Anyone running SLI (2 of same card)? [Solved]

[Jocelyn84]

Yep I had to switch DVI's after bootup until I made the DSDT edit(s), but now I can hot plug with any of the 4 DVI's, regardless of which Peg I'm on in the bios.

Does your system profiler look like this?

 

[arw]

@Jocelyn84: So can U tell me, how much the second card increased your fps in games, or benchmarks?
Did you buy the exact model a second time, or do just the clockrates and VRAM of the two models match?
Is it possible to disable the second card if you don't need it? (I mean not the 2D mode, but really deactivate with the fan stopping)
Thank You

 

[Jocelyn84]

The 260 is probably one of the best GTX 200 series cards to SLI in terms of scaling if you can pick up a second one used for $120-$130 imo. Checkout Anantech, Hardforum, and Overclock.net for deals on used cards. My max and average FPS, in games that support it (most of them) has almost doubled. My Min FPS has gone up a bit, but no where near double. In vantage I get a P24784 with GPU physx (kinda cheating lol) and a P17XXX with a single card. I'm running 1920x1080, so I only really have SLI so I can have ALL the eye candy on (High AA, AF, etc). Of course, all of this SLI talk is in Windows only as Mac doesn't support SLI, but you can keep the SLI bridge on (Mac isn't really aware of it). I got my cards back in June when they were a lot cheaper, so I'm not too sure I'd buy a second one for $200+.
As far as matching, yes I have the exact same cards, but you can use any combo of two 260's. 192 65nm, 216 65nm, 216 55nm, will all work with one another. If you own a card with a 626 clock rate and buy a second with 576, you can either run them both at 576 or overclock the 576 to 626 so they both run at 626. Mine run at 702/1513/1224 in case you're curious. With Vram, if you owned a 1792 and an 896, you'd be wasting 896 on that 1792 card.
Yes you can disable the second card, by turning off SLI in the control panel, but it won't power it down or turn off the fan. You'd have to unplug the two 6 pins for that. Lemme know if you have any other questions.

 

[arw]

Thank you very much, that answered all my questions, perfectly described!

 

[Fishcookie]

Re: Anyone running SLI (2 of same card)?

OMG I did it! I took Winston's DSDT.dsl from http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index. ... try1382548
edited everything for a GTX 260, changed vram to 38 (896), duplicated what Winston had (with my 260), then followed Kdawg's DSDT Peg edit's on this page http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index. ... 3349&st=20

Wow I'm SO happy!


Thanks for finding that thread!

Any chance you can post your DSDT.aml for reference Jocelyn?
I'm trying with 2 x GTX260 DVI/ HDMI/ VGA outputs. <<< NVCap seems to be causing me probs. Will extract from Windows using Everest & NVCAP Maker.

** Got it to work. Took some fiddling...
Extracted the ROMS by booting to Windows 7 and by using NVFlash.
Also got the correct PCI Slot Positions using Device Manager.
Set my GA-EX58-UD3R Rev.1.6 (FI) to [PCIE x16-2] in the BIOS.

Note here: NVCAP is different in Windows 7 than what is shown from OSX IORegistry.

So whats working: Dual GTX260 with SLI Bridge attached inside a GA-EX58-UD3R.

If peeps would like a further writeup. Hit me up. I'll monitor this forum.

I had plenty of myself - its not as straight forward as I thought with no prior knowledge!

 

[Slamdunk]

does your hdmi work?

 

[Fishcookie]

does your hdmi work?

It sure does. Just tested it for you. Though i run a DVI on each.

 

[viztang]

Thanks much for the post on how to run dual nVidia 260! I followed your mods and get the two cards working, kind of. The only issue I notice is that the second card isn't properly identified, even if the strings in the dsdt are exactly identical. Please see the image attached.

I had to search for you PEG1/PEG2 edits and found the following. I think this mods makes SL 10.6.6 recognize both cards, but not to the exact point. I also have graphics enabled and boot in 32-bit. Please kindly offer me suggestions and comments if I missed anything.

Best,
Derek

PEG1/PEG2 under PCI0

Device (PCI0)
{
Device (PEG1)
{
Name (_ADR, 0x00030000)
Device (GFX1)
{
Name (_ADR, Zero)
Name (_SUN, One)
Method (_DSM, 4, NotSerialized)
{
Store (Package (0x16)
{
"@0,compatible", 
Buffer (0x0B)
{
"NVDA,NVMac"
}, 
"@0,device_type", 
Buffer (0x08)
{
"display"
}, 
"@0,name", 
Buffer (0x0F)
{
"NVDA,Display-A"
}, 
"@1,compatible", 
Buffer (0x0B)
{
"NVDA,NVMac"
}, 
"@1,device_type", 
Buffer (0x08)
{
"display"
}, 
"@1,name", 
Buffer (0x0F)
{
"NVDA,Display-B"
}, 
"NVCAP", 
Buffer (0x18)
{
/* 0000 */ 0x04, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x07, 0x00, 
/* 0008 */ 0x38, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x07, 
/* 0010 */ 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00
}, 
"VRAM,totalsize", 
Buffer (0x04)
{
0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x38
}, 
"device_type", 
Buffer (0x0D)
{
"NVDA,GeForce"
}, 
"model", 
Buffer (0x17)
{
"nVidia GeForce GTX 260"
}, 
"rom-revision", 
Buffer (0x25)
{
"nVidia GeForce GTX 260 OpenGL Engine"
}
}, Local0)
DTGP (Arg0, Arg1, Arg2, Arg3, RefOf (Local0))
Return (Local0)
}
}
}
Device (PEG2)
{
Name (_ADR, 0x00050000)
Device (GFX2)
{
Name (_ADR, Zero)
Name (_SUN, One)
Method (_DSM, 4, NotSerialized)
{
Store (Package (0x16)
{
"@0,compatible", 
Buffer (0x0B)
{
"NVDA,NVMac"
}, 
"@0,device_type", 
Buffer (0x08)
{
"display"
}, 
"@0,name", 
Buffer (0x0F)
{
"NVDA,Display-A"
}, 
"@1,compatible", 
Buffer (0x0B)
{
"NVDA,NVMac"
}, 
"@1,device_type", 
Buffer (0x08)
{
"display"
}, 
"@1,name", 
Buffer (0x0F)
{
"NVDA,Display-B"
}, 
"NVCAP", 
Buffer (0x18)
{
/* 0000 */ 0x04, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x07, 0x00, 
/* 0008 */ 0x38, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x07, 
/* 0010 */ 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00
}, 
"VRAM,totalsize", 
Buffer (0x04)
{
0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x38
}, 
"device_type", 
Buffer (0x0D)
{
"NVDA,GeForce"
}, 
"model", 
Buffer (0x17)
{
"nVidia GeForce GTX 260"
}, 
"rom-revision", 
Buffer (0x25)
{
"nVidia GeForce GTX 260 OpenGL Engine"
}
}, Local0)
DTGP (Arg0, Arg1, Arg2, Arg3, RefOf (Local0))
Return (Local0)
}
}
}