AMD and NVIDIA GPUs ffor different momitors

McBelgian

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Nov 18, 2014
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My dad gave me his old computer that had a GTX 550 in it. I bought a new SAPPHIRE R9 280x to replace it. I am wondering if there is any way to have the 280x be my main gaming GPU and running on my LG monitor and have the 550 running on my larger RCA TV as just a secondary monitor? No gaming on it at all, just to use it as a secondary desktop or something. Or use it for that nifty fullscreen map BF4 has that you can use on a second monitor. I have heard of hacked drivers that make this possible but I wasn't sure.
 
It's possible, but you'll need a reasonably beefy PSU as the cards are completely standalone. You may be able to use the 280X to drive the monitor as the primary display and the TV as an extended display, but I believe that will result in the game playing across both.

If I were you, I'd use the iGPU of the motherboard or CPU to drive the TV.
 


This is incorrect. If you set up your TV as an extended display and set your main monitor as your "primary" monitor, fullscreen games will only use your main monitor. If you want to use both you would have to create an (optional) eyefinity group.

-I use a 280x with two monitors, so I know. It only uses both monitors if I explicitly force it to use both.
 

McBelgian

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Nov 18, 2014
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I actually go it to work, but you're right, it didn't work out too well and now I'm just going to buy an HDMI to DisplayPort so i can just use my 280x instead of trying to create some bastardized machine. Lol