Question Dual Graphics Cards

[AFKinney]

Hi, I was wondering if anyone knew what the benefits were to having 2 cards running? I've heard it's not necessarily good.

I've saved up for a new 4060 Windforce Geforce RTX and was going to just replace my current 2060 Phoenix Geforce RTX but I started weighing it up. According to PCPartPicker I should have more than enough power (PSU is 850w).

I use my PC to stream games, edit the streams, and I have a dual monitor setup.

Thanks for anyone who can help.

 

[dingo07]

In the old days you were able to use both GPU's to process the video in SLI mode. Today I wouldn't think there's a benefit and most cards can't SLI anymore. YMMV

 

[Math Geek]

SLI/Crossfire could leverage 2 IDENTICAL cards to work together in a game. it was very buggy and had to be specifically programed into each game it was to be used on.

often the benefits were not even as good as a single card of the same type. so it died completely and really does not exist anymore.

you can however use 2 cards and divide up what they are doing between different programs/uses. one can be playing a game while the second is encoding a recording of it. there are plenty of other uses as well.

you do have to configure each program to use specific resources and so on, but if you actually have a use and the know how to get it working, there is some benefit outside of trying to use both for a single game.

windows 11 makes it a bit easier from what i understand, but i don't actually use it myself so never really tried to make it work. i have seen tutorials and it seems easy enough to tell specific programs which card to use.

you can do some searching and turn up plenty of info on what you might be able to do with 2 cards if you desire to give it a shot. could be fun to tinker with if you got the time

 

[ARICH5]

and of course you need the software to support it which even isnt being made.

the old laura croft games and rpg's MAY take advantage of it but nothing in 2025 uses or recognizes an sli setup anymore.

@Math Geek sli used to work with different cards of the same brand {nvidia/ati} but the strongest card you could bridge was the slowest and mated the MHZ of the slowest to work together.

dumb explanation on my part.

 

[CountMike]

Hi, I was wondering if anyone knew what the benefits were to having 2 cards running? I've heard it's not necessarily good.

I've saved up for a new 4060 Windforce Geforce RTX and was going to just replace my current 2060 Phoenix Geforce RTX but I started weighing it up. According to PCPartPicker I should have more than enough power (PSU is 850w).

I use my PC to stream games, edit the streams, and I have a dual monitor setup.

Thanks for anyone who can help.

Need to know about rest of your system, it's more than likely both would have to work as PCIe x8 instead of x16 (second one possibly even x4) depending on MB and CPU/chipset and so loose performance of 4060 or both.
Not much use of dual GPU nowadays, eventually to expand number of monitors without need for performance.