Do cards in SLI have to be EXACTLY the same?

thewahlrus

thewahlrus

New Member
I have a single 8800GTS from BFG bfgr88640gtse, and was thinking of getting another one to put in SLI but they seem to be scarce. I guess they were replaced by the BFGR88640GTSOCE which looks the same but is "overclocked by 50 mhz. Could I buy one and use it in SLI with my first card? I have it running at 585/850 now. Everything on the cards seem comprable. Any thoughts? I've had this card for a couple of weeks and it kicks so much booty I want another one.
 
From my understanding the cards had to be identical, the brands is where you had leeway.
 
from wikipedia

"Cards from two separate retail companies will work together in SLI mode, but they must be the same GPU model (e.g. G70, G73, G80, etc). The cards may have different BIOS revisions, different default clock speeds, or even different memory sizes. However, the fastest card - or the card with more memory - will run at the speed of the slower card or disable its additional memory."

This would seem to say I could run those two, since they are both 8800GTS
 
It works now

Not anymore, from what I know all you have to do is update some drivers and I'm not sure about this one but I think you need a bios update and then you could put both together (nice cards by the way) if you put both together the overclocked one will slow down to match the speed of the card you have now, if you want both cards to perform at the higher level you could overclock the one you have now provided you will void your warranty by doing so, well thats what I would do :)
 
yeah

BFG just emailed me back saying it would be fine but the overclocked one would slow down to meet the other one.

Cool, I just ordered it from the egg. Can't wait. I'm going to set my monitor on fire!
 
Good point.
No that I think of it, you can get the 640 MB one for slightly less thatn $400, so $300 for the 320 kind of sucks.
 
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