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Hot!A look back to my best EVGA build ever

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Gold Leader
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2023/05/20 00:38:52 (permalink)
Hey all

Sorry for posting this in the wrong section even I thought it was fitting as a best EVGA memory, oh well I'll make it a new post then.
So with that said, my best EVGA experience was with the EVGA GTX 295 Red Editions in Quad SLI alongside my  Dual OpteronDP 2380 C2 system from 2009 which I upgraded to Dual Six Core AMD OpteronDP 2435 D0's in 2010.
As for the GTX 295 RE's I don't have them anymore, but I did keep all the photo's for the memories the cards gave me>
the slave card died during a short, I sold both cards to a friend from x-3dfx in Germany the salve card will be sent to derBauer for a BGA reflow and replacement of the NF200 SLI bridge chip, and other parts that may need fixing.
The system I do still have but to get SLI working again I will have to find the same mainboard for a replacement, and that won't be easy is 2023.
But this is something I would love to work on later in the year.

This system remained in service with the GTX 295 RE's to around 2018, it was a very fun ride and my best ever, even I did use 2 Way SLI EVGA GTX 480, 580 SC 1.5GB & 2-way SLI GTX 680 SXC Sig 2GB's the GTX 295 RE's always gave me the best of memories.
So for that memory here some pics of that system which I took in 2010:

Blue-Leader SMP 2009

2x 6 Core AMD OpteronDP 2435 D0 Istanbul CPU's, 12 Cores @ 2.6Ghz
2x ASUS Triton 70's
Supermicro H8DAE-2 NVIDIA NForce 3600 Pro, MCP 550 Pro & IO55
16GB NUMA Dual Channel DDR2-800 HP/Kingston Server RamECC Reg
Supermicro SIM LP-B IPMI 2.0 16MB Card Rev.3.01 0907
2x EVGA GeForce GTX 295 Red Edition PCI-E 896MB 448Bit GDDR3 Rev.B1 5008's in Quad SLI
Realtek ALC883 7.1 OnBoard HD Audio
1x Intel 320 SSD 120GB/64MB Cache Boot Disk [Upgrade on The Way]
Plextor PX-820A Dual Layer DVD Re-Writer 12x/8x UATA-133
4x Western Digital 500GB/32MB Cache Raid Edition3 24/7 Series in RAID 0 1.81TB Storage Disk
2x Broadcom 1000 MBit Ethernet RJ45 Lan Jacks
Antec True Power Quatto 1000 Watt EPS12V + 2.3V
Lian Li PC-A7010 Black Server Case
Lian Li W-75BP Side Window Panel
Hewlett Packard ZR24w 24" 16:10 Aspect Ratio HS-IPS Panel
Native Reso of 1920 x 1200 x32 @ 60 Hertz

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional x64 UK + Service Pack 01
NVIDIA ForceWare 331.82 WHQL for GTX 295 Quad SLI setup.
"Austroraptor cabazai" paleoart by "Chris Masnaghetti" as background




And here some pics of the drivers I used 331.82 which is the latest stable driver for 9800 GX2 & GTX 295 Quad SLI configs.


Here all the FSAA  modes and the last pic showing the system config with SLI disabled when running CUDA based apps like BarsWF x64 per example, all four G200-400-B1 GPU's would work together in a parallel setup.


Finally here the wallpaper artwork I used for the wallpaper, the "Austroraptor cabazai" paleoart by "Chris Masnaghetti"

As GTX 590, GTX 690 & GTX TITAN Z's would go the drivers I used  should work but since these are later gen GX2's I think that later dfrivers may be better?
Either way I Made a backup of the four most stable drivers incl 145.97 which was the first and probably most used driver kit for 9800 GX2 & GTX 295 Quad SLI Setups.

