Graphics 5670x1080 res on 780 sli (framerate issues)

I'm running 2 GTX 780s in sli w/ stock clocks
4770k
asus maximus extreme
and 16G ram @ 1866


I use DVI ports
- I use 2 DVI ports from the first card and 1 from my second card as my monitors do not support
display ports and apparently I can not us an HDMI port in an SLI setup.

I have my primary card in slot 1 and secondary in slot 4.
My board has 5 PCI slots
1 - 3.0
2. - 3.0
3. - 2.0
4. - 3.0
5. - 3.0

Installation instructions say to use slots 1 & 3 for dual SLI configs
when doing so my computer would not detect the 2nd card.
In current form it detects registers landscapes everything.

My problem with frames really hit when trying to play max settings with bf3. at certain points, my frames will hit sub 30FPS. Is this a VRAM issue due to cards only having 3G? or is it because of the way I have my cards installed? Does it really matter what slot I place the 2nd card as long as it still registers?

 

Nothing to do with VRAM it's to do with the cards 2 780s are not quick enough to drive bf3 at max settings. Just remove AA will sort it though as you don't need AA at that resolution.

Following the mobo guide for install is usually a good plan as any.

 

That's **** TBH. 2x 780s should destroy that resolution.... (not saying you are wrong saying WTF did I pay so much for **** that can't do what it should)

So now I fork out $500 more for either A) a 3rd 780 or B) sell my 780s, add to it and buy 2 780Tis

EDIT: also, like stated, the computer did not recognize the sli when placed as the manufacturer stated

 

Are all the DIP switches on the Max Extreme (for enabling/disabling the PCI-E slots) in the 'on' position? That's where I'd start for the board not recognising the card in the suggested slot.

Plus - I am not sure that I agree that BF3 should struggle at that resolution on a pair of 780s in SLI...

 

Yeah, the dip switches are on page 1-25 of the manual...

...&, according to this, you 'should' be getting ~73fps with a pair of 780s @ 5760x1080 @ 4AA.

 

780x2 should not struggle with BF3. At any resolution. Any settings.

Have you tried new BIOS? new BETA geforce driver? new chipset driver? any settings in the BIOS that might cap the performance?

 

I have done nothing with the DIP switches. Will look into this later

I get 60+ for the most part. But certain maps or certain areas of maps just KILL my frames

Had a bad experience with BETA drivers w/ my 7970 causing BSODs, vowed never again.
I do however have current WHQL or w/e drivers. not sure how up to date BIOS is

 

ATI BETA is not Nvidia BETA.

Worst i've ever got was that it crashes any kind of 3D game.

If you're talking about flashing BIOS/ROM onto your GPU, now that's something you don't want to take lightly...

Give it a shot with Nvidia BETA. Best place is from nvidia.com itself, but feel free to check out Guru3d.com if you're feeling adventurous...

 

BF3 was tested by users here a while back with everything maxed and forcing 16xaa and was found to need more then 3GB VRAM, it worked fine on the then 680 4GB cards. Very sorry I can not remember who did it. Crysis 2 with HD pack and all maxed same thing both games on a U3011 if memory serves. Have a forum search it should still be accessible.

Sorry got my numbers crossed, but I found it here is the post:

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=227936&highlight=vram

I hope you find some info in there helpful.

Though it should be fine to just step one down from HABO, the lighting effects make a big difference and its nice to have less glare. On my U2711 it made my eyes sore. Since then I hate HABO its just too extreem for me.

 

I was not talking about BIOS/ROM, simply display drivers. I would assume with the cards being out for close to a year now. I think drivers are as good as they are going to be.
If it were a few frames we're talking about then sure, but I'm hitting 15-25 frames with ultra settings. AUTO puts me at mostly medium settings.

This was done on 2560x1600
Understanding that compared to 1920x1080 it's obvious that statement would stand.
I personally am not aware on how that stacks against 5670x1080

 

they were on. tried it again last night and still no detection

 

Seems that BIOS version 0903 works for some users at least with the cards in slots 1 and b2. There is also another BIOS version linked on page 10 (Beta driver?). Full thread can be found here...

http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?37910-In-SLI-Hell-Maximus-VI-Extreme

 

Will check this out later.
Tried again to install the card into the b2 slot and didn't even register.
I'm really wondering why the hell I can't max this bitch out. Will try BIOS but I'm really not sure that having the card in the B2 slot should have this great of an effect.... If it were truly harming or not helping at all, then I should be able to run all 3 monitors simply off one card with the same results. Meaning it would currently be running on only 1 card using the 2nd for pass-through...

