NVidia 7950GX2 very poor performance in stereo mode
I am a big fan of sim racing. I thought I could improve the - not so bad - framerates getting with my NVidia 7800 GTX with upgrading to the much more powerfull 7950 GX2.

In theory, this card with two 7900 GT GPUs should outperform my 'old' 7800 GTX by at least 100%.

So I bought this card. The results are very disappointing! With stereo driver 91.31 and forceware driver 91.31 (and also the latest beta 91.37) the framerates are about 10fps below my 7800 GTX (7800: ~50fps; 7950: ~40fps).

In flat 3d mode (stereo disabled) the 7950 doubles the performance of my 7800 as acpected (7800: ~100fps; 7950: ~200fps). So it seems to be clear that not my system (CPU..) is causing that inferior stereo frame rates of the 7950.

I think the stereo drivers are causing this poor performance by not using the SLI configuration correctly.

I can only warn everyone (who is perhaps thinking as I did) from buying an 7950 GX2. It is a waste of money - at least until there is a better stereo driver available. Since we all know the poor support from NVidia, this moment will not be too soon.

My system:
- Athlon 4000+ @2750MHz
- NVidia XFX 7800 GTX XXX / XFX 7950 X2
- 2 * 512MB OCZ Platinum
- 550W PSU
I am a big fan of sim racing. I thought I could improve the - not so bad - framerates getting with my NVidia 7800 GTX with upgrading to the much more powerfull 7950 GX2.



In theory, this card with two 7900 GT GPUs should outperform my 'old' 7800 GTX by at least 100%.



So I bought this card. The results are very disappointing! With stereo driver 91.31 and forceware driver 91.31 (and also the latest beta 91.37) the framerates are about 10fps below my 7800 GTX (7800: ~50fps; 7950: ~40fps).



In flat 3d mode (stereo disabled) the 7950 doubles the performance of my 7800 as acpected (7800: ~100fps; 7950: ~200fps). So it seems to be clear that not my system (CPU..) is causing that inferior stereo frame rates of the 7950.



I think the stereo drivers are causing this poor performance by not using the SLI configuration correctly.



I can only warn everyone (who is perhaps thinking as I did) from buying an 7950 GX2. It is a waste of money - at least until there is a better stereo driver available. Since we all know the poor support from NVidia, this moment will not be too soon.



My system:

- Athlon 4000+ @2750MHz

- NVidia XFX 7800 GTX XXX / XFX 7950 X2

- 2 * 512MB OCZ Platinum

- 550W PSU

#1
Posted 07/27/2006 08:56 AM   
Do you have an option to turn SLI off on the 7950?

Perhaps a single card configuration will run better for now.

Regards,
Chopper
Do you have an option to turn SLI off on the 7950?



Perhaps a single card configuration will run better for now.



Regards,

Chopper

#2
Posted 07/27/2006 09:19 PM   
Yes there is the option to only use one GPU and I have tested it already. I would have expected that performance with only using one GPU should be about the same as with the 7800GTX. But the framerate with one GPU enabled is even worse then with both working. So SLI is working somehow but with very poor performance.

I have no more ideas with this card... I think I will return it and stay with my 'good old' 7800GTX.
Yes there is the option to only use one GPU and I have tested it already. I would have expected that performance with only using one GPU should be about the same as with the 7800GTX. But the framerate with one GPU enabled is even worse then with both working. So SLI is working somehow but with very poor performance.



I have no more ideas with this card... I think I will return it and stay with my 'good old' 7800GTX.

#3
Posted 07/27/2006 10:14 PM   
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