A8N32 SLI Deluxe - 8800 GTX Running SLI

I have two 8800 GTXs, one is an EVGA and the other is BFG.
I have them installed in a Asus A8N32 SLI Deluxe motherboard.
They are connected together using the Asus sli ribbon connector.
I have SLI enbled in the Nvidia control panel and am using the 8800
series 97.02 drivers.When I run 3DMark06 I only get 8600 as a score.
With a single card I get around 8200. In games I get the same increase.
Also the ribbon connector is connected to the two brackets at the part
of the cards closest to the dvi . I look in the Asus manuel and I can't find
any reference to a special bios setting for running sli. Cpu is an AMD 4400
dual core
Anybody have this combo and have good results or is anyone running these .
cards in sli ?
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks

"Reggie Hillier" wrote in message
news:X7r9h.162$Hp3.134@clgrps13...
I have two 8800 GTXs, one is an EVGA and the other is BFG.
I have them installed in a Asus A8N32 SLI Deluxe motherboard.
They are connected together using the Asus sli ribbon connector.
I have SLI enbled in the Nvidia control panel and am using the 8800
series 97.02 drivers.When I run 3DMark06 I only get 8600 as a score.
With a single card I get around 8200. In games I get the same increase.
Also the ribbon connector is connected to the two brackets at the part
of the cards closest to the dvi . I look in the Asus manuel and I can't
find
any reference to a special bios setting for running sli. Cpu is an AMD
4400 dual core
Anybody have this combo and have good results or is anyone running these .
cards in sli ?
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks

This is just my first thought and I have no evidence to support my theory:

Could it be that the A8N-SLis BIOS is seeing two different BIOS on the
graphic cards and deciding SLi operation is not possible?

I am not familiar with either of the cards you have but I seem to recall
reading somewhere that the cards must be identical, which yours I assume are
not.

Hope this may help you,

Don.

What resolution are the games running ?

"Reggie Hillier" wrote in message
news:X7r9h.162$Hp3.134@clgrps13...
I have two 8800 GTXs, one is an EVGA and the other is BFG.
I have them installed in a Asus A8N32 SLI Deluxe motherboard.
They are connected together using the Asus sli ribbon connector.
I have SLI enbled in the Nvidia control panel and am using the 8800
series 97.02 drivers.When I run 3DMark06 I only get 8600 as a score.
With a single card I get around 8200. In games I get the same increase.
Also the ribbon connector is connected to the two brackets at the part
of the cards closest to the dvi . I look in the Asus manuel and I can't
find
any reference to a special bios setting for running sli. Cpu is an AMD
4400 dual core
Anybody have this combo and have good results or is anyone running these .
cards in sli ?
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks

Found out my problem....
I was running it at 1024x768....when I run it at 1600x1200 I get almost the
same score.
Probably need a faster cpu. I checked the fill rate and with sli enabled I
am getting almost
2x the fill rate. So it is working but cpu is bottlenecking it with such
fast cards.


"Skybuck Flying" wrote in message
...
What resolution are the games running ?

"Reggie Hillier" wrote in message
news:X7r9h.162$Hp3.134@clgrps13...
I have two 8800 GTXs, one is an EVGA and the other is BFG.
I have them installed in a Asus A8N32 SLI Deluxe motherboard.
They are connected together using the Asus sli ribbon connector.
I have SLI enbled in the Nvidia control panel and am using the 8800
series 97.02 drivers.When I run 3DMark06 I only get 8600 as a score.
With a single card I get around 8200. In games I get the same increase.
Also the ribbon connector is connected to the two brackets at the part
of the cards closest to the dvi . I look in the Asus manuel and I can't
find
any reference to a special bios setting for running sli. Cpu is an AMD
4400 dual core
Anybody have this combo and have good results or is anyone running these
.
cards in sli ?
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks

Hi,

Your test sounded interesting so I also downloaded 3DMark2006 basic edition.

Euhm I think I tried a previous version in the past but was unhappy with it.
Or maybe it was system mark or something.

Anyway this version was really nice and handy and no bull****.

Just fixed settings and such.

And the graphics were pretty beautifull as well... highly recommended for
computer shops to show off their computers

Unfortunately I can not simply copy & paste the results so I will have to
type it in

Some system info:

X2 Dual Core 3800+
Two GTX 7900 512 MB ram, sli enabled.
Cooling and Quiet on.
Power scheme, minimal power management.

Here are the results:

7202 3D Marks

SM2.0 Sco 3132
HDR/SM3.0 Sco 3707
CPU Sco 1522

So your score of 8600 seems reasonable.

However you also did a single card test.

I haven't done that yet.

I will do that to lol and report back later

Thanks for sharing and what a nice tool lol.

Bye,
Skybuck =D

Well I just ran another 3DMark 2006 basic edition test with only one GTX
7900 card:

Here are the result:

SM2.0 Sco 2600
HDR/SM3.0 Sco 2499
CPU Sco 1525

Well if my calculations are not mistaken the secondary card delivers:

34% more score points in 3DMark2006 basic edition, what that means

Overall during the demo tests it was hardly noticeable if there was one or
two cards being used expect for a little bit screen tearing when things got
though, and a little bit slow down but not much.

