Another (simple?) P5B delux sli question

[matt100]

I have..

E6700(ES) conroe currently at stock
Asus P5B delux which whatever bios it came shipped last week with
2 x 7900gtx (for the record, 1 bfg-oc and 1 ocuk oem)
nv 85.96 modded drivers.

I ran 3dm06 with 1 card in and I got 6300(ish), added the second card with the bridge I have, enabled sli when the bubble popped up and ran 3dm again and got 7500.

Now, surely a 2.66ghz conroe isn't really having much of a cpu bottleneck so is this a bios problem/driver crappyness problem or and expected result?

being as I've scored well over 8000 with 2 7800gtx cards and a 2.7ghz amd x2 I'd guess (hope) its not the expected result because these things will be changed for crossfire cards faster than you can say "marketing"

any help appreciated

 

[MoRT489]

i would have thought because the drivers arent official they wont be perfect and this will also be limited by the x4 PCI-e slot...

 

[the.m]

It will need the bios that enable compatability for the 7950 dual cards, that should give sli, the 4X pci slot is worth 10% loss of performance for full 16X.

Could try re installing 3D mark with both cards installed.

Edit, also if there are profiles in the nvidia control panel for games or programs, make sure they are set to use dual cards.

 

[matt100]

oh ffs

I rather naively assumed it would just be a gfx driver thing..

Would someone be kind enough to map out a step by step guide to getting this working?

Is it really worthwhile bothering? I've no massive issue with swapping to crossfire/gx2.

Question on the pci-e slots, I figured it had 2 8x slots being as they are full size and the board supports crossfire??

 

[easyrider]

I tried SLI 7900 gtx with the Asus p5w dh and had zero issues.

Have you enabled single display perfromance mode?

I was getting 11900 with my GTX's so it sound like a MOBO issue.

Haven't heard of SLI 7900 GTX working on the 965 chipset TBH.

I wouldn't bother TBH your stuck with old drivers and the GX2 offers similar performance.

I get 10,500 in 06 with my GX2.

The cost of two GTX's is just not worth the extra 900 odd points.

 

[matt100]

right so a gx2 has no issues?

suppose my only issue with that is the £120 for a waterblock but factoring in selling the gtxs for about 180 each, gx2 for 320ish unless I can get a 2nd hand one and 2 maze4s the cost isn't so different and it'll certainly be tidier than an sli loop.

 

[maddness]

coolaler tested sli on the p5b deluxe with similar poor results

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=112730&highlight=965+sli

for a gx2 you just need a pci-express 16x slot and it will deffinatly work on here

 

[matt100]

well thats that then

*trudges off to members market*

 

[monkeypants]

Have you flashed the latest BIOS? It's worth a try if you haven't.

 

[matt100]

now thats just bizarre..

I flashed the bios to the newest version and got.. EXACTLY the same score as before..

Like exactly..

Thats never happened before, different background processes etc have always made it at least a few points different.. what a load of arse.

Annoyed now.

 

[matt100]

mmm ok, tried forcing the 2nd pci-e lane to 4x as suggest in that xs link and my score is up to 9000.

Thats for a stock 6700 and 2 stock 7900gtxs.

Is this getting more acceptable? Presumably I could send this over 10k with some clocking?

EDIT: having a browse round the orb and tbh 9k isn't far off for a stock setup, some stock scores around 9.5/9.8 but accounting for badly coded/old drivers its ok..

Mind you I'm still tempted by this gx2 with a dangerden block idea...