How to Set Up SLI

We had discussed about the benefits of SLI some time back, now let us see how to set up SLI. At the moment, only Intel’s Tumwater and NVIDIA’s nForce 4 chipsets are SLI certified (amongst the reliable ones). So, let us see how to set up SLI using Gigabyte’s GA-K8NXP-SLI, with the help of a pair of NVIDIA 6800GT cards.

SLI Setup Details

The installation process for SLI closely resembles that of an ordinary graphic card. And, all that you need to do is to follow a couple of extra steps.

Firstly, the PCIe lane changing mechanism has to be followed and the SLI side should be placed into the slot. This will in turn enable the second PCIe graphics slot.

Now, you should insert the two graphics into each slot by hooking up the extra power connectors as necessary. Remember, two cards must be kept on separate external power rails for ensuring that a huge draw never occurs on a particular rail.

Next, the bridge piece needs to be connected over each of MIO connectors. You should be able to see two slots named as SLI_1 and SLI_2. You need to insert the corresponding cables (depending upon your set-up you should decide which slot is SLI_1 and SLI_2).

The latest NVIDIA 66.93 drivers are SLI complaint and in this set-up we’re currently using set of 71.24 from Gigabyte.

Finally, having done all this, you’re almost good to go. The only thing that’s remaining is to enable SLI in driver control panel. Remember, for things to take effect, you must reboot your system, so don’t forget to save your settings.

Yeah, that’s it! You’re good to go now. SLI may have sounded too overwhelming at first, but the set-up process is relatively easy.

Over-Clocking

Having done the SLI set-up, now it is time to take a look at some of the consequences of your hard work. If you consider the over-clocking capabilities even after setting up an SLI set-up, 6800GTs can still be over-clocked to 385 / 1.08 from 350/1.0 pretty easily. Therefore, it clearly indicates that the over-clocking capabilities of the card remain in tact, even after the SLI set-up.

Note: You must remember that only identical pair of video cards must be used while you attempt to set up an SLI, and you can’t combine a 6600GT with 6800GT card.

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