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SLI Boost

Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2011 5:38 pm
by Lawndart
Just installed a second EVGA GTX 460 (850MHz core clock, 4,000MHz effective memory clock, 336 streaming cores each).

NVIDIA Control Panel settings:
Ambient Occlusion: Quality
Anisotropic filtering: 16x
Anitaliasing - Gamma correction: On
Antialiasing - Mode: Override any application setting
Antialiasing - Setting: SLI 64x CSAA
Antialiasing - Transparency: 8x (supersample)
CUDA - GPUs: All
Maximum pre-rendered frames: 8
Multi-display/mixed-GPU acceleration: Single display performance mode
Power management mode: Prefer maximum performance
SLI rendering mode: NVIDIA recommended
Texture filtering - Anisotropic sample optimization: Off
Texture filtering - Negative LOD bias: Clamp
Texture filtering - Quality: High Quality
Texture filtering - Trilinear optimization: On
Threaded optimization: On
Triple buffering: On
Vertical sync: Use the 3D application setting


So far I'm seeing about a 50% increase in fps in most games with the settings above, which isn't saying that much since I was running ~60 fps maxed out on a single GTX 460 before (i7 950 @ 3.06Ghz, X58 mobo, 12GB DDR3). DCS: A-10C still runs about the same though (~40 fps in cockpit, but jumps to ~90 fps without the cockpit).

In Black Ops when I played with the settings above (everything maxed out) I never saw frames below ~90 fps a single time, even in the most intense battles and explosions. I'm sure I could easily keep over 100 fps if I backed off some of the higher-end settings a little.

I'm hoping I'll be able to run BF3 and MW3 cranked later this fall! 8)

I'm also curious if there will be a noticable difference in rendering times with two GPUs. It was pretty zippy before when rendering progressive scan 1080p footage. We shall see...

Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2011 7:41 pm
by Thumper
Can you post a link to the card that you purchased? I just browsed through the available cards on Newegg and I don't see any that have the core clock listed at 850 MHz.

Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2011 7:58 pm
by Lawndart
Search for: EVGA GTX 460 SSC (01G-P3-1380-KR) on Amazon. They just lowered the price on that card an additional $10 since last week.

The SSC has the same 850MHz clock speed as the FTW, which by the way is no longer sold (although there is a FTW EE version with external exhaust).

Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2011 11:31 pm
by Thumper
I am looking at this one on Newegg that is identical to the one in my "slow" machine:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814130571

$175.99 with free shipping and a $20.00 MIR.

Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2011 12:05 am
by Lawndart
The SSC model number I listed in my last post has the higher clock speed, and was $169.99 on Amazon with free S&H and a $20 MIB, today.

You can mix different cards within the same series, i.e. "400", and they'll run at the speed of the slower card. If you should later decide to combine it with your higher-end EVGA GTX 460 FTW in SLI instead, you'd get a little more "umph" than with the Superclocked version from Newegg you're looking at.

Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 5:31 pm
by Lawndart
So, I changed (lowered) some of the NVIDIA Control Panel settings:
Anisotropic filtering: 4x
Antialiasing - Setting: 4x CSAA
Maximum pre-rendered frames: 3


Huge boost in DCS: A-10C. Full cockpit, shadows and mirrors on - never saw less than ~60 fps (even on takeoff), often times well over 100 fps. Quality looks great still, and the smoothness unmatched. To be fair, I don't really see any difference in using 3 pre-rendered frames vs. 8 like I do in other games. Could be that the CPU is simply keeping up with the demand as it is, hence why fps remain constant whereas smoothness is increased with a higher number. As usually is the case, AA has the greatest impact. In the end I think I'll probably go back to AF 16x and AA 16x CSAA and call it a happy medium. I still average framerates close to my screen's refresh rate even at those settings.