Question Can I use second gpu to display my higher refresh rate main monitor while still using my main GPU for performance?

[UserF1F2]

Recently bought a 270hz monitor but my GTX 1650 doesn’t have a display port. Although My secondary GPU a GTX 1050 Ti has a disport port and works perfectly fine at 270 Hz. Yet while using the monitor through the 1050 it doesn’t use my 1650 at all. Is there anyway I can set it up so it uses my 1650 in games.

 

[Gam3r01]

No.
What you are looking for here would be SLI, which cant be done on lower end cards (like yours), and they would have to be identical cards.
Why are you using two GPUs anyway?

 

[UserF1F2]

No.
What you are looking for here would be SLI, which cant be done on lower end cards (like yours), and they would have to be identical cards.
Why are you using two GPUs anyway?

Maybe I am explaining it wrong but hdmi 2.0 only supports 240hz not 270hz but a display port would work. Yet my main and more powerful GPU doesn’t have a display port so I am Limited to 240hz on hdmi. Could I use my old 1050 Ti that has a display port and run 270hz but have my 1650 being the main GPU in games so I don’t lose performance ?

 

[hotaru.hino]

You can tell Windows which GPU to use per application in Settings -> System -> Display -> Graphics

This may not work if you're doing things in full screen exclusive however.

 

[Gam3r01]

No, you explained it properly.
What you want to do is not possible.
You cant use the 1650 to process the data, then hand it off to the 1050Ti to display it.

Im willing to bet as well if you had someone change the cables around without telling you, you wouldnt notice the difference between 240 and 270Hz anyway. Refresh rates that high are marketing gimmicks.
You options are: Upgrade the GPU or stay on 240Hz.

 

[Gam3r01]

You can tell Windows which GPU to use per application in Settings -> System -> Display -> Graphics

This may not work if you're doing things in full screen exclusive however.

Thats for laptops running multiple GPUs (iGPU and discrete) to a laptop screen.
Desktop environments do not work the same way. The display will not route performance between cards.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Thats for laptops running multiple GPUs (iGPU and discrete) to a laptop screen.
Desktop environments do not work the same way. The display will not route performance between cards.

I did this before as an experiment on my desktop and it showed the other card in the selection.

I can go do it again if you really want me to.

 

[Gam3r01]

I did this before as an experiment on my desktop and it showed the other card in the selection.

I can go do it again if you really want me to.

That would be helpful, since its not how GPUs typically work.
Having one monitor hooked up to two GPUs with one cable per card? Perfectly doable, and switchable in windows.
Having one monitor hooked up to a single GPU, but routing performance through one card from a second card? Nope. Closest thing thats ever come to that was dedicated PhysX.

For example:
I have an iGPU and a discrete card. I can only select my discrete GPU since its the only one actually plugged into monitors. I cant have the iGPU display through the discrete GPU.

 

[hotaru.hino]

That would be helpful, since its not how GPUs typically work.
Having one monitor hooked up to two GPUs with one cable per card? Perfectly doable, and switchable in windows.
Having one monitor hooked up to a single GPU, but routing performance through one card from a second card? Nope. Closest thing thats ever come to that was dedicated PhysX.

For example:
I have an iGPU and a discrete card. I can only select my discrete GPU since its the only one actually plugged into monitors. I cant have the iGPU display through the discrete GPU.

The thing is with Windows' desktop rendering, it renders all the applications on an off-screen buffer. I believe the rendered outputs are sent to DWM to be distributed to the output device as needed. This decouples the presentation of the application from a particular GPU.

The earliest I've experimented with this is when I hooked up a secondary monitor on an iGPU to see how it would perform in video decoding. And I could drag the video player to the dGPU monitor and the video player still reported it was using the iGPU for decoding.

Which is why the catch is this likely won't work in full screen exclusive, but I can see if that's really a thing.

 

[UserF1F2]

That would be helpful, since its not how GPUs typically work.
Having one monitor hooked up to two GPUs with one cable per card? Perfectly doable, and switchable in windows.
Having one monitor hooked up to a single GPU, but routing performance through one card from a second card? Nope. Closest thing thats ever come to that was dedicated PhysX.

For example:
I have an iGPU and a discrete card. I can only select my discrete GPU since its the only one actually plugged into monitors. I cant have the iGPU display through the discrete GPU.

That would be helpful, since its not how GPUs typically work.
Having one monitor hooked up to two GPUs with one cable per card? Perfectly doable, and switchable in windows.
Having one monitor hooked up to a single GPU, but routing performance through one card from a second card? Nope. Closest thing thats ever come to that was dedicated PhysX.

For example:
I have an iGPU and a discrete card. I can only select my discrete GPU since its the only one actually plugged into monitors. I cant have the iGPU display through the discrete GPU.

Did what the other guy said it’s actually working kinda confused because based on what your saying how is it working? In task Manager the 1650 goes from 15 to 18% and spikes up all the way to 63% to 80% usage at 75c and seems to be staying there but my 1050 Ti is around 50 to 60% 54c they look almost as if they were working together. as of right now I am indeed getting the performance of my 1650 or even higher despite being displayed at a higher refresh rate without DisplayPort. (Confused)

 

[hotaru.hino]

Did what the other guy said it’s actually working kinda confused because based on what your saying how is it working? In task Manager the 1650 goes from 15 to 18% and spikes up all the way to 63% to 80% usage at 75c and seems to be staying there but my 1050 Ti is around 50 to 60% 54c they look almost as if they were working together. as of right now I am indeed getting the performance of my 1650 or even higher despite being displayed at a higher refresh rate without DisplayPort. (Confused)

GPU utilization in Task Manager is kinda confusing because reports the busiest "thing", which may not necessarily be rendering the game or something.

If you want to make sure the application is using the GPU you want, go to the Processes tab and look at the "GPU engine" column

 

[UserF1F2]

Thank you! This will help me until I upgrade my GPU you know One with preferably a DisplayPort…….