Vista x64, nForce 790i and SLI - Feedback

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Grimmwor

Weaksauce
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Feb 3, 2007
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Over the past year or so, it seems like I've read countless accounts of people struggling to get sli working stably on Vista.

I run Vista x64 ultimate. I recently picked up an XFX 790i ultra motherboard and I currently have one BFG GeForce 8800GTX. I am considering picking up a second 8800GTX to run in SLI, but before I do so, I'd like to hear some of the experiences people have had with SLI on Vista x64. I am particularly interested in hearing peoples experiences that have the most current nVidia chipset and video drivers installed.

By the way, I have a QX9650 cpu and 4 gb (2 sticks) of DDR3 Patriot ram. If I were to get the second video card for SLI, I would be looking at the Ultra X3 ULT40064 1000-Watt Power Supply. If you can recommend a better/alternate power supply, I would love to hear that as well. It must be modular and have four 6 Pin PCI-Express Connectors.

Thanks in advance for your time!
 
See my sig rig, we have very similar systems. I've not had any trouble with my 9800GX2, though its SLI in one slot, though I have heard of problems with single 9800GX2's on 790 motherboards. As for PSU, the Galaxy is great and well respected thought the retention tab on the 6+2 pin plugs doesn't fit the 9800GX2 so I had to cut it off, not really a big deal.

I'm planning to go dual SLI GTX 280's next week and use the same PSU, though I have thought about the Corsiar 1kW, its be well liked. I;m going to have order another modular cable for the Galaxy as only has two 6+2 and one 6 pin plugs standard.

Hope that helps!
 
Anyone running two 8800gtx cards with vista x64 ultimate on a 790i ultra chipset?
 
heatlesssun said:
See my sig rig, we have very similar systems. I've not had any trouble with my 9800GX2, though its SLI in one slot, though I have heard of problems with single 9800GX2's on 790 motherboards. As for PSU, the Galaxy is great and well respected thought the retention tab on the 6+2 pin plugs doesn't fit the 9800GX2 so I had to cut it off, not really a big deal.

I'm planning to go dual SLI GTX 280's next week and use the same PSU, though I have thought about the Corsiar 1kW, its be well liked. I;m going to have order another modular cable for the Galaxy as only has two 6+2 and one 6 pin plugs standard.

Hope that helps!
Click to expand...

I didn't have a problem with my Galaxy 1000W and a 9800GX2
 
I've had it up to 4.2 Ghz stable on watercooling, but I usually run it at 3.6 Ghz for day to day processing and gaming
 
I upgraded to a second 8800GTX in December. Been having lockup issues with video playback since. I have tried everything I could possibly imagine to resolve the lockups, have been contacting EVGA for nearly 6 months now. Originally I was using a Striker Extreme. A few weeks ago I replaced it with an EVGA 790i. I can't really fault the board more than the Striker, they both are rock solid with SLI disabled, and I cannot make either fail prime95 or memtest, despite 30+ hours of intensive testing with both. Turn SLI on and switching video to full screen and back or seeking around in video files eventually leads to a hard lock. Alt-tabbing in and out of 3d games with SLI enabled seems to destabilize the system too. If I disable SLI to watch videos and don't alt-tab I seem to be ok stability wise. I haven't done alot of overclocking, been mainly trying to get things 100 percent stable first at stock, but I was able to get 1333 fsb and 3.2 Ghz with everything on auto and poor airflow, haven't pushed things much further than that. In my opinion, either the SLI platform or drivers are still not ready for prime time. At this point I have swapped out everything except for my RAID card and array, and CPU, and nothing makes things stable. Performance improvements with SLI enabled are significant on games that properly suport it though, I can run AoC with settings on high with 4xfsaa, and bloom turned on at 2560x1600 no sweat, with SLI off those settings are unplayable.

System is as follows:

Core 2 Quad 6700
EVGA 790i
Corsair 2x2GB TW3X4G1600C9DHX
2xEVGA 8800GTX
Areca 1210 SATA RAID
4x74Gb raptors
LG dvd-rw
PC Pwr&Cooling 750 Silencer
Dell 3007wfp-HC
 
I am running a configuration very similar to yours.

Evga 790i ultra
Evga 8800GTX x2
QX9650
8 gigs of DDR3
Vista x64

My setup has been rock solid, played Crysis for several hours this past weekend with no problems. I found that the driver selection is make or break for the the x64 SLI to work right. The latest WHQL drivers from Nvidia do not work, lock ups and the stupid "your video driver has crashed and recovered" error quite frequently. I ended up reading in the guru3d forums and found a consensus that the 174.74 or 174.85 drivers were the best for SLI on x64. That is what I have been using and I have not had a problem, whereas I was having lots of issues with the 175.16 released drivers, and according to what I read most of the beta drivers after that have the same issue.
 
I appreciate all of you support and advice. However, after researching countless forums and reviews all day, I've decided to return my new 790i Ultra board to compusa for full refund and cancel my order with Tigerdirect for a second 8800gtx watercooled edition. I'm sticking with my ASUS Maximus Extreme, which was rock solid. I've never had a single problem with it and haven't tried a game yet that I couldn't play at highest settings with good frame rates with this setup. A few years back when I was building a system I considered and SLI setup, but it seemed like it was hit or miss as far as game support and actual performance gains, and it seems like that hasn't changed in the last few years.
 
Sorry to hear that. I too was struggling about going with the 790 Ultra with all of the bad posts. I really think that a lot of people get these motherboards and simply do not know what they are doing, but of course you want a trouble free system as do we all.

I'll be going SLI 280 next week, so hopefully my trouble freeness continues. Good Luck!
 
I have a 750i FTW and I run SLI just fine in Vista x64. I always keep my Nvidia drivers up to date with the newest beta release.
 
I agree that the 174 drivers you listed are more stable than the 175 releases so far. The full-screen playback and seeking in file lockups with video files/movies I have been able to reproduce with every single driver I have tried going back to 163.19. Games were generally stable with the older drivers, but alt-tabbing in and out of 3d apps seems to destabilize the system some even with the better ones. I have been through 2 motherboards, 3 sets of memory, the board is rock solid when it comes to day to day use and synthetic stability tests. I can even run 3dmark06 looped at 2560x1600 with 16xfsaa for 12+ hours with no problem, but I have never been able to resolve the video playback issues.
 
Not running a 790i, but I'm thinking of grabbing 280s to replace my 8800GTX SLI. (my old 680i also gave no problems running SLI)
I love maxing IQ and SLI allows me to. Other than leaked versions that SLI was broken on, it's been plug and play for me.

Guess I've been lucky when it comes to SLI and hardware.
 
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