8800 Gt Sli

[Dr Boo]

Hey I was looking at building a new computer running 2 NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT on SLI, I was wondering if I will be able to run 3 independent screens while doing so?
and if anyone has any suggestions on a motherboard to allow this?

[simon275]

Yes you should be able to run up to four screens off the two cards in SLi. Any motherboard that supports SLi will do. Look for a new one that supports both PCI-E lanes been at 16x.

[NightrainSrt4]

Unless they changed things recently, while the cards are actually in SLi, as in sli is enabled, you can only use one monitor.

Now you can probably use the multiple screens with the two cards, but while they are actually running in sli only one screen will be recognized.

Theres a difference between having two graphics cards and running them in sli. Least thats the way it was before.


Edit:


Currently, SLI works only with a single monitor. When switching to multi-GPU SLI mode, Dualview gets disabled under Windows[14], respectively TwinView and multiple screens get disabled under Linux
Taken from the SLI wiki

[Dr Boo]

OK well, thanks for that, I have rethought this idea and I might just go with 2 unSLI cards.
I can run 3 independent individual screens from two GeForce 8800 GTs yeah?

[The boy 4rm oz]

I thought SLI only allowed 2 monitors, hmm...

[Bucko]

OK well, thanks for that, I have rethought this idea and I might just go with 2 unSLI cards.
I can run 3 independent individual screens from two GeForce 8800 GTs yeah?

What are you doing with the 3 screens?

I run a triple screen setup with an 8600GT for the two bigger screens and use the motherboard's onboard graphics.

If you aren't looking to game on all three, then it could be a cheaper way to do it.

[Spawn-Inc]

i have seen a post with someone who runs 3 monitors for everyday stuff then uses one for SLI. i would stick with the two 8800GT's.

yes, you can run 3 or ever 4 monitors.

[NightrainSrt4]

Ya you should be able to hook up 4 monitors to the two cards, just what I was refering too was that they won't be in sli mode when your doing that. When you go to game you will have to enable sli, which when you do that, only one monitor can be used.

When you want to stop gaming and get all your screens back, just turn off sli.

So ya you can run the other monitors, just not technically while in Sli mode.


2 identical cards != sli mode. Sli is a mode/setting.

[Crazy Buddhist]

SLI splits the screen rendering between the cards. One does the top half, one does the bottom half. With 2 x any SLI cards you can run:

1 x monitor SLI mode
or
2,3, or 4 x monitor non-SLI mode (depends on no of outputs)

If you want to run 3 monitors and don't need gaming performance on all 3 you can indeed buy 1 card with 2 outputs and run the 3rd screen on the onboard. Or buy two, run one off each and the third from the onboard.

:)

[Spawn-Inc]

SLI splits the screen rendering between the cards. One does the top half, one does the bottom half. With 2 x any SLI cards you can run:

1 x monitor SLI mode
or
2,3, or 4 x monitor non-SLI mode (depends on no of outputs)

If you want to run 3 monitors and don't need gaming performance on all 3 you can indeed buy 1 card with 2 outputs and run the 3rd screen on the onboard. Or buy two, run one off each and the third from the onboard.

:)

just to be clear, they do have to be the same card, i'm not sure if brand matters but the gpu's must be the same.