7800 GT SLI not performing ><

[kcomeforo]

I just bought a new system with dual 7800 GTs, Athlon x2 4400, Asus A8N-SLI mobo and 2GB of ram. I checked out 3dmark06 thinking I'd get a nice score in the 7k or 8k range (I haven't overclocked at all). To my surprise I only got 4k! I was basically performing as if it wasn't using both cards but everything I checked in the BIOS, Nvidia driver, and even 3dmark06 said it was.

Anyone have any suggestions as to things I should try to get in line with the other scores I see for similar systems on the 3dmark06 website? I don't need to have the fastest system on the block but I do want to do better.

Thanks!

 

[Heyyou27]

Are you sure you have it set on multi GPU rendering? I pretty much have a similar system and score about 7200. Although my 7800 GTs are at 470MHz core 1.1GHz. (And a faster processor )

 

[gomerpile]

Not everthing use SLI Duel processing, Try this go in bios and enable single or see if duel graphics is enabled

 

[kcomeforo]

Heyyou - yeah, our systems are pretty similar. And I don't expect to exactly match your score since I'm not o/cing. Here's what I did to make sure it's doing multi GPU rendering:

1. In my BIOS, I enabled the SLI feature.
2. In the NVidia driver, I checked the box that enables SLI.
3. In the NVidia advanced profiles I set rendering to Multi-GPU rendering.
4. In 3dmark2006 it reports I have "Cooperative Adapters", which is their term for SLI/dual cards.

Then since I still wasn't convinced I turned on the feature in the NVidia driver that shows you how much work each adapter is doing. When I ran 3dmark06 it had a horizontal green line around the center of the screen. I never used this feature before but I assume it means half the screen is being drawn by one adapter and half is by the other.

Is there anything else I should do or check?

 

[chuckshissle]

Do you have the latest driver for the card?

http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

 

[Heyyou27]

If you're still only scoring 4000 that's a problem.

 

[kcomeforo]

Well... um... as it turns out I didn't have the latest drivers after all, I was one rev out of date. I'm such a NOOB!

I just assumed that the company that built the machine would have gotten the latest drivers given that they have been out for close to 2 months. And we all know what assuming does...

Anyway, now my score is 6688... much more like what I thought I should be getting.... Thanks for your help!

 

[falcon1209]

I have a similar question as to why my SLI would be laging more than it does with only one card (seems that way at least). Battlefield 2 with all eyecandy at 1600x1200 seems to take ages to load (not related to gfx) but when it does load it seems to lag and stutter alot in the beginning. I dont think this is a SLI issue but it seems to have gotten worse when I added another 7800gt. Is there some major step I have missed.

Clean installed newest chipset and graphics drivers. Checked the box for dual GPU rendering. Checked all connections and selectors in my machine. Windows recognizes the SLI. Still way too much lag. Bios is set to autoselect for SLI. Ill run a 3dmark06 bench to see for sure.

AMD Athlon 64 4000+ Clawhammer
Corsair Twinx1024 3200xlpro
2x Evga 7800gt
Asus A8N-sli Deluxe
2x 160 WD Caviar (No raid)
Enermax 600W noisetaker PSU

 

[Heyyou27]

Make sure you have all of your power hooked up. (And SLI bridge, although I doubt you missed that)

 

[falcon1209]

Everything was completely hooked up including with the 2 6pins and the sli selector card switched to allow for SLI. Bridge bracket was a tiny bit loose (3mm tops) on one corner, but that shouldnt matter. Is my RAM an issue here? I thought its enough but now I'm not so sure. Have all the settings in the bios to compensate for the latenencies and voltages. Perhaps I missed a setting in the bios or driver menus? or is BF2 with all eyecandy at 1600x1200 just too fast for my rig?

 

[hazmat]

I got rid of that initial lag when i doubled up my RAM to 2GB. Nothing else would do the trick, except that. I dont know exactly why, because BF2 has been a little better with memory lately, using around 600MB, but when i take out a gig to see what happens it loses the smoothness im used to.

 

[falcon1209]

Ok ran a 3dmark06 run. Scored 5199. My CPU tests averaged 0.293 and 0.475 frames/sec . Is that low or is it just me? My CPU score was 933 so I think my SLI is configured properly from that test. Any explainations or is this typical?

EDIT: Checked my ram consumption in the task manager. Ive got about 526mb free of 1024... At idle. I checked my friends pc to see what he was running. He was only using about 100mb at Idle. What is the difference between his and my pc. Does SLI magically consume massive amounts of ram?

 

[WasTed]

Well i got Over all score 5798
sm2 3226
sm3 1692
cpu 1753


But here is the interesting thing, this was a @ 2.4ghz and then i upped to 2.52... and this cannot be related i'm sure.. then i retested and the cpu score did go up. but so did my shader model 3 score, by a lot. Results..

Over all score 7195
sm2 3251
sm3 3099
cpu 1882

Notice the shader model 3 score has almost doubled.. It almost looks like Sli is not in operation just for that test. I dont have any issue with gaming performance..

I guess the point of my post in reply is that x 4800 @ 2.4 with 7800gtx can produce 5000+ and even 7000+ if I get the bottom of the sm3 score variances i'll let you know..