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Anyone using 2 graphics cards?

Discussion in 'Techno-Magic' started by Taluntain, Aug 1, 2011.

  1. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    Remove all ads!
    I intend to attach a third monitor to my new computer for use on an infrequent basis (I'll make myself a standing environment for when I don't feel like sitting), but I expect I won't use that for gaming... so I thought I'd just buy another cheap, passively cooled graphics card to go with my main one and attach the third monitor to that.

    The question is, are there any potential problems with that idea? Obviously I wouldn't try to pair an ATI and NVIDIA card, so I'd buy two NVIDIA cards.
     
    Taluntain, Aug 1, 2011
    #1
  2. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    You may want to consider an ATI Radeon; they have many cards that support three monitors and some that support 6.

    My NVidia GTX 460 has three monitor connections (two DVI and one mini HDMI), but I'm fairly certain it doesn't support three monitors simultaneously... It may support three if only two are used at a time though... The documentation is not clear at all about this point.
     
    Blackthorne TA, Aug 1, 2011
    #2
  3. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    I'm a Nvidia guy so I tend to avoid ATI... also, not sure if I want to share one card with 3 monitors due to performance reasons. I checked Nvidia's cards with 3 monitor connections but as my two monitors are DVI and my third one would be as well I didn't find any reasonably priced cards that'd have 3 DVI connections - not sure if there even are any. Also, I'd rather avoid those two-slot monsters as they're probably louder than a vacuum cleaner - I'm aiming for as quiet a system as possible, hence my idea about a second passively cooled card.
     
    Taluntain, Aug 1, 2011
    #3
  4. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    You can buy HDMI to DVI adapters for a couple of bucks, so you can look for video cards that have DVI and HDMI ports to hook up to your DVI equipped monitors.

    Many monitors these days come with multiple interfaces as well. My ASUS LED monitors came with DVI, HDMI and VGA interfaces.
     
    Blackthorne TA, Aug 1, 2011
    #4
  5. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    I'm not so hot on adapters... I used DVI to VGA adapters in the past and they'd make the picture flicker every so often... got really annoying.

    HDMI ones could be better, but I don't really know. I'd need a 10m cable though as a 5m would be just a bit too short and those are around €25 here - not exactly cheap.

    Edit: heh, just checked and 10m DVI cables are only a few euros cheaper...
     
    Last edited: Aug 1, 2011
    Taluntain, Aug 1, 2011
    #5
  6. Blackthorne TA

    Blackthorne TA Master in his Own Mind Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Well the only downside I see to two boards is the extra power and the splitting of the PCIe lanes. From what I recall, a 16x PCIe slot for a video board has 16 PCIe lanes that will all be used by the video board if only one is present. If there is a second PCIe slot, this uses 8 of those lanes, so if it is populated with another board, then each board shares the 16 lanes, each getting 8.

    So, if you are not planning on a SLI configuration you are limiting the throughput on your main video board to support the second board. Would it make a significant difference? I don't really know, but it seems like it would.
     
    Blackthorne TA, Aug 1, 2011
    #6
  7. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    Hmm, didn't know about that. Now there's another thing to consider... ack, this is way more complicated than it should be.
     
    Taluntain, Aug 2, 2011
    #7
  8. Taza

    Taza Weird Modmaker Veteran

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    I'll note that you really, really don't want to pair ATI and Nvidia cards. Bad things result. Well, drivers go haywire.
     
    Taza, Aug 2, 2011
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  9. Merlanni

    Merlanni Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!)

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    Never mix AMD and Nvidia.

    To share 8x8 pci-E lanes is not a problem for performance. Most cards have enough bandwidth with 8 lanes. The real high end ones will need 16 lanes to get that extra bit of performance.
     
    Merlanni, Aug 3, 2011
    #9
  10. Taluntain

    Taluntain Resident Alpha and Omega Staff Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran Pillars of Eternity SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!) BoM XenForo Migration Contributor [2015] (for helping support the migration to new forum software!)

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    Oh, that should be ok then... I don't intend to go beyond mid-range cards.
     
    Taluntain, Aug 3, 2011
    #10
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