Frequently Asked Questions - NVIDIA SLI technology for NVIDIA Quadro graphics solutions|NVIDIA
 
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NVIDIA SLI technology for NVIDIA Quadro graphics solutions

 
 
  1. When will the NVIDIA® SLI™ technology drivers be available for NVIDIA Quadro graphics solutions?
  2. How many graphics cards can I use with SLI technology in a workstation?
  3. Will NVIDIA have OpenGL support for SLI technology?
  4. How does using SLI technology affect application performance?
  5. What NVIDIA Quadro graphics cards can work together in an SLI configuration?
  6. Does NVIDIA Scene Graph (NVSG) technology take advantage of SLI technology?
  7. Is SLI technology just for gaming?
  8. Do the SPEC benchmarks validate this performance gain?
  9. Does SLI technology work on dual CPUs? What configuration do you recommend?
  10. Where can I purchase NVIDIA Quadro SLI–capable graphics cards, SLI connectors, and systems?
  11. What is SLI technology for NVIDIA Quadro graphics solutions?
  12. What NVIDIA Quadro graphics cards can work together in an SLI Frame Rendering configuration?
  13. What NVIDIA Quadro graphics cards can work together in an SLI FSAA configuration?
  14. What NVIDIA Quadro graphics cards can work together in an SLI Multi View configuration?
  15. How will my application take advantage of the SLI technology?
  16. What types of output does SLI technology support?
  17. Can I use two NVIDIA Quadro G-Sync or two NVIDIA Quadro FX SDI graphics cards in the same system when using SLI technology?
  18. Can you connect more than two graphics cards with SLI technology?
Answers

When will the NVIDIA® SLI™ technology drivers be available for NVIDIA Quadro graphics solutions?
Drivers are available. Please visit our driver download page.
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How many graphics cards can I use with SLI technology in a workstation?
You can use up to two NVIDIA Quadro® FX graphics cards.
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Will NVIDIA have OpenGL support for SLI technology?
SLI will support Open GL 1.4, 1.5, 2.0, and all future releases.
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How does using SLI technology affect application performance?
For applications that are significantly bottlenecked by graphics hardware, SLI technology can nearly double performance. For applications that are less bottlenecked by graphics hardware, SLI technology delivers significant performance gains.
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What NVIDIA Quadro graphics cards can work together in an SLI configuration?
NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600, 5500, 4600, 4500, 4400, 3500, 3450, 3400, 1500, 1400, 560, 550, 540 and 350 cards are SLI enabled and can work in an SLI configured multi-GPU system. Two identical cards are required for SLI Frame Rendering and SLI FSAA .
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Does NVIDIA Scene Graph (NVSG) technology take advantage of SLI technology?
Yes.
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Is SLI technology just for gaming?
No. Many professional applications can take advantage of SLI.
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Do the SPEC benchmarks validate this performance gain?
SPECviewperf 8 applications scale well with SLI technology. OEMs and system integrators post results that demonstrate these performance gains on www.spec.org.
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Does SLI technology work on dual CPUs? What configuration do you recommend?
Yes, SLI technology is supported on a dual processor system. The final configuration will depend on the target applications. For multithreaded applications, a dual processor is preferable.
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Where can I purchase NVIDIA Quadro SLI–capable graphics cards, SLI connectors, and systems?
NVIDIA Quadro SLI–capable graphics cards are available in volume at major OEMs and NVIDIA channel partners.

SLI connectors for NVIDIA Quadro SLI-Ready systems can be purchased from your workstation manufacturer. The following workstation manufacturers provide SLI Ready systems:

@Xi
//www.xicomputer.com/

ASUS
//www.asus.com

Boxx Workstations
//www.boxxtech.com/products/Workstations.asp

Fujitsu Siemens Workstations
//www.fujitsu-siemens.com/products/deskbound/workstations/index.html

HP Workstations
//www.hp.com/workstations

IBM
//www-03.ibm.com/servers/intellistation

Sun Microsystems
//www.sun.com/desktop/index.jsp

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What is SLI technology for NVIDIA Quadro graphics solutions?

  • SLI Frame Rendering: Combines two PCI Express graphics cards with an SLI connector to transparently scale application performance on a single display by presenting them as a single graphics card to the operating system.

      Benefits
    • Visual simulation, broadcast, and video applications that are fill rate–limited will benefit from using the split frame rendering (SFR) mode.
    • SPECviewperf 8 and other applications that are geometry–limited will benefit from using the alternate frame rendering (AFR) mode.

      Requirements:
    • Two identical NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600, 5500, 4600, 4500, 3500, 3450 or 3400 graphics cards
    • SLI connector


  • SLI FSAA : Combines two PCI Express graphics cards with an SLI connector to transparently increase image quality on a single display by presenting them as a single graphics card to the operating system.

      Benefits
    • Design review, DMU (Digital Mock Up), Visual simulation, and broadcast applications that require a high level of image/line quality will benefit from using the SLI FSAA mode.
      Requirements:
    • Two identical NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600, 5500, 4600, 4500, 3500, 3450 or 3400 graphics cards
    • SLI connector
  • SLI Multi View: Combines the power of two NVIDIA Quadro PCI Express graphics cards to span a single hardware-accelerated OpenGL application window across multiple displays, run a single application per GPU with multiple display outputs, or enable other flexible usage of two PCI Express graphics cards.

      Benefits
    • View professional applications over multiple displays to increase visual real estate. (currently available on Microsoft® Windows® Linux )

      Requirements
    • Two identical NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600, 5500, 4600, 4500, 4400, 3500, 3450, 3400, 1500, 1400, 560, 550, 540 and 350 graphics cards.

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What NVIDIA Quadro graphics cards can work together in an SLI Frame Rendering configuration?
The supported models are NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600, 5500, 4600, 4500, 3500, 3450 or 3400 graphics cards.
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What NVIDIA Quadro graphics cards can work together in an SLI FSAA configuration?
The supported models are NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600, 5500, 4600, 4500, 3500, 3450 or 3400 graphics cards.
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What NVIDIA Quadro graphics cards can work together in an SLI Multi View configuration?
The supported models are NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600, 5500, 4600, 4500, 4400, 3500, 3450, 3400, 1500, 1400, 560, 550, 540 and 350.
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How will my application take advantage of the SLI technology?
SLI technology is application transparent and is enabled through the graphics drivers. All OpenGL applications can take advantage of SLI technology. When multiple NVIDIA Quadro FX graphics cards are configured with SLI technology, applications will automatically be able to take advantage of performance improvements with no modifications.
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What types of output does SLI support?
SLI technology supports both digital and analog output/display.
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Can I use two NVIDIA Quadro G-Sync or two NVIDIA Quadro FX SDI graphics cards in the same system when using SLI technology?
You can use an NVIDIA Quadro G-Sync card in an SLI configuration with NVIDIA’s latest drivers (rel90 windows, rel85 linux). G-Sync and Stereo is only supported with Multi View mode. The NVIDIA Quadro SDI graphic cards and NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 X2 do not support SLI technology.
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Can you connect more than two graphics cards with SLI technology?
Currently, NVIDIA only supports dual GPU scaling.
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