EDIT: reading through the posts on that site..... Piss me off.
User suggests that having a sound card in a red slot PCI shuts off the b2 slot.
ASUS' entire reason for not including a good onboard audio card for this board was that they assumed people that buy this board have a good sound card. So... Lets make a design flaw that causes another design flaw? ARE YOU ****ING KIDDING ME? I guess that's why they make the big bucks...

 

Yeah... I know, it seems like ASUS really, REALLY, dropped the ball on this issue if people are having so much trouble running an SLI setup. I'm running an older ASUS P6T mobo and never had any problems running SLI both with 550s and now the 660s. Though the P6T has onboard sound and I'm not running a separate sound card.

I did have an issue where my screen would randomly go black and become unresponsive. Turns out that it had nothing to do with the mobo or the SLI setup. Instead it was a problem with the monitor firmware. Once I updated that, I haven't had a problem since. Took months to figure out the issue, but it's been running great ever since.

 

You hadn't mentioned that you had any other cards attached... ...otherwise i could have answered this from a quick glance at the manual.


Right, so on page 1-20 of your mobo manual it *very* clearly states that "pcie 3.0/2.0_8x_B2 slot will be disabled when pcie 3.0/2.0_8x_3, pcie 3.0/2.0_8x_4 slots are occupied."

Now, as they're using a comma rather than an &/and with the last 2 slots mentioned, this grammatically means that if you stick anything into either of the latter 2 slots listed then you're disabling the slot you're having issues with.


This isn't something that surprises me in the slightest, as unless they made a board with only 16x pcie 3.0 lanes in total (i'm pretty sure, from recollection, that's all the CPU has by default), every motherboard manufacturer creating a Z87 board has to use one or more multiplexers to split the lanes...

...& it's how these are arranged that defines which slots will work together.

Okay, to have four 8x pcie 3.0 slots (using multiplexers) you 'could' only have 4 pcie 3.0 slots, but the extra one gives an extra slot's space for cooling or allowing triple slot cards whilst still being a reasonable distance from the top slot for sli/crossfire...

...& this is clearly advantageous in a 2 card setup - & people/reviewers would rightly complain if they didn't allow the potential for an extra slot's space with a ROG board.


Now, admittedly it 'might' be better if Asus didn't only talk about the slots in terms of gfx cards, as it's completely irrelevant what the cards are, but it's the way they've done it for years with consumer boards.

Well, in one of my ivybridge builds then i've used the patterning in the table to ensure that the slot the raid card's using isn't multiplexed - as the effect from increased latency is far more noticeable with them than it is with gfx cards. indeed for my 'proper' machine, i always buy on the basis of how the pcie lanes are wired.


So, i'd therefore either 'pretend' that the sound card is a gfx card by following the 3-way sli rules, as this is the stated multiplexer pattern for the 3.0 slots that's clearly shown in the table...

...or stick the sound card into the pcie 2.0/1.1_x4_1 slot as it's wired separately (those lanes come from the chipset, not the CPU) so it shouldn't interfere with the standard 2-way sli setup you were trying.


Yeah, if either of those don't work then sure, blame Asus - but otherwise i'd argue that the info was there to be read.

Not that i'm saying that it's not potentially an easy mistake to make or actively trying to be unsympathetic of course, as we can all miss things at times.

 

I will move my sound card to slot 2 and run slots 1&3 for GPU, but I simply don't understand how if it isn't meant to work slots 1-3 then they simply should make it not work at all.
I'm a product design engineer w computers being a sode hobby (learning as best I can for being self taught) and part of designing a product is not leaving what we call a "failure mode"
Not assuming your consumers are completely retarded, but assuming that at one point in time someone who doesn't know what they are doing will end up with your product. How can you design it so even if someone who doesn't know what they are doing and they install it wrong, it doesn't work and prevents **** like me from happening. I know enough to hurt myself and thats about it lol. Simply put, they should have made it so something like this simply wouldn't happen.

But... back to the fact that it does technically run w slot 1& 3 GPUs and slot 4 w sound card.
But I have HUGE frame rate drops when trying to run bf3 on high or ultra. High drops to 38-55 and ultra is unplayable. Granted I consider anything under 50 FPS unplayable in fast paced FPS games. Will try tomorrow and get back to you guys.

 

Before saying anything more, why do you believe that only have 4 pcie 3.0 slots in your Maximus VI Extreme? Well, there's clearly 5 (4 red & one black) plus the shorter pcie 2.0 slot, so are you miscounting which ones you should be using?




Moving on, as said, it's the reason why i buy for my 'proper' machine based on how the pcie slots are configured & my needs.

