Using a 128 bit and 256 bit GPU in SLI?

C

CustomModAddict

Limp Gawd
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Sep 2, 2010
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Short and sweet.... special price on a few GTS 250's over at newegg. But they are 256 bit variety, and my existing card is 128 Bit.

Will this cause a problem? Will I be able to run them in SLI?

I am thinking if it will work, I will post the 256 Bit card in the primary PCI, and the 128 bit in the secondary slot.

Let me know if I can do two different bit rate cards.

Didnt even think, it might not matter, on an old 939 socket AMD X2. CPU might bottleneck anyway...hmmmm,
 
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No, but you can run the lesser card in the second slot to handle PhysX.

You need identical cards for SLI; the new 260 drivers will allow card to be clocked asynchronously so you can put an overclocked GTS 450 with a stock 450 and keep each one's clock.
- btw, all GTS 450s are 128-bit.
 
I thought you could use a lower version of the card? Or is that with Crossfire?
 
No on both points. Though you can do a 5850+5870. Same chip, but you can't do a 5770 and 5870. Look into a hyrda board :p.
 
bigdogchris said:
I thought you could use a lower version of the card? Or is that with Crossfire?
Click to expand...

CrossFire allows much more mixing and matching than Nvidia does; i used to run 2900Pro with 2900XT. With Nvidia, you must have two identical cards (except for their clocks); right now i have a reference version of GTS 450 and the Galaxy GTS 450 SOC in SLI and they can keep their original clocks, if i choose.
 
So what to do then? Do I scratch this 128bit 250 GTS and just pick up two GTS 250's cheap? Or just buy another 128 bit PNY card, exact same one I have?

I wonder how much of a difference, there is between the 128 bit and 256 bit?

Think it really matters with an old socket 939 X2 3800?
 
No, I don't think it will matter much. Time to upgrade your motherboard, processor, memory, and then worry about video after that project is complete.
 
CustomModAddict said:
So what to do then? Do I scratch this 128bit 250 GTS and just pick up two GTS 250's cheap? Or just buy another 128 bit PNY card, exact same one I have?

I wonder how much of a difference, there is between the 128 bit and 256 bit?

Think it really matters with an old socket 939 X2 3800?
Click to expand...
it depends

What games do you play? what resolution? What current card do you have ?

Is you X2 overclocked?

If you can pick up an identical card to what you have for really cheap, you can experience SLI - and depending on a lot of factors, gain 30-90% more framerates. But a lot will depend on how you answer the above questions.
 
Ok, well my stupid azz, mis read the box, my new gts 250 is 256 bit, its a 128 core...duh. Shoot myself in the foot. Which works out really good cause newegg has the MSI 250 GTS OC for 99.00 after rebate. And I found a power supply for $65.00. So that means I can keep my PNY hooked up to my water loop, use the air on the MSI since it is double fan, throw in the new power supply, and then add two more fans to my rad for push pull, OC my X2 chip and I am in business, till at least December, when the next wave of GPU's come out and I am ready to build a new one. Not bad, for $150.00. And I just bought a copy cat set of Corsair DDR500 (1GB*2) on ebay for under $25.00. To take me up to 4GB.

So that will get me by for now. Until I am done with the build for my son. Then I will go all out for a new one for me, and turn this old one into a media center, and home file server.

Thanks all, sorry about the confusion.
 
a 3800 X2 would already severely limit a single gts250 and will laughably bottleneck two of them in sli. not only is the gpu power way too much for the 3800 X2, all of that cpu overhead associated with sli will make that cpu crap itself. depending on the game and settings, you actually have a good chance of getting worse performance with two cards in some cases. even if you oc that 3800 X2 it will still be a very large bottleneck for gts250 sli.
 
cannondale06 said:
a 3800 X2 would already severely limit a single gts250 and will laughably bottleneck two of them in sli. not only is the gpu power way too much for the 3800 X2, all of that cpu overhead associated with sli will make that cpu crap itself. depending on the game and settings, you actually have a good chance of getting worse performance with two cards in some cases. even if you oc that 3800 X2 it will still be a very large bottleneck for gts250 sli.
Click to expand...

