[SOLVED] Can I use 2 GPUs Non-SLI

[IronGaurdian]

I currently have an EVGA 1080, i'm going to get the 3080 when it comes out. Could I use the 3080 as my main card and use the 1080 as a VR Only Card? So that I could use GPU heavy programs like Blender rendering on the 3080 while I or someone else plays VR on the 1080 thereby allowing use of both cards full potential. And then I could split the CPU Cores among programs so it would act like 2 computers. Is this Possible or Advisable?

 

[cdrkf]

I currently have an EVGA 1080, i'm going to get the 3080 when it comes out. Could I use the 3080 as my main card and use the 1080 as a VR Only Card? So that I could use GPU heavy programs like Blender rendering on the 3080 while I or someone else plays VR on the 1080 thereby allowing use of both cards full potential. And then I could split the CPU Cores among programs so it would act like 2 computers. Is this Possible or Advisable?

It is possible to run two cards in a single machine - this is often done when using GPU compute (e.g. mining, folding etc).... you can also connect displays to both cards for large multi-monitor setups which works fine for windows tasks although it's not possible to run a 3D applications across screens connected to two different cards (it has to be on one card or the other).

In order to treat the machine as two discrete machines and split the other resources between them, you will need to use virtualization and then you can create discrete windows installs and assign cores and ram as required.

Linus tech tips have done a number of vids on this type of setup, for example (a little old but principal still applies):

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKJw8IKVYQ8


So in answer to your question - yes, although it's quite a complicated thing to get setup and working, and features like virtualization aren't available with all CPU's for example (I think AMD Ryzen cpu's support it by default but Intel segments it).

 

[IronGaurdian]

Ok, Thanks