Identical cards for SLi?

[R.O.S.S.I]

hi all at the moment ive got a Geforce 6800GS XXX Extreme edition in my comp, now this afaik runs at a higher clock speed than the normal 6800GS, what i want to know is, do i have to have the exact same card in to run in SLi, now im thinking that i dont need to aslong as they are both 6800GS, it will run them both at same clock and speed, but the reason i ask is because i bought my card from a big computer store and bought their own, what appeared to be, branded version of the card, but when i got the card i dont know if it was a warehouse error but it was in fact the XFX Xtreme Edition which is clocked higher, now if i go back to this retailer and purchase the same card and they give me a different card which is clocked slightly lower will i be able to still run them in SLi, and will it just clock the XXX edition down to normal speeds and run them the same or will it leave the XXX speeds in tact and the normal speeds in tact?

Thanks
Dan

 

[nikebee]

to my knowledge as long as they are the same model of card and have the same amount of on board memory they will work fine in SLi.

thats not to say cards of 256mb and 512mb wont work, the 512mb will simply run at 256mb speeds

clocks speeds don't matter as far as i know, there was a thread about a week or two ago in this very forum (i only remember because i was looking into the subject and remember somebody posted basically what i wanted to know).

 

[bbreezeuk]

you will be able to run another one even if it has different clock speeds but they will just run together at the speed of the slowest card so your xfx extreme edition will effectinly be unclocked if you buy a slower card. if that makes sense

 

[bbreezeuk]

beat me to it

 

[MeatLoaf]

Well my 7800Gt setup runs at the speed of the faster card. The upper card is a bfg at 425/1050 and the lower card is an inno3d at 400/1000. Maybe they run ath the speed of the upper card?

 

[nikebee]

Well my 7800Gt setup runs at the speed of the faster card. The upper card is a bfg at 425/1050 and the lower card is an inno3d at 400/1000. Maybe they run ath the speed of the upper card?

they should both be running at seperate speeds, with the latest 80.00 (and upwards) forceware you can mix and match SLi based graphics cards as long as they are the same GPU (a 7800GT+7800GT not a 7800GT+7900GTX).

if your using any forceware drivers released earlier than 80.00 then it should clock itself down to the lower card speed. what if the faster card was overclocked, and the slower card couldn't actually overclock to those speeds... ??

Introducing ForceWare Release 80 Graphics Driver for SLI—

New Features:
Output SLI to your TV - using standard definition televisions up to 480i
Output SLI to your HDTV - using high definition televisions up to 1080i

New Flexibility:
Mix and Match Graphics Cards from Different Manufacturers
Example: You can use a GeForce 7800 GTX from manufacturer ABC with a GeForce 7800 GTX from manufacturer XYZ.

Note: You must still use two graphics cards that have the same GPU. For example, a GeForce 7800 GT must be matched with another GeForce 7800 GT (not with a GeForce 7800 GTX or a GeForce 6800 Ultra).

Mix and Match Graphics Cards with Different Input/Output Ports
Example: You can use a GeForce 6800 GT with Dual DVI & TV-out with a GeForce 6800 GT with Dual DVI & VIVO.

Mix and Match Graphics Cards with Different Clock Speeds
Example: You can use a higher clocked GeForce 6600 GT 550/525 with a standard clock GeForce 6600 GT 500/500.

Mix and Match Graphics Cards with Different Memory Sizes
Example: Using Coolbits, you can use a 128MB GeForce 6800 GT with a 256MB GeForce 6800 GT.

Note: NVIDIA recommends that SLI customers, whenever possible, purchase graphics cards with matching memory sizes. When dissimilar memory sizes are enabled to work together using Coolbits (value set to 18), the effective memory size for each card becomes the smaller of the two memory sizes.

 

[R.O.S.S.I]

lovely, thanks for clearing that up, think i might get another 6800GS for my setup when my loan comes through

 

[Havana_UK]

If the two cards run at different speeds it doesn't matter. Putting them in SLi will keep them at their respective speeds and they will balance the work load accordingly. There is no speeding up or slowing down of either card so the clock speeds match.

As long as the GPU is the same they will work in SLi together. This will implemented in the 8x.xx driver series.

Hav