Is my SLI working or not?

Hey guys,

I just got a second 8800m gtx today and installed it. While installing the sli cable seemed a bit wonky (as in one side of the sticky parts wouldnt stick very well). I then installed drivers and my system told me that its ready to go sli. After enabling sli and restarting for it, the control panel popped up a bubble saying that my 2 cards aren't connected with a sli cable (I reseated it twice because of that, but its still popping up!). I tried this in a few games and I get the green indicator bar every time. However I don't get how the system can be complaining that there is no sli connector while its obviously displaying sli functionality.

So I decided to do a 3dmark06 benchmark with sli enabled and with sli disabled, these are the results:

My specs are as follows

Code:

NP9262/ Sager/Style Note
2.66 Ghz Q9450
4GB DDR2 OCZ RAM
Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Geforce 8800m GTX SLI

Code:

No sli:

3DMarks: 10664
SM2.0 Score: 4441
HDR/SM3.0 Score: 4190
CPU Score: 4002

Code:

With sli:

3DMarks: 12613
SM2.0 Score: 4789
HDR/SM3.0 Score: 6k
CPU Score: 4039

Do these numbers seem plausible to you? Or should I try reseating (and maybe fixating) the sli cable again? I'm really inexperienced in the sli business but I want to use the 2nd 8800m gtx that I bought for quite a bit

Would be great if some people with around the same configuration as mine could post their benchmark results with sli so we can compare.

Thanks in advance for any answers,

Anthu

 

That seems like a correct score, but if you want to be sure it's working, then you should do what I did when connecting the SLi cable:

Smother the connectors with electrical tape after connecting the cable to ensure that they stay connected during re-seating/re-installation.

 

I think I might do that, how exactly did you smother themthough? Did you wrap the stuff aound or did you just put a few layers on top?

 

I added a few layers of electrical tape on top of each connector after placing both sides in the appropriate slot.

 

Your scores show a clear difference. The SLI seems to work. On a fresh install of Windows you will be able to get up 13500 points.

 

Ok guys, I reseated everything and benched again, got a score of 12717. I believe sli was and is working now =)

Thanks for the help in clearing that up!

/thread

 

Some people from Xotic Pc and Kobalt Computers posted some scores some time ago. I am too laisy to search for now, but there here on the forum and the kobalt computers forum.

PL

 

To me it translates like this if you activate SLI:

SM2.0 Score: 4789 (poor SLI support, therefore little improvement)
HDR/SM3.0 Score: 6k (SLI support, ~43% improvement, 50% would be max so 43% is pretty ok)
CPU Score: 4039 (CPU score is not affected by SLI in CPU only benchmark)

The actual 3DMark score is not that important, I would say. You see a clear improvement where SLI is fully supported and used just as SLI will only improve performance in games that actually support it. So your SLI is working, the margin betwen 43% and 50% could be everything, driver and OS not running perfectly, etc. But 50% is more of a theoretical value anyway.

 

Thank you very much for that detailed breakdown Daniel. Like I said I'm a newbie at SLI and I didn't know taht the SM2 Benchmark in 3DMark06 doesn't support SLI well. I was aware that SLI only improves performance for games that can utilize it, but it is good to know that it is fully working in my machine now.

Thanks again to ettornio ,pasoleatis and Daniel!

Mods I think we can close this thread now =)

 

Umm, theoretically sli can give you 100% improvement (as you have 100% more graphics power) but in reality 50% is far more likely.