Installing a new Graphics Card

[keynes]

I was under the impression that as long as its the same model of NVidia card, you could SLI two cards with different amounts of VRAM, but it will then only make use of the lesser amount of VRAM.

Yes but it is not recommended and you need to use Coolbits to "force both of the cards to use the lower of the two memory sizes and operate them together in SLI mode"
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/sli/faq#c19

[vanthus]

Yes but it is not recommended and you need to use Coolbits to "force both of the cards to use the lower of the two memory sizes and operate them together in SLI mode"
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/sli/faq#c19

Coolbits was meant for older GPUs, you can SLI modern GPU's that have different vram,
the driver will automatically use the lesser amount of VRAM as Rakk said.

[Rakk]

Yes but it is not recommended

Hehe, yeah, I was just wanting clarification on baron's post cos I was pretty convinced you could SLI them, even if not recommended

[keynes]

Coolbits was meant for older GPUs, you can SLI modern GPU's that have different vram,
the driver will automatically use the lesser amount of VRAM as Rakk said.

Thanks for the clarification

[baron75mk2]

Coolbits was meant for older GPUs, you can SLI modern GPU's that have different vram,
the driver will automatically use the lesser amount of VRAM as Rakk said.

Not on a modern card as the driver will NOT allow it . Nvidia states this , its only radeons drivers that will allow it to use the lesser amount of ram on modern GPUs

Coolbits will only work for older Pre 2009 drivers

Unless you know some way of using a pre-2009 driver for a 2012 line of nvidia GPUs ?


Stop disagreeing with me all the time just for the sake of it - without having the facts to hand

[Rakk]

Stop disagreeing with me all the time just for the sake of it - without having the facts to hand

People are not disagreeing with you just for the sake of it, during my lunchbreak (which is now about over), I've found numerous (recent) threads showing that it can seemingly be done (though obviously not fully supported by NVidia).
So it really depends on which forums/threads you read as to what you find.

[Gorman]

From my experience.

Will a modern nvid gpu SLI with two different amounts of VRAM? Yup.

Will the driver allow it, latest release that is? Yup.

What amount of VRAM will be availiable? The smaller amount of the two cards.

Is it supported by Nvidia? Nope.

[baron75mk2]

People are not disagreeing with you just for the sake of it, during my lunchbreak (which is now about over), I've found numerous (recent) threads showing that it can seemingly be done (though obviously not fully supported by NVidia).
So it really depends on which forums/threads you read as to what you find.

Ill say it again post 2009 Nvidia drivers will not allow it not even with coolbits - nvidia enforced this in the drivers , but hey go ahead get two 680s one with 2gb & one with 4gb & good luck getting them to work when NVIDIA has purposely blocked it in the driver even when trying to use coolbits , being this little tag team you two have seem to know better than nvidia do.

[Gorman]

Ill say it again post 2009 Nvidia drivers will not allow it not even with coolbits - nvidia enforced this in the drivers , but hey go ahead get two 680s one with 2gb & one with 4gb & good luck getting them to work when NVIDIA has purposely blocked it in the driver even when trying to use coolbits , being this little tag team you two have seem to know better than nvidia do.

ok.

[Gorman]

And the result is in. SLI no worky worky.

2GB 680 and 4GB 680, Choose Physx card, no SLI options on standard 30whatever driver.

Can probably be hacked / has a workaround but as it stands Baron called it correctly.

Proven with science.