Also keep in mind this tool only tests at a lower resolution: 1280x1024

I game at: 1600x1200 or 1920x1200 depending on if the game supports
1920x1200 or not

Maybe a secondary card delivers more performance benefit in those high
resolutions...

But 3DMark2006 basic edition doesn't allow to change the resolution so it
only tests at 1280x1024.

My LCD monitor confirmed this by setting the scaling to one on one and the
resolution become tiny centered on the screen, which proves the lower
resolution being tested.

All in all it was a quite interesting test.

I do hope that I can watch the other demos as well fully with this program
because so far I have only seen the space marines demo in full and the other
demos I only saw shortly during the test which doesn't completely show the
demos... The end premature. But I doubt it Or maybe the demo being
loaded/played is random that could be too... but it doesnt matter really,
the main point is the "benchmark" test

I have seen better graphics in games though... but this test is also quite
impressive but also a bit dull graphically... even more details could be
added. Quake 4 had waaayy more details as well as Call of Juarez games.

Not sure why the framerates are about 30 in this demo program. I suspect is
the cpu code which could be slow.. or maybe many crappy objects on the
screen where the triangles have not be optimized etc... or maybe it's the
light effects which slow things down... all I am saying is I get much higher
frames in games which also look better to me at least and even higher
resolutions too !

Anyway.. the airship demo was the most beautifull, with the dragon swimming
underwater and then coming out of the water and trying to eat the airship...
also the firefly demo was nice... the freeze demo was a bit dull as well as
the space marines demo... especially the backgrounds a bit dull, also the
backgrounds of the airship demo could use some more details and objects
such...

All in all not too shabby lol.

I do like the big dragon rising out of the water and jumping over the
airship... it looks great on a big/widescreen monitor =D BIG DRAGON
skipping/jumping over pretty BIG AIRSHIP =D LOL.

Bye,
Skybuck

"Skybuck Flying" wrote in message
...
Hi,

Your test sounded interesting so I also downloaded 3DMark2006 basic
edition.

Euhm I think I tried a previous version in the past but was unhappy with
it. Or maybe it was system mark or something.

Anyway this version was really nice and handy and no bull****.

Just fixed settings and such.

And the graphics were pretty beautifull as well... highly recommended for
computer shops to show off their computers

Unfortunately I can not simply copy & paste the results so I will have to
type it in

Some system info:

X2 Dual Core 3800+
Two GTX 7900 512 MB ram, sli enabled.
Cooling and Quiet on.
Power scheme, minimal power management.

Here are the results:

7202 3D Marks

SM2.0 Sco 3132
HDR/SM3.0 Sco 3707
CPU Sco 1522

So your score of 8600 seems reasonable.

However you also did a single card test.

I haven't done that yet.

I will do that to lol and report back later

Thanks for sharing and what a nice tool lol.

Bye,
Skybuck =D

Hmm I just noticed something.

3DMark2006 system information does not detect that there are two graphics
cards in my system

I just re-enabled SLI and restart 3DMark2006 but it doesn't mention that
there are two graphics cards

That probably doesn't matter for the test though... the operating
system/drivers take care of SLI

Bye,
Skybuck.

I also submitted my saved report to their website stuff... however it
complained I was not using approved drivers.

The most interesting bit of information is that their fastest recorded
system also had a GTX 7900 but a intel core 2 extreme 6800 processor with a
total score which was double that of mine lol.

So that's interesting however I can not see the full specification of that
system so for now it sounds to good to be true but I am reading up on this
new processor

Kinda interesting.

Bye,
Skybuck

"Don" wrote in message
...

"Reggie Hillier" wrote in message
news:X7r9h.162$Hp3.134@clgrps13...
I have two 8800 GTXs, one is an EVGA and the other is BFG.
I have them installed in a Asus A8N32 SLI Deluxe motherboard.
They are connected together using the Asus sli ribbon connector.
I have SLI enbled in the Nvidia control panel and am using the 8800
series 97.02 drivers.When I run 3DMark06 I only get 8600 as a score.
With a single card I get around 8200. In games I get the same increase.
Also the ribbon connector is connected to the two brackets at the part
of the cards closest to the dvi . I look in the Asus manuel and I can't
find
any reference to a special bios setting for running sli. Cpu is an AMD
4400 dual core
Anybody have this combo and have good results or is anyone running these
.
cards in sli ?
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks

This is just my first thought and I have no evidence to support my theory:

Could it be that the A8N-SLis BIOS is seeing two different BIOS on the
graphic cards and deciding SLi operation is not possible?

I am not familiar with either of the cards you have but I seem to recall
reading somewhere that the cards must be identical, which yours I assume
are not.

Hope this may help you,

Don.

All of the above is certain proof that I spout absolute ******** at the
flick of a switch.

Don

"Reggie Hillier" wrote in message
news:OOs9h.729$uj6.307@edtnps89...
Found out my problem....
I was running it at 1024x768....when I run it at 1600x1200 I get almost
the same score.
Probably need a faster cpu. I checked the fill rate and with sli enabled
I am getting almost
2x the fill rate. So it is working but cpu is bottlenecking it with such
fast cards.

Use nvflash and flash both cards to the same video bios if you feel brave.
But yeah you are maybe cpu limited.