Question. Will a 2GB GTX 460 SLI with a 1GB GTX 460?

[LDUK]

Well? I was wondering if you could SLI a 2GB GTX 460 with a 1GB GTX 460.

Thanks guys

 

[Meds]

Never been asked that question before. I can't see it causing any stability issues or crashes etc but you may find that not all "3GB Video Memory" would be used - probably only 2GB in total. So this would go against the whole point of buying the 2GB GTX460 if you know what I mean?

 

[PCS]

I believe it will, but we don't allow you to order this.

Also, I'm not sure which amount of memory will be used - 1GB or 2GB. See below:

Do SLI or CrossFire double the memory ?

This is one the questions that many people make mistake understanding it. The answer is NO, SLI or CrossFire doesn't double the memory. If you have a 512MB card, adding another card won't make your memory 1GB, it still will be 512MB, so both cards will use 512MB of RAM but the memory won't double.

 

[PCS]

Also - our GTX460 2GB is overclocked and the 1GB isn't, so actually it proabbly wouldn't work

If however the cards were identical they should work fine.

 

[LDUK]

Oh ok then guys, thanks a bunch for yuor help

 

[LDUK]

How about a 768MB GTX 460 with a 1GB GTX 460?

 

[Meds]

They should work perfectly fine together, however it will be the same situation with the memory.

 

[Gorman]

Im going to dabble in a bit of thread necromancy here to clear something up.

As long as the GPU is the same model number it will SLI / Crossfire.

If you have different clocks / memory on each card they will negotiate and downclock to match each other. So if you SLI 1gb and 2gb cards it will work but will both act as 1gb cards giving you a grand total of 1gb vid memory, the same goes for any factory overclock.

 

[LDUK]

Im going to dabble in a bit of thread necromancy here to clear something up.

As long as the GPU is the same model number it will SLI / Crossfire.

If you have different clocks / memory on each card they will negotiate and downclock to match each other. So if you SLI 1gb and 2gb cards it will work but will both act as 1gb cards giving you a grand total of 1gb vid memory, the same goes for any factory overclock.

Ahh nice one, got it!

 

[Sleinous]

So if I understand correctly, its a bit pointless havinga ny RAM at all on the second card? As its only using the total of one card? Bit confused about that xD

So if I had 2x 1280MB GTX 470s, only 1280MB would be used? Leaving 1280MB unused?

 

[Gorman]

So if I had 2x 1280MB GTX 470s, only 1280MB would be used? Leaving 1280MB unused?

Correct. But not correct.

The first card renders one full frame and then the next card renders the next frame and so on. If you picture SLI working in this way it is easy to see that each frame only has 1280MB of memory to work with.

In an SLI configuration, cards can be of mixed manufacturers, card model names, BIOS revisions or clock speeds. However, they must be of the same GPU series (e.g. 8600, 8800) and GPU model name (e.g. GT, GTS, GTX).[15] There are rare exceptions for "mixed SLI" configurations on some cards that only have a matching core codename (e.g. G70, G73, G80, etc.), but this is otherwise not possible, and only happens when two matched cards differ only very slightly, an example being a differing amount of video memory, stream processors, or clockspeed. In this case, the slower/lesser card becomes dominant, and the other card matches. Another exception is the GTS 250, which can SLI with the 9800 GTX+, as the GTS 250 GPU is a rebadged 9800 GTX+ GPU.

Just to back up my previous post on what will and wont SLI.