So i'm using two different P8Z77-V boards - the pro for this as it's for t'internet & stuff & i don't need the world of cards in, & the deluxe for the proper one as i have specific requirements for pcie & need firewire for odd things & whatnot.


Now, in your case, you've got a pcie 2.0 slot that wouldn't affect the positioning of any cards in the 3.0 slots...

...much as using the 1x pcie slot in my deluxe has no effect on the larger slots...

...whereas the pro, being a cheaper board, then there's some choices re extra pcie lanes or usb & non-intel sata ports.

You get what you pay for naturally - & consumer boards are always a compromise, as it's the X** boards that get a decent no of pcie lanes & whatnot.


So, there is an option which would allow you to use 2-4 pcie gfx cards in their optimal lanes (or some other set of <=4 8x cards if you had differing needs) & a 4x pcie 2.0 card of some description...

...&, as far as i'm concerned, it's explained in the manual.

Having said all of that, i'm not going to convince you that you should have read the manual or checked the config before buying or looked at the Haswell specs or whatever, so it's all largely moot... ...the task is to get the thing running properly of course.


So if, having stuck the cards in the right slots & retested, you're still not getting reasonable frame rates then it's looking at other options.

[NB Naturally the sound card in the pcie 2.0 slot would be advantageous as that allows the optimal setup for 2-way sli...

...so, according to the manual that came with the board, it'd be one gfx card in the top red slot, one in the long black slot & the sound card in the short black slot.]​

Running through, i assume you've attached the sli bridge to link the two cards?


Now, i've not personally used sli - but there's stuff in the NVidia control panel, under "Set sli & PhysX configuration", where you can at least verify that it's all installed properly...

& what you're after choosing is something to the affect of "max 3D performance", as opposed to assigning one of the cards to solely be used for PhysX or whatever.

if there's some issue there where you can't alter the option, at least historically, it 'could' be the case that, starting w. the latest NVidia drivers already installed, you were better off -

1. putting the 2nd (or 3rd or...) card in without any bridges,

2. booting into the OS & allowing the cards to be detected & whatnot,

3. turning the machine off & attaching the bridges

4. & then booting up again & checking the settings (as above).


if none of that helps, i guess it's installing the GeForce Experience s/w & allowing that to set the optimal settings for whatever game based upon your res & cards (they can be a bit conservative but it should help to rule there being a bigger issue out)...

...&/or stress testing the cards themselves to see if they're throttling - ALT+TAB between the game where you're getting low fps & something like msi's afterburner (as i believe NVidia cards now throttle automatically in things like Furmark).

&, if the cards are throttling, the fault 'should' either be with the cards or the psu (either it's under-powered or flakey), & the only way to tell which is to swap things in & out.

 

The SLI configuration setting in the NVIDIA Control Panel is "Maximize 3D Performance". One thing to be aware of is that this setting gets changed when you install new drivers. I've forgotten to set it back more than once after doing a driver update.

 

Before replying I'm going to start off with you don't have to talk to me like I'm a complete ****ing retard. Because to be honest you're coming off like a cock.


I referred to PCI slots as 1-4 because there isn't a lane 5. It's lanes 1-4 + a lane b2 so thanks for making sure I can count.i originally placed then in slots 1 & B2 (1&3 according to you) and it simply doesn't detect the 2nd card. I've stress tested both cards I've run then without the audio card in place. If you've read any of my posts you would already discovered yes I already have the sli working in lanes 1 & 3 (this is lane 1 & 4 according to you) I have a bridge. I have the span working fine with using 2 dvi from card 1 and 1 from card 2 as my displays do not have display port compatibility. Settings are maxed latest drivers are installed. As far as power supplies go I have both an 850w gold OCZ and a 1300w gold g2 from evga and I have had this issue with both power supplies. Anything I did wrong?

 

Look, you'd clearly not read the manual properly so i was attempting to ensure that nothing had been missed as my assumption that this is where someone would start is an alien concept to you...

Well, with the pcie slots it could quite easily have been that, having installed the mobo at some point previously, you were looking at the thing in poor lighting & simply weren't noticing the black 16x slot...

...or, conversely, that you actually had a different board than the one listed in your sig - in which case me saying 'your manual says do X, Y & Z' would be of no damn use to you.


i've also no clue as to whether you know to use a sli bridge - & given that you'd not read the manual for the mobo properly, it could reasonably be the case that you 'might' not have read the instructions for sli.

&, imho, it's better to cover all the bases, than not & it be something simple that you'd not appreciated.


Anyway, i've tried to be helpful, but being offensive really does not engender any desire to my putting any extra time to try & help you...

But good luck anyway in trying to resolve the issues you're having.