680 SLi question (VRAM)

KING_OF_SAND

New member
So I already have a GTX680 2gb from evga and will be getting another here in a day or two which is a PNY 4gb model for $360 (great deal, I know). I am aware that when SLi it will only use the amount of the smallest video card so 2gb usable. BUT if for example I want to use all 4gb of VRAM on the PNY for whatever reason (reason is irrelevant) can I just plug the video out on the 4gb card and disable SLi?
 
yes you can disable sli and just use the 4gb card but make sure its in the top slot, oh and it will only downgrade the timings/clock of the lowest card in sli not the ammount of vram available but again would need the 4gb card as primary.

another note is you want need more than the single 4gb card tbh you could probably sell the 2gb one or use it in another rig :D
 
yes you can disable sli and just use the 4gb card but make sure its in the top slot, oh and it will only downgrade the timings/clock of the lowest card in sli not the ammount of vram available but again would need the 4gb card as primary.

Agreed for the first part...

Second, it downgrades timings and vRAM. The games are split across the two cards, meaning they both have to work at exactly the same rate - ie - same core clocks, vRAM clocks and same amount of vRAM too.

I'm not too sure on what the OP is asking for though...
Why would it not work if you disabled SLI? It isn't like the cards lock into SLI mode and can never be used on their own again :p
Unless you're asking whether the second card has to be removed from the system in order to disable SLI? If so, no, it doesn't.

What resolution are you running?
 
-I'm not sure if you'll be allowed to enable SLI by the control panel - report back please because I'd like to know.

-A single 680 will already have rubbish framerate at any settings that require more than 2gb of vram

-The downclocking to match clocks is incorrect. The cards will run at independent clocks when in SLI mode. (although they will be fairly similar i.e. both at base load or base load+boost)
 
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To confirm, different clocked NV GPU's play nicely together. I have two GTX 570's, one (Inno3d) has a stock Core of 732 with 950* on the vRam, the other (EVGA) is 797 Core with 975* vRam. Typically I'll see higher load on the slower card as you'd expect. In extreme situations, basically benchmarking, I'll see the slower card at ~99% GPU load with the faster card in the low-90's. I do generally however run both GPU's either slightly overclocked or both at the base 732/950*

* base speed in Afterburner, subject to the DDR multi of course :)

I've not tried it personally, but if anything was to cause a problem I'd expect it to be the vRam capacity discrepancy.

Incidentally, I game at 1920x1200 and my meagre 1.25gb of vRam still sees me playing most things flawlessly - so Crysis 2 in DX11 with the HD textures sits at a steady v-synced 60fps for the most part. Modded Skyrim (loads of HD stuff, extra detail, view distance etc) behaves much the same, apart from certain known lower-fps areas (Dragonreach steps) but even then things remain perfectly playable - and I'm dead fussy! lol.

More vRam is the future of course, but today, at standard 1080p gaming, I see no issues with 1.25gb - remember, GPU's will cache data the same way windows does, so 2.5gb reported vRam usage on say a 3gb 7970 doesn't mean it needs that full 2.5gb to render what it's currently asked to. As new scenes are loaded then it might benefit from the cached textures etc. but often such scene changes in games trigger a load screen anyway. Skyrims open world attempts to be seemless when travelling outside, and my system plays it lovely.

Note: have done some testing vs. other GPU's with more vRam rendering the exact same scenes in games and the cards with more vRam always use more vRam for the exact same scene. This is again testing at 1080p resolutions, for tri-screen or 1440/1600p gaming the extra vRam helps. 3D conversely takes about 20% more GPU power, but does not have a larger vRam footprint.

Did I ramble? Sorry! lol.

Scoob.
 
Sorry if I am repeating anything said...

I run 670s in SLI and you don't need to disable SLI. All you need to do is put the 4gb card in the primary slot and connect the monitor to it. Then go to the control panel and where it says about performance just simply change it to (for the game or app in question) single card (do not use SLI)

I have to do this for certain titles. Namely Fallout 3 which does support SLI but has a DX9 bug that makes the screen flash like a strobe light. I also have to do it for NFS : The Run which doesn't support SLI at all.

Other than that you should be OK. If a game or app does not support SLI then it simply won't use it and you will fall back to card 1. Though as I said you can forcibly make it work on your primary GPU.

And that will work because when you right click your screen it will use the card and monitor you have plugged in, so the only real rule of thumb you need to adhere to is putting the 4gb card in the top PCIE slot and making sure the monitor is plugged into it.
 
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