NVidia blocks 4-way SLI with 780s. Do they do the same thing with Titans?

[AdamK47]

While waiting for my 4th Titan to be delivered I decided to look up 4-Way SLI reviews and benchmark results. As I was looking through results on Google I saw threads about 4-Way SLI being hard coded out of nVidia drivers starting in July for the GTX 780. Is this the case with the Titan as well? I know I've seen people in the past with 4-Way Titans (pre-July). Can anyone with a 4-Way Titan system confirm that it is indeed enabled and working with the latest drivers installed?

 

[SlowSpyder]

If it doesn't work, out of curiosity, any reason they would block that functionality out if it previously worked?

 

[AdamK47]

After some searching I found out that 4-Way is still available for those with Titans even though it's still unofficially supported. No limit through the driver. It was only the 780 that was purposely limited to 3-Way SLI.

 

[thilanliyan]

Why would they limit it (if it worked in the first place)?

 

[AdamK47]

Not sure. People were able to get it working with 780s back in July by using an older INF file, but now nVidia has it hard coded deeper into the drivers. No way to get it working now AFAIK.

 

[Spidre]

Strange... I guess they want more people buying 780 tis?

 

[YBS1]

From what I understand 4-way SLI can be done again with 780TI's. I'm guessing it was restricted on 780's solely to sell Titans, no reason to restrict it to Titan now that it's no longer considered the top dog I don't guess.

 

[blackened23]

Yep, that's correct, 4 way SLI does work with 780ti's. IT also works with the Titan. Not sure of the reason for restriction, but if someone is spending that much dough on 4 GPUs they're probably going for 780ti's or titans anyway..

 

[Holler]

strange since I am still 4-waying GTX480s, don't tell them... lol

 

[Granseth]

Yep, that's correct, 4 way SLI does work with 780ti's. IT also works with the Titan. Not sure of the reason for restriction, but if someone is spending that much dough on 4 GPUs they're probably going for 780ti's or titans anyway..

Well you could be doing 4-way 780 for less than 3-way 780Ti's.
It might be that 4-way780 is so close in performance to 4-way 780Ti that it wouldn't be any point going with the 780Ti. But then again if the economy is no hinder the 780TI seems pointless too compared to Titan. I would guess the 6GB of VRAM would become more important in such a setup

 

[Piklar]

I forget where I read it , but the gist was the maximum tri SLI nerf for gtx78s is Nvidias way of creating incentive for content creaters to invest in Titan. Although the GTX 780ti has four way SLI capability Nvidia are still keeping the Titan viable because of its 6GB..

 

[Teizo]

I forget where I read it , but the gist was the maximum tri SLI nerf for gtx78s is Nvidias way of creating incentive for content creaters to invest in Titan. Although the GTX 780ti has four way SLI capability Nvidia are still keeping the Titan viable because of its 6GB..

Still makes no sense to artificially impose limits on your users like that...especially retroactively. Oh well.

4 way really doesn't scale all that well anyway, but still.

 

[f1sherman]

Well this is an interesting table

The key word here is "support". As in "official".
The fact that Quad SLI is not officially supported on particular GPU, does not mean it doesn't work.
And by 'work', I mean barely

 

[blackened23]

If you're implying that quad SLI can work on the vanilla 780 in any form or fashion, that is not the case. That's actually what your chart states as well. Quite a few users at H have tried quad SLI with 780s and it's basically a no-go. It is completely blocked from working on a firmware and driver level.

Not a big deal really because folks who can buy 4 halo high end GPUs can buy the best, so they'll just need to opt for 780ti's instead. Quad SLI is the realm shared by 4k and what not - niche of a niche of a niche. Therefore it's not a big deal.

 

[f1sherman]

Is that so? Well I did not know that...

But I do know they have been changing SLI options back and forth.
Here, contrary to above table, GTX 580 officially speced as 3-way.
Or perhaps that was due to lack of (certified) MBs.

 

[Unoid]

Adam, I was hoping you were gonna sell those titan's cheap to buy 290x's.

I wanted to try some poor man's budget titan action!

whats the scaling like on 3x? how much worse on 4x?

 

[Ajay]

I forget where I read it , but the gist was the maximum tri SLI nerf for gtx78s is Nvidias way of creating incentive for content creaters to invest in Titan. Although the GTX 780ti has four way SLI capability Nvidia are still keeping the Titan viable because of its 6GB..

I suspect that some AIBs will release custom a 780 Ti w/6 GB, unless NV decides to play Dr. Evil. Of course, a custom 6 GB 780 Ti will likely cost $100-150 more than the reference design :sneaky:

 

[OCGuy]

I suspect that some AIBs will release custom a 780 Ti w/6 GB, unless NV decides to play Dr. Evil. Of course, a custom 6 GB 780 Ti will likely cost $100-150 more than the reference design :sneaky:

are you seeing instances of the vram limitation that need to be overcome? what is the cost of 3GB wholesale ram that is that fast?

 

[Shmee]

Wow, this seems like a pretty sleazy move to me. This is worse than lack of voltage control or the AMD Bf4 bundle fiasco IMO. I am glad I didn't get a 780, which I almost did.

These companies need to get their heads out of their you-know-whats and be more customer friendly...

 

[AdamK47]

Adam, I was hoping you were gonna sell those titan's cheap to buy 290x's.

I wanted to try some poor man's budget titan action!

whats the scaling like on 3x? how much worse on 4x?

The math didn't add up in my favor for the 290x. Temps, power usage, and throttling is just too much. I would have sold the Titans for a good price. Instead I bought another one at a good price.

 

[OCGuy]

Wow, this seems like a pretty sleazy move to me. This is worse than lack of voltage control or the AMD Bf4 bundle fiasco IMO. I am glad I didn't get a 780, which I almost did.

These companies need to get their heads out of their you-know-whats and be more customer friendly...

I don't know that you can compare what went on with the BF4 thing with something that 10 people on this planet are affected by.

 

[soccerballtux]

Still makes no sense to artificially impose limits on your users like that...especially retroactively. Oh well.

4 way really doesn't scale all that well anyway, but still.

from the financial, stock price perspective makes a lot of sense.
They are smart.

 

[chimaxi83]

Wrong thread

 

[Shmee]

I don't know that you can compare what went on with the BF4 thing with something that 10 people on this planet are affected by.

Why not? Either way, its a pretty crappy thing to do.

 

[Teizo]

Wow, this seems like a pretty sleazy move to me. This is worse than lack of voltage control or the AMD Bf4 bundle fiasco IMO. I am glad I didn't get a 780, which I almost did.

These companies need to get their heads out of their you-know-whats and be more customer friendly...

Exaggerate much? For the record, I stated myself that Nvidia shouldn't lock people out, but considering how poorly 4-Way scales anyway it isn't THAT big of a deal.

/Getting one 780 is one thing, buying four to run 4-Way SLI is another thing entirely...