[HELP] SLI questions..

[TechTune]

Hey guys!
Again I'm turning to this forum after the great support I've got the last times needing help.. this time however, it's about SLI.
The computer will come prebuilt from the site I ordered from, with no OS, I already have Win7 Pro 64-bit. The questions are as followed..

1. Does It matter which card you connect the monitor to?
2. Does Win7 detect SLI, or does it need to be enabled through win/nvidia UI?
3. Do the cards rely on the "main" RAM at all?
and another one i just thought of..
4. Can I have 2 PC's running the same Win7 key for private use?

Michael

[EDIT] The two cards are PointofView GTX 285

 

[not so gray matter]

1. No I don't think it matters which card yo use. If it does, use the first one, whichever that is.
   
2. It may not detect SLI straight off the bat, but once you install NVIDIA drivers SLI should work.
   
   

   All you have to do to enter the NVIDIA control panel is right click in the empty space on your desktop and select the NVIDIA control panel there. Once you open the NVIDIA control panel you will see a screen like the image below. You will want to click the icon for 3D Settings.
   
   After you open the 3D Settings box (see below), you will see a link that says Set SLI Configuration on the screen under a bar labeled performance. Click the link to enter the Set SLI Configuration area.
   If your settings already show Enable SLI Technology selected, you don't have to go any further.
   If your settings show Do Not Use SLI Technology, you will need to click the button beside the link labeled Enable SLI Technology. Once you click the enable button a box will appear in the bottom right corner of the screen that says "Apply", you will need to click that apply button to save the settings and enable SLI.

3. All video cards rely on main ram a little bit, but dedicated video memory is so much faster than sharing the main ram that it's not much to consider IMO.
   
4. Not that I know of. In fact, when you enter your cd key it gets fused to your motherboard and cpu. If you upgrade your motherboard, you've got to call up MS and tell them this so that you can get your key released. There are two types of keys, one is OEM, the one that locks onto a machine, the other doesn't but I can't remember the name.

 

[Zen00]

1. No, as long as it's set as the primary.
2. I believe you have to enable it through the software given by the manufacturer.
3. Not really, they should have their own.
4. No. If you try to activate it on both computers, it will deactivate the other one.

Sniped.

 

[archie123]

1 No

2 You will need to make sure its enabled in the respective driver control panel (either ATI ((crossfire)) or NVidia ((sli)) ) also not all games support sli , your will be better of selecting or creating an sli profile for your games in the control panel (driver control panel)

3 depends what you mean by "rely". It most certainly needs it . The main ram is utilised when gaming for example , holding information for the GPU , the cpu can communicate directly with the gpu nowadays bypassing the system ram , but only to tell the gpu what to do with the stuff thats in the system memory and its own frame buffer...............if that makes any sense ha ha . hte video ram stores (buffers) info from the system ram and it can process this informatin much faster , the more onboard gpu ram the more it can hold in the frame buffer and the faster it can draw the info (this is all relative of course , putting 1GB of ram on an 8800gt for example is like giving a fish a bicycle )

4 not legally , also when you try to activate the copy on the second pc it will know the key is already in use

 

[Everlong]

Hey guys!
Again I'm turning to this forum after the great support I've got the last times needing help.. this time however, it's about SLI.
The computer will come prebuilt from the site I ordered from, with no OS, I already have Win7 Pro 64-bit. The questions are as followed..

1. Does It matter which card you connect the monitor to?
2. Does Win7 detect SLI, or does it need to be enabled through win/nvidia UI?
3. Do the cards rely on the "main" RAM at all?
and another one i just thought of..
4. Can I have 2 PC's running the same Win7 key for private use?

Michael

[EDIT] The two cards are PointofView GTX 285

1) The monitor must be connected to the card in the first PCI-E slot when SLI is enabled. The card in the secondary PCI-E slot has its output ports disabled, so no monitor will be able to be connected to this card.

2) You need the Nvidia drivers installed for SLI to be detected. Once the drivers are installed, you will get a notification saying you have an SLI capable system and will let you enable SLI in the Nvidia Control Panel.

3) They don't rely on it, but will use it if the video card RAM is being heavily used. Remember though with SLI, you don't double your video RAM with your graphic cards, you still only have the amount of RAM that's on your primary video card.

4) Like what's been said, you can only use one product key per computer.

 

[archie123]

1) The monitor must be connected to the card in the first PCI-E slot when SLI is enabled. The card in the secondary PCI-E slot has its output ports disabled, so no monitor will be able to be connected to this card.

^^^^ yes sorry it doesnt matter which card but it must be the one you choose as your primary card , try setting the top card with the b ottom one doing slightly less work it might keep the temps lower in the primary (top card) ((heat rises)) thats just a theory of mine

 

[TechTune]

This forum is amazing, fast and reliable! Thanks guys, again..
Oh, and another question, since I can't see inside the PC will the first PCI-E slot be the one on top?

Michael

 

[Zen00]

It's usually the one closest to the top of the case, yes.

 

[TechTune]

Thanks Zen00