Benifits of having 2 GPUs (besides SLI & Crossfire)

[jujubeans0]

I have a R9 270X in my rig but I also have a old HD 5450 laying around and I was wondering. Would I gain any type of benefit if I plop it in with my 270x? Or would it be just completely pointless and a waste of time?

 

[TechyInAZ]

2 benefits:

1. You can plug in more monitors.
2. Extra horsepower for GPU rendering/3d stuff.

 

[getochkn]

It won't add anything to your system. First, you can't crossfire it, crossfire only works with same model cards.

The only benefit it would give if you wanted to hook up like 6 or 8 monitors or something like that and needed more outputs. Other than that, no use to it.

 

[jujubeans0]

So if I run one display to my 270X (as my main display) and another display on the 5450 (web browsing and extra desktop space), would that reduce the workload on the 270x compared to running two displays on a single card?

 

[TechyInAZ]

So if I run one display to my 270X (as my main display) and another display on the 5450 (web browsing and extra desktop space), would that reduce the workload on the 270x compared to running two displays on a single card?

Yes, but if your only gaming on one and web browsing on the other it's not gona give you a huge fps increase since web browsing is not gpu intensive.

So if you plug both into the r9 270X, the performance will pretty much be the same.

 

[getochkn]

Not really. You can use 1 video card for 2 or 3 montiors, especially if the other one is just desktop space and it will take next to no extra resources. The power draw from the 5450 would probably be more than using the 270x with 2 monitors.

 

[jujubeans0]

So to sum it all up:

Pros: More display outputs
Less workload on a single card for multi monitor displays (if any)

Cons: Higher power consumption