SLI'ing 1x 6600gt 256meg and 1x 6600gt 128meg, could it work?

djmarkus · 23-08-2005 01:40AM #1

Anyone know if this could work or do the cards have to be identical in every way?

Ciaran500 · 23-08-2005 06:48AM

No, the cards need to be identical.

K.O.Kiki · 23-08-2005 08:31AM

By identical, that means they have to be by the same manufacturer as well

ATi's CrossFire is starting to sound better by the minute :rolleyes:

djmarkus · 23-08-2005 10:35AM

Hmm.. Thats a bummer, as if i SLI'd 2 x 128 meg cards i would only be able to use the memory of 1 of them, thus being a measly 128 effective memory it would be next to useless, so i thought if i would use the memory off the 256 card that would give me double the memory.

Was there not a rumour that nvidia where bringing drivers out that supported mix and match SLI?

WizZard · 23-08-2005 10:55AM

Yes, the current crop of nVidia drivers support pick 'n' mix cards (I haven't tested this though) from different manufacturers etc.

However I don't know about mismatched memory. Even if it did work I would imagine that the 256mb card would be limited to 128mb memory.

And people have gotten mixed manufacturer cards to SLi for months now, they just were not officially supoprted by nVidia.

I'm going to reserve judgement on Crossfire until it comes out, properly, and I get my hand on some cards.

djmarkus · 23-08-2005 11:21AM

So it could work then?

WizZard · 23-08-2005 11:54AM

WizZard wrote:

However I don't know about mismatched memory. Even if it did work I would imagine that the 256mb card would be limited to 128mb memory.

Possibly, but I honestly doubt it given the technology used in SLi.

Different manufacturers is possible. It's the different memory sizes that is gonna hold you back.

djmarkus · 23-08-2005 12:08PM

hmm...well it wouldn't even be worth sli'ing for just 128 meg total memory, they should really have made the memory of the two cards available

astrofool · 23-08-2005 09:53PM

[sarcasm] Yea, I bought an fx5200 with 256mb ram, cos it was twice as good as my ti4600 with 128mb ram [/sarcasm]

po0k · 25-08-2005 12:32AM

djmarkus wrote:

So it could work then?

No.

po0k · 25-08-2005 12:40AM

djmarkus wrote:

hmm...well it wouldn't even be worth sli'ing for just 128 meg total memory, they should really have made the memory of the two cards available

FFS, would you at least read into how the memory on each card is put to use?

This is not the Computers forum. You will not be spoonfed information already present in 6 month-old press releases.

djmarkus · 25-08-2005 12:55AM

Actually, looking into how the memory is used it becomes apparent that sli'ing gfx cards with different amounts of memory is impossible, seemingly the memory in both cards is used but they are used to store the exact same thing, which is a bit stupid IMO as there's a nice and fast PCI-x bus and the sli bridge to transport textures from one card to another.

Syxpak, I'm lazy, so i probably should thank you.

po0k · 25-08-2005 07:50AM

the gpus are working together on the same job,m therefore they each need a copy of the "plans" (textures, shader programs etc.).

KdjaCL · 25-08-2005 07:51AM

www.anandtech.com and www.guru3d.com have ways to get different cards to work in SLI>

kdjac

SLI'ing 1x 6600gt 256meg and 1x 6600gt 128meg, could it work?

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