How to go about having a 1080p TV and 1440p monitor

[dweenjatheninja]

Hey guys, first off, I feel like a complete idiot asking this question but I'm quite confused and thought I would ask before I do anything stupid.

So I currently have a 980TI for my 1440p monitor and due to recent renovations, I've placed my tiny 32' 1080p TV back into my room and this time with a couch. So I'm very keen on reliving my couch gaming days and want to try to hook my PC up to the TV as well but here:-
1) Do I leave both the monitor and TV plugged in even if I don't use them at the same time?
-Does this stress my GPU?
-Will it technically be working for both displays if one was off(do I power off or unplug the AC)
2) Will I have to manually change the resolution every single time I change the monitor?
3) Is it safe to unplug my DP cable from the GPU whilst the PC is still running? Or do I have to power off first and restart the PC with the HDMI plugged into the TV?

 

[nobspls]

You can switch between monitors, TVs, displays, hot swap on the fly without issue. This stuff should be fully supported and you can see that in action on laptops all the time. It is the same tech and same methods.

What you will find annoying however is that the resolution changes will mess with your icon locations. And you will have to manually pick between, extending the screen, duplicating the screen, or using just one screen. And when you have 2 screens you have the problem of picking the relative position of one to the other. And if you are physically moving the screen it won't line up with what you designated and then you'll have to go back an reassign the positions. All very fussy and annoying things.

 

[nobspls]

As for load on the GPU, unless you are gaming and displaying to both screens in such away that you have more pixels independently rendered than say just your 1440p or 1080p, then you will have imposed a heavier workload on your GPU. But if you are only gaming on the 1440p or just the 1080p display, and even if you replicate the ouput to both displays at the same time, if the GPU only has to render 1440p or 1080p which means no additional load. And as for non-gaming stuff, the video, web browsing, stuff, that kind of load is so low as to be negligible.