So let me get this right, and I hope someone else can chime in. I will also post in the general hardware to see if I can get some more on it.

If I wanted to add another GTS 250 in SLI, and GAIN PERFORMANCE I need to pretty much upgrade my CPU and the MOBO and the MEMORY? So pretty much a whole new system, there really isn't anyway of squeezing just a little more out of this system?

Actual Specs:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester 2.0GHz Socket 939 Dual-Core Processor.
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard.
CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 500 (PC 4000) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory.
PNY GTS 250 1GB 356 bit GPU.

I was gonna just pick up two more used 2x1GB memory sticks, throw them in the two open channels and that would take me to the board max. When I had this chip OC'd years ago, I was getting 2.8 stable enough to game with. Then throw in another 250 GTS card and I would be in good shape.

IF I CAN'T do it, then looks like this old dog, has seen its days of gaming, and will be heading to the file server retirement home :cool:

So let me know what you think, Can I squeeze a little more out of her?
 
CustomModAddict said:
So let me get this right, and I hope someone else can chime in. I will also post in the general hardware to see if I can get some more on it.

If I wanted to add another GTS 250 in SLI, and GAIN PERFORMANCE I need to pretty much upgrade my CPU and the MOBO and the MEMORY? So pretty much a whole new system, there really isn't anyway of squeezing just a little more out of this system?

Actual Specs:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester 2.0GHz Socket 939 Dual-Core Processor.
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard.
CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 500 (PC 4000) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory.
PNY GTS 250 1GB 356 bit GPU.

I was gonna just pick up two more used 2x1GB memory sticks, throw them in the two open channels and that would take me to the board max. When I had this chip OC'd years ago, I was getting 2.8 stable enough to game with. Then throw in another 250 GTS card and I would be in good shape.

IF I CAN'T do it, then looks like this old dog, has seen its days of gaming, and will be heading to the file server retirement home :cool:

So let me know what you think, Can I squeeze a little more out of her?
Click to expand...
even at 2.8 your A64 X2 cpu would be pretty poky for gts250 sli. the sli overhead alone while using that cpu will eat up a bit of the potential performance of that setup. depending on your resolution, the performance gained could end up being very little in many games. if you are at 1920 then it would probably be worth it but you still will not come close to fully pushing a gts250 sli setup.
 
CustomModAddict said:
So let me get this right, and I hope someone else can chime in. I will also post in the general hardware to see if I can get some more on it.

If I wanted to add another GTS 250 in SLI, and GAIN PERFORMANCE I need to pretty much upgrade my CPU and the MOBO and the MEMORY? So pretty much a whole new system, there really isn't anyway of squeezing just a little more out of this system?

Actual Specs:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester 2.0GHz Socket 939 Dual-Core Processor.
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard.
CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 500 (PC 4000) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory.
PNY GTS 250 1GB 356 bit GPU.

I was gonna just pick up two more used 2x1GB memory sticks, throw them in the two open channels and that would take me to the board max. When I had this chip OC'd years ago, I was getting 2.8 stable enough to game with. Then throw in another 250 GTS card and I would be in good shape.

IF I CAN'T do it, then looks like this old dog, has seen its days of gaming, and will be heading to the file server retirement home :cool:

So let me know what you think, Can I squeeze a little more out of her?
Click to expand...

There is no way that CPU can handle two GTS250's in SLI.

I ran a 3800+ X2 with a GTS250 once and it bottlenecked it by about 40%. I couldn't have even imagined adding a second.

As cannondale06 said, adding a second may actually decrease your performance.

No OC in the world is going to save you with that cpu.

I'm sorry to say, you need to upgrade your CPU+mobo+RAM if you want to have any kind of performance gain. Hell, just doing that will unlock the remaining potential of your existing GTS250.

The X2's are about 5 years old now, so OCing isn't going to help. However, going to to an AM3 board will really help you if you are on a budget, especially with X4 processors.

btw, forget about throwing more memory at that board, DDR is way overpriced since it is older memory, and adding all four slots with memory will bring it down from PC3200 to PC2700 speeds (though this will have little performance impact overall).

Bottom line, save your money on a new setup, then focus on a second GPU.
 
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