Here the four stable WHQL signed driver versions:

197.45
285.62
306.97
331.82

This I remember for my driver testing days when having the Dual SLI 9800 GX2 & GTX 295 Quad SLI setups.
If anyone needs help seeking them drivers I have backed them up on my file server, these drivers are for Windows Vista x64 & 7x64 only.
Not sure what drivers would work with Win 10, as back then Win 10 was not a thing yet.
The GTX 590, GTX 690 and GTX TITAN Z GX2 style card types should also work fine with those four driver versions, even so I would stick to 331.82 as this is the latest stable driver which would give you the best optimal performance for Fermi & Kepler Quad SLI setups, by using two Dual chip cards.


And now that EVGA does not make graphics cards anymore  my favorite brands for GeForce cards is gone for me, it was always Sapphire for AMD Radeon & EVGA for NVIDIA GeForce, these two are the best for those two card types.
Now with EVGA missing there is Zotac I guess? or PNY maybe, are Leadtek & Gainward still around?
Even so in the actual reality you can't replace EVGA, no one can ever replace EVGA, heck I even remember when BFG stopped making cards, never would of hoped the same happening to EVGA... and look where we are now.. a very ironic twist.
The same you can't replace Sapphire when it comes to Radeons , yea there is Power Color, there was also HIS< but yea  hard to be the best as quality parts go, EVGA has just that for all GeForce based cards.

As for Intel they have a loooong way to go, their ARC 770 LE 16GB GDDR6 barely beats a RTX 3060 Ti or Radeon RX 6700 XT, these are old gen cards nowadays compared to what we have today, even tho they still are relevant for use, even how great their driver updates are, they have a very long way to go and I don't see that improving much within 5 years at least, but it's at least something to work with I guess.
AMD & NVIDIA are too far ahead of Intel as well as it comes to GPU's, it is great to have a 3rd player for the mid/low end but yea I still have to see how they will do from here on.

Lets hope for EVGA's return  who knows what the future will bring, I was surprised they didn't side with AMD for the least but then again, they made their move anyway.
Carrying the EVGA name is weird now since graphics cards are not being made anymore, I hope at least that the forums will stay, I always liked it here tbh, so I really hope the forums will not leave us.
post edited by Gold Leader - 2023/05/20 00:42:06


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    rjohnson11
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    Re: A look back to my best EVGA build ever 2023/05/20 00:53:03 (permalink)
    Looking back in time for these great builds. Thanks for the memories. 

    AMD Ryzen 9 7950X,  Corsair Mp700 Pro M.2, 64GB Corsair Dominator Titanium DDR5  X670E Steel Legend, MSI RTX 4090 Associate Code: H5U80QBH6BH0AXF. I am NOT an employee of EVGA

    #2
    Gold Leader
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    Re: A look back to my best EVGA build ever 2023/05/20 08:05:06 (permalink)
    rjohnson11
    Looking back in time for these great builds. Thanks for the memories. 


    Hey thanks man for the Blue Ribbon  and yea I really do miss this build well the GTX 295 RE's for that part, but  I thought of trying to rebuild it but with Dual GTX 590's maybe  Quad SLI Fermi that can be fun to do, after I find a good replacement for the board everything else works fine so I think I can do something with that, I will need to replace the PSU a nice 1000 Watt Platinum or Titanium rated Seasonic  is what Ia m aiming for I just want the best when it comes to PSU's So far Seasonic never let me down in that aspect.

    As Quad SLI goes will that work iN Windows 10 Pro or would it be best to use Win 7 Pro? Not sure where that all went actually.
    But that are things I will have to look more in depth in to if taking on such a rebuild


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    cotter32
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    Re: A look back to my best EVGA build ever 2023/05/21 19:11:57 (permalink)
    Dual CPUs, dual GPUs .  Very cool 
     
    Too The Moon !
     
     
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    Gold Leader
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    Re: A look back to my best EVGA build ever 2023/05/22 08:53:16 (permalink)
    cotter32
    Dual CPUs, dual GPUs .  Very cool 
     
    Too The Moon !
     

    Dual 6 core CPU's and Quad 240 core GPU's actually
    But yea  I used to be an enthusiast builder  SLI liek CFX the Multi GPU days were the most fun I have to admit though.
    Alongside the GTX 295 REs I also had these 2-Way SLI Setups with EVGA GeForce carsds of course!

