Hey there!
I currently have some issues with my gtx 580's. :S 
When in SLI in bf3, I get around 80 to 160 fps (depends on what i'm doing, and if I look up in the sky or not) so I guess that's ok? With vsync on it stays at  60 so that is fine as well I presume
However with crysis 2 it's a totally different story! When in SLI, it goes from 50 to 100 (capped) vsync off and vsync on it doesn't stay at 60 fps it goes down to about 40 and 50. I also get some stuttering. I decided to compare versus one card to see the difference so I turned off sli and rebooted the game. Vsync on I got 30 fps... when i only had one card installed before getting the other i had no where near 30 fps, was getting 50 to 60 fps
So I am a bit confused as to what my problem is :S 
Haven't overclocked anything 
Cpu is at 3.2ghz
My settings are all at ultra as well

what was the temps of the cards

both were around 60

re-installed the game and the problem persists :s 

First of all, with vsync on (assuming you are using standard vsync and not adaptive) anytime the FPS drops below 60 (assuming you have 60mhz monitor) it will fall to 30 FPS. Thats how  vsync works.  You are either at cap or half of cap.
 
 

i game on a 3d tv at the moment. its 120hz. idk i just thought id get some better performance with crysis 2 in sli and right now i dont see any difference :s

re-installed drivers. same issue again :( im getting little to no performance gains in sli... and i even get a lower performance sometimes in comparison to just only one card

Could it be that my cpu is bottlenecking my cards? 

nobody? :(

I don't think it would have anything to do with the CPU. The 960 is decently fast at stock to handle most games with no issues. Though 3.8GHz to 4.0GHz wouldn't hurt. Also, I would leave Vsync off to do more testing. Sometimes games just don't like Vsync, I'm not sure if that is your main issue or not. Your first post is not all that clear on what your issue or goal is.

Im sorry it was kinda hard to explain in writing, basically im getting low fps in games in sli. The games that i play is Crysis 1 and 2, Bf3 and Skyrim. When I only had one card with my other psu (antec earthwatts 750w) everything was fine. I changed psu and added another card and i get stutters and bad framerates. Goes down to about 30 with vsync off. Thats with Crysis 1 and 2 and skyrim. But skyrim does it very rarely but its not an issue i had with one card. Bf3 seems to work fine tho. Thanks for your help! :)

basically my only concern is that i wanna get 3 monitors and play in surround. But how can i handle 3 screens on ultra and get good frame rates when i cant get good frames rates with a single screen in sli? 

Which Drivers are you using? Have you done a complete uninstall with Driver Sweeper and deleted all remains of anything Nvidia related?
The only other thing I could think of is CPU Bottleneck. But if BF3 plays fine, I highly doubt that is the issue.

Right now i'm using the newest beta driver that came out. 301.24
I uninstalled the other driver (296.1) this morning using maniacvvv's guide. However I didnt use Driver Sweeper. yeah bf3 is fine! In multiplayer on caspian border with 64 players it hovers around 50 to 70 fps. and heaven 3.0 worked fine as well. It stutters but i guess thats normal

mikaelfred


Right now i'm using the newest beta driver that came out. 301.24
I uninstalled the other driver (296.1) this morning using maniacvvv's guide. However I didnt use Driver Sweeper. yeah bf3 is fine! In multiplayer on caspian border with 64 players it hovers around 50 to 70 fps. and heaven 3.0 worked fine as well. It stutters but i guess thats normal

Honestly, until Nvidia can work everything out of the new series drivers it is best to avoid them and use the last WHQL from the 500 series.

Alright! I'll re-install the latest one again and do a clean install! See how that goes.

I am watching this thread, lets see what you report after further testing....
 
I may have some suggestions for you

Awesome! Thanks for the help! :D I'm going to do it first thing in the morning! :)

I installed driver 285.62 this morning. Played Crysis 2 again. Vsync off i got min 46 fps and max 70 in sli. I decided to run Heaven 3.0     Booted up Bf3 and played the night shift level. Never dropped down below 80 fps! Averaging about 110 fps! Max I got was 200 but that was looking at the sky. Got the sli visual indicator up and the green bar covers my whole screen. So I guess it could be that Crysis 2 is just a badly optomized game?  
 
 

Attachment(s)

Attachments are not available: Download requirements not met

Those scores look pretty on point. Oh yeah, Crysis 2 is nothing but a console port with a high res texture pack, which is why Crytek made so many loyal fans angered with this release. Maybe try to pull a little more out of that 960, but other than that stick with the WHQL drivers and see what happens, everything looks to be pretty good though.

Cool! yes i will get an aftermarket cooler for my cpu. Never done any overclocking before but hey there's a first for everyone! Need to learn it at some point! I'm done playing Crysis 2! Played to much of it on Ps3 when it came out anyway. Hopefully Crysis 3 wont disappoint! 

I would recommend one of Corsair's closed loop water cooling solutions for your CPU. Corsair H70, H80, or H100 in a push/pull configuration should lower your temps drastically. Are you using the cooler that Intel sent out with the 960?

nice! I'll definitely look into those!!  Yep at the moment I have the stock cooler. 

Antec 1200 V3 
EVGA x58 FTW3 
Intel Core i7-960 Bloomfield 
EVGA GTX 580 Classified Ultra SLI 
G.Skill Ripjaws 12G  

WD 750G Caviar Black HDD 
Antec HCP-1200  

what?? 

Since the benchmarks -and- BF3 appear to be running fine....
It seems your 580 classified is fine.
 
 

I can't thank you enough maniac!! Ran Heaven when I got up! Both cards got to 66 degrees max! gpu usage 99! Tested bf3 works flawlessly!! :D Was a pleasure to work with you as well! :)

maniacvvv


Got the chance to meet the OP and dope out his config, boot startup and his Nvidia driver setup last night on EVGA's TS3.....

He should be setup correctly now, good to go

Was a pleasure to work with, and I very much enjoyed talking with him

So what did you exactly "dope" out in his config?  You might want to post results and changes because there are other people (ME) who are having similar problems and instead of starting new threads I can just use this one.....  So what was changed?

Maniac, please report on the findings!
 
I also have Dual 580 Classified Ultra's in SLI and would like to prevent making any similar mistakes.  Although, as the OP  experienced, BF3 runs smoothly.