GTX260 SLI Question

[speedalini]

I have a factory overclocked XFX GTX260 Black 65nm 216 core - how close a match do I need to go SLI without any problems? I'm particularly wary of the fact that the 65nm versions are scarce these days...

Cheers

 

[MeatLoaf]

Any GTX 260 wsill be fine, even a 192sp one

 

[speedalini]

that would be awesome. Do I need to be careful about setting them to the same clock speeds etc? Is there anything else to consider to get the best result?

 

[Rroff]

They _should_ try and match clocks to the card in the primary (closest to CPU) slot but theres no guarantees - unless you know they will both overclock to the same level fine its best to put the slower card in the primary slot...

Use GPU-Z to check they really are running the same clock speed - if they aren't it can lead to "microstutter".

You can mix and match 65nm and 55nm fine - but I'd try to get 2 cards with the same number of SPs if possible.

In my gaming rig I currently have a BFG 65nm OC MAXCORE (216SP) and a Sparkle 55nm 216SP and it works fine - the sparkle actually overclocks better than the BFG OC by quite a margin.

 

[speedalini]

cool, thanks.

Yeah I'm a bit disappointed with my card - I was hoping to overclock it more but in fact I had to detune it to stop games continually crashing (666Mhz to 600Mhz). It's still better than standard but proabably nowhere near as good as a standard card that can overclock well!! Is microstutter the only thing thing to worry about with this sort of setup?

 

[Rroff]

I've never had any microstutter issues with SLI except when the cards (for whatever reason) were running ~15-20% or more difference in clock speed.

You should be able to get the core up higher (tho the shader clock is where a lot of the performance comes from) by dropping the shader clock down a bit in unlinked mode... tho the crashing issue with 200 series cards seems to mostly come from something not getting enough airflow - possibly the VRMs.

 

[xGaffner]

I'd just sell it and with the money you get off that put it with the money you was going to use to buy another GTX 260 and just get a 5850.