    2x EVGA GeForce GTX 480 PCI-E 1.5GB 384Bit GDDR5 in 2-Way SLI



    2x EVGA GeForce GTX 580 Super Clocked Edition PCI-E 1.5GB 384Bit GDDR5 in 2-Way SLI



    2x EVGA GeForce GTX 680 Super Clocked Signature Edition PCI-E 2GB 384Bit GDDR5 in 2-Way SLI



    And there ya have it, when I had the Dual GTX 580's this was done before I upgraded to Dual Six-Core AMD OpteronDP 2435's, the GTX 480's made a reintroduction after my Dual GTX 680 timeline.
    the 680's were very stable also thanks to their low TDP of only 165 Watts which was amazing for their time which was in Q3 of 2012.


    #5
    Delirious
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    Re: A look back to my best EVGA build ever 2023/05/25 06:31:15 (permalink)
    green PCB.  Brings back memories

    "Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger" 
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    Gold Leader
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    Re: A look back to my best EVGA build ever 2023/05/25 13:08:41 (permalink)
    Yea well Supermicro still uses green PCB's I do like them tho, it goes well with the blue, white and green Cold Cathode lamps I still use.I find black a boring and bland color for mainboards back in my day mainboards had more colorful PCB options, MSI were red, Gigabyte were blue, Supermicro, TYAN & EPoX used green, ABiT, ASUS & iWill used Copper/brown as where Soyo Dragon used purple & metallic White for their Dragon Ultra series,  mainboards were more colorful in that sense and I kinda miss that tbh.


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    cotter32
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    Re: A look back to my best EVGA build ever 2023/06/09 16:55:11 (permalink)
    The black ones are harder to photograph, too .
     
    Too The Moon !
     
    #8
    Flybye
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    Re: A look back to my best EVGA build ever 2023/06/13 00:51:37 (permalink)
    Ah I do miss the SLI days. Very nice going down memory lane. My first Sli rig was with a pair of 6800 Ultras.

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    rjohnson11
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    Re: A look back to my best EVGA build ever 2023/06/13 01:03:17 (permalink)
    SLI was fun. Good memories.

    AMD Ryzen 9 7950X,  Corsair Mp700 Pro M.2, 64GB Corsair Dominator Titanium DDR5  X670E Steel Legend, MSI RTX 4090 Associate Code: H5U80QBH6BH0AXF. I am NOT an employee of EVGA

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    Delirious
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    Re: A look back to my best EVGA build ever 2023/06/14 06:49:25 (permalink)
    QUAD SLI!!!! That was a challenge

    "Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger" 
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    #11
    Gold Leader
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    Re: A look back to my best EVGA build ever 2023/06/14 20:43:52 (permalink)
    Delirious
    QUAD SLI!!!! That was a challenge


    Well as how NVIDIA brought it was that 4-Way SLI is with four single chip cards and Quad SLI is with two Dual chip cards.
    For what I can recall this was done for the drivers to help the driver coders with updating software for 4-Way SLI & Quad SLI.

    The 3dfx Voodoo5 6000 also uses Quad SLI as there are four graphics chips on a single PCB, 2x GTX 295 gave  two cards each with two GPU's totaling four, but only requiring two PCI-E Gen 1.1 x16 slots for optimal operation.
    As where 4-Way SLI really required 4x PCI-E Gen 1.1 x16 slots for optimal operation and not every mainboard offered this configuration so this is where Quad SLI became more popular as that only two slots were used for the two Dual chip cards.

    So my current plan now is to find a pair of EVGA GTX 590's for a nice Quad SLI setup of four GF110-375-B1 GPU's with my Supermicro H8DAE-2 or a H8DA8-2 if I can find one, this is something I really want to experience, thus hopefully later this year I can update this thread and bring back the Quad SLI experience.

    Not sure if I can find EVGA GTX 590's but it would be nice for sure.
    post edited by Gold Leader - 2023/06/14 20:56:33


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