Monitors and Graphics and SLI, oh my.
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And my other question is... is SLI as simple as "use both of the graphics cards together as one for improved performance" or will the SLI implementation from a current board be much better/faster than one from say 4-6 years ago? That will heavily affect my decision I spose.
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just
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LOL - one of my 1680 x 1050 monitors just died and I'm only now upgrading to dual 1920 x 1080.
@creayt what size are those monitors?
Do you find yourself having problems with certain apps running at that resolution?
For example on my Yoga 2 Pro 3200 x 1800, things like VirtualBox look like hell and have tiny screens - I realize it's because the program isn't written to scale with windows, but damn it's annoying.
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@Dashrender said:
LOL - one of my 1680 x 1050 monitors just died and I'm only now upgrading to dual 1920 x 1080.
@creayt what size are those monitors?
Do you find yourself having problems with certain apps running at that resolution?
For example on my Yoga 2 Pro 3200 x 1800, things like VirtualBox look like hell and have tiny screens - I realize it's because the program isn't written to scale with windows, but damn it's annoying.
They're all 27", 2560x1440s. Here's the link to them:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00P0EQD1Q?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s01
Haven't had any issues w/ resolution. Because they're so huge even small text is very easy to read from far away, that's actually why I chose these. I ordered a 27 and a 24" at the same resolution ( same quality, same Dell Ultrasharp line ) and used them side by side, the 24" was just slightly too small to read a lot of smaller text comfortably, the 27 was perfect. This is by far the best monitor I've ever had, and the thin bezels are pretty epic.
The reason there are no resolution issues is that at the screen's native resolution you can still use normal ( 100% ) scaling. On laptop resolutions above 1920x1080 you have to use Windows scaling to dynamically make text larger for it to be readable, which screws with SO MANY APPS that I can't use laptops like that on Windows ( OS X handles it much better except... is too slow to be usable ), so I always opt for a 1080p laptop screen.
Totally with you on that. The text scaling in Windows just kills my experience.
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OK to rich for my blood.. those are pretty sweet though.
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@Dashrender said:
OK to rich for my blood.. those are pretty sweet though.
They are pretty pricey. Not nearly as bad as the 27" 1200p ones I got about 6 years ago, which were in the $1,000 a piece range though. Also you can get these refurbished for $420, but still, I agree. Very spensive stuffs. My monitors, when I'm done w/ this setups, will have cost way more than the workstation that runs them.
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Return / sell the 970 for 2x 960's? You don't really need SLI if you're not gaming either - $0.02
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@MattSpeller said:
Return / sell the 970 for 2x 960's? You don't really need SLI if you're not gaming either - $0.02
Are you saying you can run 2x GTXs without SLI? That'd be fine for me. If so, do I just distribute the monitors evenly across the two cards and they operate independently? I didn't know you could do that. That sound amazing.
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@MattSpeller said:
Return / sell the 970 for 2x 960's? You don't really need SLI if you're not gaming either - $0.02
Unrelated: I'm going to be digging into developing for Oculus soon and the minimum requirement is a 970, so I have to stick w/ at least one of those.
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HMMMMMM. This:
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/sli/faq
Says SLI, even quad SLI, supports a max of 2 monitors. So it sounds like SLI is the opposite of what I need
![😕](https://mangolassi.it/assets/plugins/nodebb-plugin-emoji/emoji/android/1f615.png?v=3hrg7a1ige4 ":\")
Since I don't need SLI I wonder if I can just run a 2nd 970 ( in case I ever do get into gaming and want SLI ) in the PCIe 2 16 slot and run a monitor or two through it.
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@creayt or just a generic card to give you more monitors, not sure if you'd see a benefit from another 970?? This is quickly heading outside what I know about.
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@MattSpeller said:
@creayt or just a generic card to give you more monitors, not sure if you'd see a benefit from another 970?? This is quickly heading outside what I know about.
I think you're right, in fact there's a note on that SLI page about when you do have 2 identical cards that support SLI about not being able to use a 2nd or 3rd in any way BUT SLI. So close call if that's true. Thx.
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Isn't the whole point of SLI to take all that horsepower and show it on one, maybe two screens?
You can put something like 6 video cards into a windows 7 machine and hand as many monitors off of each as they each individually handle. and make one honkin' desktop!
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@Dashrender said:
Isn't the whole point of SLI to take all that horsepower ...
This much I know to be true. I'm not sure about the rest.
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@Dashrender said:
Isn't the whole point of SLI to take all that horsepower and show it on one, maybe two screens?
You can put something like 6 video cards into a windows 7 machine and hand as many monitors off of each as they each individually handle. and make one honkin' desktop!
As far as I know, yes, as well as a few other benefits. My concern is that
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I'd like to get a 2nd identical graphics card in case I do want to SLI on my next build and reuse the cards
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The NVidia SLI page says:
which to me may mean that you can only run 2 identical cards in SLI, which isn't what I want to do and my mobo doesn't support it. So now I'm trying to get a definitive answer because: Restocking Fees.
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@creayt save some cash and just use a cheap POS now, then get your SLI card later when prices drop (970's are astronomical still, mine was cheaper on launch day than they are today by +10%)
Edit: upon further thought, that might be due to the $CDN falling like a rock vs $USD
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$100, no fan, 1x DVI, HDMI, DP
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500356
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@creayt said:
which to me may mean that you can only run 2 identical cards in SLI,
this is my understanding as well - they must be identical.
But if you are using any in SLI, you probably have to use them all in SLI if they are all the same. But, if you wanted to SLI 2 cards (it'd be silly to try to SLI 1 card
) you should be able to install different cards and add more monitors. -
I believe that SLI must always be identical, yes.
