2k 144hz and 1080p 60hz

[monkeyb00ner]

Ok so I'm thinking about getting a 2k 144hz monitor as my main monitor and would have the 1080p on the side for Netflix or monitoring tools etc. would that be possible? Would having to different resolutions make everything distorted or would the refresh rate screw things up?

 

[Isokolon]

No. Works fine. I got a 1080p 16:9 screen as main and a 4:3 720p as secondary.

If you're not bothered by the refresh rate difference it'll work just fine.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

use the IGP for 2nd monitor. See the monkey's answer here

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2946311/dual-monitor-descrete-gpu-integrated.html

 

[king3pj]

use the IGP for 2nd monitor. See the monkey's answer here

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2946311/dual-monitor-descrete-gpu-integrated.html

I'm not sure what the benefit to that would be. Both monitors should run fine off the GPU. The only reason I can see for doing that is if one of the monitors needs VGA and the GPU doesn't have that port but the motherboard does.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

The advantage is akin to offloading your PhysX computations to a separate PhyX card ... leaves more GPU processing power for the gaming screen by offloading everything o the secondary screen to the iGPU. In short, gaming screen gets more fps.

 

[king3pj]

From what I can tell the second screen makes no, or very little difference. I recently got a 1440p 144Hz G-Sync monitor and moved my older 1440p 60Hz monitor off to the side as a second screen. I often have a webpage or my music program open on the second screen while I am gaming and I haven't noticed any difference in my gaming performance.

Both monitors are connected to my 1070 by DisplayPort. To take things even further I have a Oculus Rift connected to my 1070 by HDMI as well and even with both 1440p monitors also being turned on I haven't noticed a performance impact.

To be clear, doing things that use more GPU power like watching video might make a difference but lighter stuff like web browsing and music apps should be fine.

 

[Isokolon]

Yes watching a video makes a difference.
Having Spotify or WinAmp and a browser open put literally no load on your GPU

 

[JackNaylorPE]

It's not really a point of contention as to does it make a difference, if it's moving 1 pixel, it make a difference. The question is how much of a difference ? My way of looking at it is, it's sitting there doing nothing, why not use it ?

And, of course, what you are doing will make a difference ... my kids have their chat apps open, I always have several spreadsheets and browser tabs open and sometimes I'm looking at a walkthru or instructional youtube video say for example In-Game apps that I have written, a quest walkthru or whatever. The more pixels that are moving, the greater the impact. If its just MSI AB logging and the chat app, won't likely be even measurable.

But I I never did finish what I was thinking of while I was talking on phone w/ kid who needs "daddy taxi" ... those nagging mismatched refresh rate issues mentioned above are a non factor.... for example:

My son plays a game w/ the two GFX cards in SLI at 165 hz refresh rate using G-Sync on an Acer predator XB271HU (3 ms combined lag / 4.5 ms **real** average response time) or perhaps he turned off G-Sync and is using 120 hz w/ ULMB for the game ... do we really wanna drive the old slow 60 MHz Dell IPS 2nd monitor w/ 25ms response time from that same pair of cards ?