SLI + Dual Monitors?

It's upgrade time, infact it's build a new main rig and cannibalize my two current PCs but that's beside the point. I'm looking into some updated gear, I'm wanting to put together a dual booting Vista / XP machine as my main but I'm curious about putting SLI in the mix. I've never worked with SLI and I'm wondering if it has any effects on using two monitors? I currently use a 7950 GTX with a pair of Samsung LCDs hooked up to it, but I've heard that atleast in Crossfire setups you lose the ability to do dual monitors. Anyone have experience with this?

I just read that the easiest way to do this is buy a PCI graphics card not made by Nvidia and run the other monitors off that.

Check it. Doesn't seem too hard or expensive when you can buy a cheap PCI card for $30-40.

Nice find Male, thanks.

Sweet! I would have never thought of running 3gpus...


Now I need another 7950 GT, another lcd and I'm set!

You shouldn't have a problem running duel monitors off an SLI rig. Theoretically you can run 4, 2 per card.

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Originally Posted by The boy 4rm oz

You shouldn't have a problem running duel monitors off an SLI rig. Theoretically you can run 4, 2 per card.

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Not while it's in SLi though. When you have two cards you can run 4 monitors, however when you run as SLi, you can only run one monitor.

errmm.. I built a dual 7600gs (leadtek extreme) system.. and the dual monitor feature worked.. just don't plug the cables in different adapters.. It's like using one board.. no biggie :) just think of it like the second card sacrificing its connectivity for the performance boost :)

What SLI and crossfire do, is share the rendering on the screen between two video cards, so each video card has an allocated part of the screen to render. Why this is stupid with 2 monitors is this: If you have 2 monitors, you're better off plugging 1 monitor into each video card so 1 video card renders 1 monitor. To have SLI compatible with dual screens, you'd need FOUR video cards, two to work on each monitor, othewise you lose the whole point of it. It's like either putting 2 cpus in one computer or getting 2 computers (ok thats a pretty loose comparison but you get what i mean). In my opinion, until larger monitors become cheaper, SLI and crossfire aren't really worth it unless you're doing high-end graphics design, and even then you're probably going to want 2 screens so you can't do it.

I guess technically it's possible, but if you're running like that I'm going to call you an idiot, cos you are!

I agree with the above statements regarding SLI or CX running multiple monitors, it doesn't work that way and you can only run a single monitor in CX or SLI. I have 2 X1900 ATI's in CX and there is a noticeable improvement in performance. But bang for the buck, you are probably better off getting one 8800 than either CX or SLI rigs these days. There are also plenty of compatibility issues with many games.

lemme break this down to u very simply..... SLI or CX..... ABSOLUTELY USELESS!!!!! lol no real benchmark differences....ive looked into to it very in depth... my customers have said they want all the new big features.... u should see their faces when i tell em its a waste of time heh i agree with the idea of using jus one 8800 would make ya life alot ezier...

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Originally Posted by CHIMAERA

lemme break this down to u very simply..... SLI or CX..... ABSOLUTELY USELESS!!!!! lol no real benchmark differences....ive looked into to it very in depth... my customers have said they want all the new big features.... u should see their faces when i tell em its a waste of time heh i agree with the idea of using jus one 8800 would make ya life alot ezier...

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That's not entirely true. I run high-end 3D software and rendering is MUCH improved with SLI/CX. If you have 300 frames and each frame takes 5mins to render instead of 8, I think you can see how that's a benifit. But what i think you meant is it's useless for your average persoon. That's quite true.

heh true say... but ye with the general comp user.... its useless.... as with gamers...... useless.. u could seriously get a single vid card and overclock it and it will have better BM scores than a SLI config

I don't remember the numbers, but I got a significant boost in FPS with CX enabled. And the screen resolution can run much higher with beautiful results that I couldn't achieve with the XTX1900 alone.

Thanks for all of the feedback guys, it helped a lot. I decided to do something similar to what I have now, and just go for one good card and stick with the dual monitors. Infact, I think I'ma take the cash I save on getting a second vid card and invest in some nice water cooling this time.

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Originally Posted by dgrmkrp

errmm.. I built a dual 7600gs (leadtek extreme) system.. and the dual monitor feature worked.. just don't plug the cables in different adapters.. It's like using one board.. no biggie :) just think of it like the second card sacrificing its connectivity for the performance boost :)

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I thought I was with you on this one but researching it I now think not. When you were using dual monitors, from what I can understand on the NVidia website you were not in SLI mode and might as well have had one monitor plugged into each card.

It seems the only way to have dual monitors AND SLI mode is the three GPU solution 2 x Nvidia in SLI running one monitor, a third (ideally non-Nvidia) card running the second monitor.

CrazyB

^^ sounds about right, hhmm maybe i should get 3 8800's.... haha, i dream to much!

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Originally Posted by Spawn-Inc

^^ sounds about right, hhmm maybe i should get 3 8800's.... haha, i dream to much!

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Get yourself a quad SLI capable mobo for christmas?

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Originally Posted by Crazy Buddhist

Get yourself a quad SLI capable mobo for christmas?

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or you could throw money on a fire..that'd work too..

My opinion is don't overcomplicate. buy something good for the moment that's upgradeable.

when you say quad sli do you mean 4 PCI express slots? or 2? i have 3 so i can do the double card quad sli, or 6 video cards? i could put 3 of the 7950 gx2's.

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Originally Posted by Spawn-Inc

when you say quad sli do you mean 4 PCI express slots? or 2? i have 3 so i can do the double card quad sli, or 6 video cards? i could put 3 of the 7950 gx2's.

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I mean four GPU's running one monitor. :eek:

I agree with Cymae again on this one I wouldn't waste yr money - its not the direction things are going.

and if you do want to SLI two top end Nvidia cards you do not, ideally, want the third card to be Nvidia (that you run the second monitor from), as the Nvidia drivers will try and grab it and confuse themselves from what I have heard.

CrazyB

If you run ultra high resolutions and want to game at those resolutions then a SLI setup of 8800 Ultras would be good because as I see if, if you have a monitor that supports ultra high resolutions.... you have money to 'burn'.

Was this the sort of thing you had in mind?

Not as in literally....

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Originally Posted by Cymae

or you could throw money on a fire..that'd work too..

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I did that last Christmas. It wasn't as fun as everyone said it was.

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Originally Posted by Crazy Buddhist

I agree with Cymae again on this one I wouldn't waste yr money - its not the direction things are going.

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I agree with you, but which direction are these things going?

-Cool-