Help needed setting up GTX 480 in SLI

[Eagle1]

Hi all.

Was pointed in this direction by ocUK technical support to try and find out what I'm doing wrong. I'm far from being a noob with this kinda stuff but for some reason this escapes me:

I've bought two GTX480s and I don't seem to be able to get them to work in SLI. I've installed both cards and put the SLI bridges on. (Please click the image below to see the original)



I've also installed the latest Nvidia drivers yet MSI afterburner / kombustor report GPU 2 running flat out and GPU 1 doing nothing at all during testing:

There is no option as far as I can see to enable SLI in the NVidia control panel. My board supports SLI and crossfire at 16x on each PCI express slot and up until yesterday I've been running dual HIS Radeon 5770s in crossfire with no problems. The only option I can see is to set which GPU is used for PhysX.

Original crossfire HD 5770s:

SLI Asus GTX480s:

Single Asus GTX480:

As you can see theres very little difference between the original crossfire 5770s and the SLI GTX480s when you'd expect a substansial performance increase. Also there is virtually no difference between the SLI and single GPU performance of the GTX480s which is mirrored in what MSI Kombustor is reporting about GPU activity.

My rig is as follows:
AMD Phenom II 1090T OC 3.8GHz turbo to 4.5GHz (liquid cooled),
Asus Formula IV ROG mainboard,
8GB G.Skill Ripjaw memory OC 1880 MHz (9 9 9 24),
1.5TB HDD (2x750GB RAID 0),
2 x Asus enGTX480 (in SLI???)

I would be greatful for any help anyone can offer. I could've cried when I saw the benchmark results. Thanks in advance.

Eagle1

 

[Si105]

Umm.

ASUS Crosshair IV Formula AM3 AMD 890FX?

I see no mention of this motherboard support SLi anywhere.

I think this may be the problem, sorry

Edit: It seems to be unnoficial SLi. So ASUS wont support you. However on another site someone mentioned using the "sli patch v0.9' so you could try that.

 

[Eagle1]

Umm.

ASUS Crosshair IV Formula AM3 AMD 890FX?

I see no mention of this motherboard support SLi anywhere.

I think this may be the problem, sorry

Edit: It seems to be unnoficial SLi. So ASUS wont support you. However on another site someone mentioned using the "sli patch v0.9' so you could try that.

Thanks. . . automatically assumed it would support both crossfire and SLI. That'd be the problem then. . . Thanks for the swift reply.

 

[koooowweeee]

this mite help you http://www.overclock.net/nvidia/670810-howto-sli-non-sli-motherboard-gtx5xx.html

 

[SkodaMart]

I think you only need to attach 1 SLi bridge too (when you get it working)

 

[Cleeecooo]

I think you only need to attach 1 SLi bridge too (when you get it working)

2 look better
Depend on his case though

 

[ChrisLandin]

You deffinately need to try and patch it as that board is xfire compatible pal, not sli unless im mistaken.

 

[Eagle1]

You deffinately need to try and patch it as that board is xfire compatible pal, not sli unless im mistaken.

I'd like to take the time to thank you for your very useful and swift reply to my thread. I'd PM you but it doesn't appear I can.

If you hadn't pointed me in the direction of that patch I'd have had to return the cards and would have been deeply upset. Having applied the patch, saved my PC from the brink of the abyss a couple of times and rolled back the drivers to a supported version I have a few benchmarks I'd like to share with you so as you can see the fruits of your assistance:

ASUS GTX480s -FORCED AMD 809FX chipset SLI- DX10 Heaven benchmark:

ASUS GTX480s -FORCED AMD 809FX chipset SLI- DX11 Heaven benchmark:

Thanks once again. You've been a great help.

Eagle1

AMD Phenom hex core 1090T OC 3.8 GHz per core, turbo-core enabled to 4.5 GHz
CoolIT liquid cooled CPU
ASUS ROG Formula IV 890FX SB50 mainboard
8GB G.Skill Ripjaw DDR3 RAM OC 1880 MHz
ASUS GTX 480s -Forced AMD SLI- OC 850 / 1700 / 2000
ASUS full HD 22" monitor
Aerocool touch 2000 fan controller
Thermaltake V5 gaming chasis
Logitech G15 gaming keyboard
Samsung 1.5TB 6GB/s RAID 0 HDD (2 x 750GB)
Logitech MX Performance gaming mouse
CM Storm surface