480 GTX SLI? Yes I did.

I'm planing on upgrading to a higher resolution monitor (probably for Christmas) and didn't want to see my frame rates drop too much so, since I had a boatload of Newegg giftcards collecting dust, I decided to pick up a second 480 and give SLI a try for the first time.

Setup was extremely easy. Hooked up two additionl PCI-E power cables to my PSU, popped in the card, plugged in the juice, [EDIT: connected the SLI bridge cable to each card] and turned the system on. It installed drivers and prompted a reboot. After reboot, the system popped up a message saying I was SLI capable and to click the message to setup the SLI. I clicked and then selected to update my config (which was done automatically). Viola - SLI.

I only had a couple of benchmarks saved from my non-SLI config. All of the following are using FRAPS' benchmarking tool, run at 1680x1050, during gameplay (no cutscenes) with everything turned up to the absolute max settings possible. It may not be the most scientific way to benchmark, but it's what I've got.

Metro 2033 - Opening sequence
Single: Min 16, Max 45, Avg 26.517
SLI: Min 28, Max 84, Avg 47.882

Left 4 Dead 2 - Hard Rain, first level
Single: Min 106, Max 200, Avg 157.111
SLI: Min 138, Max 288, Avg 227.36


Scaling seems pretty good in Metro 2033 - 75% improvement in min, 80% in max and 81% in average frame rates.
The improvements in L4D2 weren't anywhere near as great, but the rates were already astronomical to begin with.

I've noticed that the cards each run a few degrees C warmer than the single card alone ran, both at load and at idle. Noise levels have increased dramatically - seeming louder than double the single card setup. I don't have anyway to measure decibel level so it's subjective.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the decision to go SLI. I'm no longer too concerned about upgrading to a higher resolution and those few games that had less than stellar performance with a single 480 at max settings (Metro 2033 and Crysis) have now been throughly stomped into the ground.

Edited by JJJJ_Shabadoo - 13 Aug 2010 at 9:54pm

Sorry, I didn't anticipate that people would want to see pics of the same system with just a new graphics card added in so it didn't even occur to me to take any. I'll try and track down my camera and snap some shots sometime this weekend.

EDIT: The card is the identical model to the other card I had (the standard EVGA card that DSO sells).

Edited by JJJJ_Shabadoo - 13 Aug 2010 at 9:48pm

Yes, it's edited into my original post now.