GTX 670 FTW SLI upgrade

[cmdrdredd]

Just got my 2nd FTW card and did a quick heaven bench.

Power target set to +145 Core +85 memory +285. GPU 2(new card) boosts to 1267 and never reached above 68c, while GPU 1 hits a little bit above 70c (pulling in hot air from card 2, and drops to 1228, but starts out around 1247 boost clock. If anyone wants any benches I can do them. I can also give you a before and after as I have a thread with my scores with a single card I can dig up for reference.

 

[Termie]

You can independently set the boost on each card using PrecisionX so that they boost to the same level. When I played around with SLI, I found that the higher-clocked card simply drops in GPU usage, so no reason to increase heat/power unnecessarily. For instance, +46 might get you to 1228 on the faster card, whereas it looks like +85 is necessary on the slower card (due partly to being above 70C). Then again, without the excess heat from the bottom card, you might be able to hit 1235 on both cards, for example.

 

[guskline]

Just got my 2nd FTW card and did a quick heaven bench.

Power target set to +145 Core +85 memory +285. GPU 2(new card) boosts to 1267 and never reached above 68c, while GPU 1 hits a little bit above 70c (pulling in hot air from card 2, and drops to 1228, but starts out around 1247 boost clock. If anyone wants any benches I can do them. I can also give you a before and after as I have a thread with my scores with a single card I can dig up for reference.

I'm awaiting my first EVGA GTX 670 FTW on Monday or Tuesday to replace the 5850s CF in rig 2 below.. Could you post the difference between 1 & 2 cards with some of the benchmarks? Thanks.

 

[BD231]

GTX 670 FTW Don Karnage edition's I presume? lol Power numbers would be nice.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I'm awaiting my first EVGA GTX 670 FTW on Monday or Tuesday to replace the 5850s CF in rig 2 below.. Could you post the difference between 1 & 2 cards with some of the benchmarks? Thanks.

Will do. My current clocks were not stable I'm going to have to play with them a bit.

Thanks Termie, I knew about that before but just threw this together quickly as I was out the door. Will do more tests.

 

[cmdrdredd]

GTX 670 FTW Don Karnage edition's I presume? lol Power numbers would be nice.

Uh...no I got one as a replacement for a bad SC and purchased one on Amazon.

I have no way to read power consumption and honestly to me it doesn't matter as it's not what I bought it all for. Power consumption is best left up to real reviewers with proper equipment to read it.

All tests done at 1920x1200 16xAF. Batman has physx off and Crysis 2 has no AA applied. I used the built in benchmarks from crysis 1, CPU and GPU1 bench and took the average of 4 runs.

Heaven
Single Card: 50.2 avg fps, 26.7 Min fps
SLI: 92.1 avg fps, 38.3 min fps

3DMark Vantage
Single card: 33543 with 37960 graphics score
SLI: 42184 with 55239 graphics score

3DMark11 Performance preset
Single card: 10071 with 10477 graphics score
SLI: 15531 with 20424 graphics score

Batmam AC
Single card: min: 32 avg: 105 max: 141
SLI: min: 38 avg: 162 max: 270

Crysis 2
Single card: min: 28.2 avg: 72.8
SLI: min: 35 avg: 119.9

Crysis 1
Single card: cpu: 56.83 gpu: 56.41
SLI: cpu: 95.03 gpu: 89.27

 

[MrMuppet]

As you know, I'm very interested in this topic. Also, I wonder how min FPS is calculated? Is Min FPS = 1 / Longest Frame Time? Or 1 / 99th Percentile Frame Time? Or is it the fewest frames rendered in one actual second of gameplay?

edit: Min FPS scaling (which is most important imo) seems quite poor. Why? 2GB VRAM limitations? CPU bottleneck (shouldn't be with a "3570k @ 4.5Ghz", should it)?

And, of course, do you notice any micro suttering at all (compared to a single GTX 670)?

 

[The_Golden_Man]

cmdrdredd

How do you manage to get so good temps, seeing as the cards will be so close in the Maximus V Gene?

 

[guskline]

cmrdrdredd, Thank you for the info. My single GTX 670 FTW should be here next Wednesday but if I sell the majority of the parts from my former AMD gamer I'm definitely going SLI

 

[cmdrdredd]

cmdrdredd

How do you manage to get so good temps, seeing as the cards will be so close in the Maximus V Gene?

I run a custom fan profile in PrecisonX (or you could use afterburner). For every 1degree it gives 1% fan speed. So at 67c the fan is at 67%. Works well, but it does get a bit loud under extreme loads as fan #1 is loading up to above 70%. If I didn't overclock I bet I could keep it cooler and much more quiet. I'm overclocking and would rather the performance as the noise isn't terrible to me. I had a GTX 295 that was louder than my 670 SLI setup under load.

Min framerates depend on more than GPU MrMuppet...They rely on CPU speed quite a bit. Especially at 1920x1200. As you move up in resolution the bottleneck will move off the CPU and to the GPU. The minimums don't increase exponentially when you add GPUs to do the work. The averages and maxes increase but they are still going to be waiting on the CPU at resolutions around 1080p/1200p.

