Motherboard (Z170-E)?

Nate75 · 1 Mar 2017 at 16:07

Hi.

I have an opportunity to pick up another 4GB 960 graphics card.

I had no intention to run SLI previously!

I gather the cards will run at the slower card's clock speeds and they need to both be 4GB.

I read somewhere something about Skylake CPU's taking lanes and SLI not working properly..?

So just wondering really should I expect to be able to run SLI using these?

Cheers

MSI
GeForce GTX 960 Gaming 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - Red
+
KFA2
GeForce GTX 960 Reference 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - Retail
+
Asus
Z170-E Intel Z170 (Socket 1151) DDR4 ATX Motherboard

pastymuncher · 1 Mar 2017 at 19:01

Yes you can but I really wouldn't want to. Too many chances of multi card problems cropping up. A single faster card would be my choice and the RX480 is over double the performance of a GTX960. I would sell the card you have now and put that money towards a RX480.

Nate75 · 1 Mar 2017 at 20:15

pastymuncher said:
Yes you can but I really wouldn't want to. Too many chances of multi card problems cropping up. A single faster card would be my choice and the RX480 is over double the performance of a GTX960. I would sell the card you have now and put that money towards a RX480.

Okay cheers.

I agree with what you have said but I'm getting the card cheap so.. Will give it a whirl.

Nate75 · 1 Mar 2017 at 22:32

Do I need an SLI bridge here or is this for very high bandwidth?

Thanks.

pastymuncher · 2 Mar 2017 at 14:33

I believe you still need the bridge for Nvidia's SLI but not 100% sure.

Nate75 · 2 Mar 2017 at 15:30

pastymuncher said:
I believe you still need the bridge for Nvidia's SLI but not 100% sure.

Thanks.

I found a bridge in the motherboard box. Seems a little small to me mind! About 1 and a half to 2 inches...

We'll see I guess )

HoneyBadger · 3 Mar 2017 at 08:34

Presumably you have made sure that your power supply can handle a second card?

Nate75 · 3 Mar 2017 at 09:44

HoneyBadger said:
Presumably you have made sure that your power supply can handle a second card?

It did cross my mind however it's not the most powerful of PSU but a good quality brand...

Super Flower Golden Green HX 450W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black

Hopefully it will work! If not I will still use the new card as it's MSI 4GB Gaming compared to a "reference blower".

Nate75 · 3 Mar 2017 at 10:07

Running my setup through a power calculator gives this result which is on the wire

Results:

Load 409W
Recommended 459W

pastymuncher · 3 Mar 2017 at 14:40

Your psu has a 444w 12v rail so be prepared for a lot of fan noise. Running it at near full capacity is going to ramp the fan up to full speed continously. To be fair that load rating the calculator gave you is probably at the wall so the psu will not be delivering that much to the components.

Nate75 · 5 Mar 2017 at 12:37

pastymuncher said:
Your psu has a 444w 12v rail so be prepared for a lot of fan noise. Running it at near full capacity is going to ramp the fan up to full speed continously. To be fair that load rating the calculator gave you is probably at the wall so the psu will not be delivering that much to the components.

Thanks for the info there

P4Clock · 5 Mar 2017 at 16:53

960 should be a good sli card with it having 4gb of ram and i GPU that cant use it all, the second GPU should do well in games that support it.
i would want 550w of power as a minimum.

tbf my system with 290x's in CF only used around 400w in game its benching that really eats up the power.