Overall I can definitely say SLI is a welcome addition to my setup. I don't regret it. I think the performance upgrades will also allow me to revisit games I skipped due to having poor performance on single card systems (Metro 2033 and The Witcher 2 for example). Also allowing me to use 8x AA instead of 4x or no AA will be greatly appreciated I'm sure.

 

[The_Golden_Man]

I run a custom fan profile in PrecisonX (or you could use afterburner). For every 1degree it gives 1% fan speed. So at 67c the fan is at 67%. Works well, but it does get a bit loud under extreme loads as fan #1 is loading up to above 70%. If I didn't overclock I bet I could keep it cooler and much more quiet. I'm overclocking and would rather the performance as the noise isn't terrible to me. I had a GTX 295 that was louder than my 670 SLI setup under load.

Min framerates depend on more than GPU MrMuppet...They rely on CPU speed quite a bit. Especially at 1920x1200. As you move up in resolution the bottleneck will move off the CPU and to the GPU. The minimums don't increase exponentially when you add GPUs to do the work. The averages and maxes increase but they are still going to be waiting on the CPU at resolutions around 1080p/1200p.

Overall I can definitely say SLI is a welcome addition to my setup. I don't regret it. I think the performance upgrades will also allow me to revisit games I skipped due to having poor performance on single card systems (Metro 2033 and The Witcher 2 for example). Also allowing me to use 8x AA instead of 4x or no AA will be greatly appreciated I'm sure.

Yeah, for me The Witcher 2 became much more enjoyable when going GTX 670 SLI. I game in 1920x1200. 2x ASUS GTX 670 DC II and a 2600K@4.4GHz

 

[digger72]

Why I am not able to post

 

[digger72]

Trying to see if I am able to post ?

 

[guskline]

I will run the 3 monitor setup with a 5760 x 1080 total resolution with the GTX 670 SLI setup. Should have plenty of HP.

 

[MrMuppet]

Oh no, you skipped certain games because a single GTX 670 is too weak? At 1200p? Crap.

I was hoping I would be able to play everything decently with just one, darn. Then I guess a single 7970 wouldn't be enough either? If not, I may have to get me another 670 if there's another drive here at the end of the month. But that would block my sound card PCI slot. Otherwise I'll go with the single 7970 perhaps, hmm.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I will run the 3 monitor setup with a 5760 x 1080 total resolution with the GTX 670 SLI setup. Should have plenty of HP.

Hopefully. Post your results here in the forums. Interested to see what you think, both of the performance and the whole setup and experience.

Oh no, you skipped certain games because a single GTX 670 is too weak? At 1200p? Crap.

I was hoping I would be able to play everything decently with just one, darn. Then I guess a single 7970 wouldn't be enough either? If not, I may have to get me another 670 if there's another drive here at the end of the month. But that would block my sound card PCI slot. Otherwise I'll go with the single 7970 perhaps, hmm.

They were playable, but I was not happy with them. I wanted to stay closer to 60fps and many times in The Witcher 2 or Metro 2033 on a single card you could drop to less than 30fps with a single 670. Many ATX boards do have room for SLI and a soundcard.

 

[Celeron]

I'm considering the same upgrade. I also have the Maximus V Gene board. Do you have any spacing issues? The pcie slots are pretty close together? A pic would be wonderful. Also, any trouble getting an hdmi cable to fully seat on the FTW?

Thanks!

 

[hokies83]

Why not try and solve the air flow so the top card does not get so hot?

 

[cmdrdredd]

Why not try and solve the air flow so the top card does not get so hot?

It is not possible on a mATX board with a Noctua D14 HSF. Here's a picture. I use DVI but did plug an HDMI cable in to try it out to my tv and it didn't have any issues.

 

[The_Golden_Man]

It is not possible on a mATX board with a Noctua D14 HSF. Here's a picture. I use DVI but did plug an HDMI cable in to try it out to my tv and it didn't have any issues.

I'm still very impressed by your temps when considering how close the cards are to each other. Have any sidefans?

 

[lehtv]

You don't even have an mATX chassis... Why the mATX board?

 

[The_Golden_Man]

You don't even have an mATX chassis... Why the mATX board?

Many people buy the mATX ROG boards because they have many of the features and bios from the higher end ROG series, but at the same time the cost is not too high.

 

[cmdrdredd]

You don't even have an mATX chassis... Why the mATX board?

Because it was the best Z77 board when I was buying parts.

 

[hokies83]

I'm still very impressed by your temps when considering how close the cards are to each other. Have any sidefans?

Clean up the cables a bit and put a fan on the back of that HDD bay to push air in between the cards.

You can use Zip ties if you have to.. Looks like the top card is chokeing for air.

 

[The_Golden_Man]

Here is my clearance using two ASUS GTX 670 DC II in my ASUS P8P67 PRO 3.0. Since these coolers are not blower style I doubt this setup would work very well in boards like the Gene V, due to spacing issues.