Multiple GPU / Monitor Question

[akensai]

Hello,

Currently I have 2x 7970's crossfired running 3 1080p monitors. As you'd expect there is quite a drop in performance in most games due to the extra monitors being utilized at the same time. So I am curious about an idea I had.

I plan to have my 2 7970's refunded within the next week or so (recent buy) in which I will use the refund for a 290x once there are some decent coolers available. I also have an HD 7870 in a box in my office.

Now, my plan is to use the 290x for my main monitor and use my HD 7870 for the 2 secondary monitors. The question is, will this work? Would there be driver issues? Normally I would just try it but I figured I should go ahead and ask before messing around with it.

Furthermore, would it even be viable to switch out the 2x 7970's for a single 290x? Keeping in mind that 2 of the 3 monitors would be run off a secondary GPU instead of off crossfire/single.

Any feedback is appreciated!

 

[Avro Arrow]

You won't be able to game that way. What you have now is as good as you're going to get unless you get two R9 290s and crossfire them. You cannot game with two cards running separately. No game I've ever seen supports such a setup.

 

[akensai]

You won't be able to game that way. What you have now is as good as you're going to get unless you get two R9 290s and crossfire them. You cannot game with two cards running separately. No game I've ever seen supports such a setup.

I do it all the time with 2x 7970's, COD Ghosts requiring crossfire/sli disabled just to play without severe stuttering. Disable crossfire and switch 2 monitors to the secondary. FPS difference is 50 => 80 due to 2 factors, 1) ghosts is in no way optimized for crossfire/sli, and 2) the extra monitors are not effecting what is available for the game. I know it works, I just am not sure if it will work under 2 seperate lines, eg: 290x + 7870. I would NOT be able to crossfire them.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I do it all the time with 2x 7970's, COD Ghosts requiring crossfire/sli disabled just to play without severe stuttering. Disable crossfire and switch 2 monitors to the secondary. FPS difference is 50 => 80 due to 2 factors, 1) ghosts is in no way optimized for crossfire/sli, and 2) the extra monitors are not effecting what is available for the game. I know it works, I just am not sure if it will work under 2 seperate lines, eg: 290x + 7870. I would NOT be able to crossfire them.

Well that's interesting. If you're not crossfiring them then would most likely work but I think that the performance hit on the secondary monitors would be severe with just an HD 7870. If the 7970 can't cut it, how would a 7870 cut it? I really don't think that the power of an R9 290 + HD 7870 is superior to 2 x HD 7970 but I could be wrong. I really don't think you're going to see much of a performance increase, but as I said, I could be wrong.

 

[akensai]

I do it all the time with 2x 7970's, COD Ghosts requiring crossfire/sli disabled just to play without severe stuttering. Disable crossfire and switch 2 monitors to the secondary. FPS difference is 50 => 80 due to 2 factors, 1) ghosts is in no way optimized for crossfire/sli, and 2) the extra monitors are not effecting what is available for the game. I know it works, I just am not sure if it will work under 2 seperate lines, eg: 290x + 7870. I would NOT be able to crossfire them.

Well that's interesting. If you're not crossfiring them then would most likely work but I think that the performance hit on the secondary monitors would be severe with just an HD 7870. If the 7970 can't cut it, how would a 7870 cut it? I really don't think that the power of an R9 290 + HD 7870 is superior to 2 x HD 7970 but I could be wrong. I really don't think you're going to see much of a performance increase, but as I said, I could be wrong.

I think you are confused on what I am looking to do.

Current setup is:
2x Crossfired 7970's

Plan is:
1x 290x
1x 7870

The 290x would be used only for 1 monitor, the main gaming monitor.
The 7870 would be used only for the 2 secondary monitors which are only used for text/browser/etc.

The goal is to take the stress off the primary monitors GPU power by separating the extra monitors. I already know that disabling crossfire and the 2 secondary monitors will shoot my FPS in BF4 from 60 to ~100.

The only thing I need to figure out of if a 290x and a 7870 will play well on the same drivers.

 

[k1114]

Avro is just confused. Games use the primary monitor and the gpu connected to it and any other gpu will be unused and just display other monitors as akensai is experiencing. Avro, you can try it with your gpus since you seem to have multiple gpus, possibly mutliple monitors. No offense but if you don't know then don't help. A wrong answer is worse than no answer.

Running the other monitors should have no performance decrease. Plug them all into a single gpu and then just 1 and see the fps difference. The cf issue is known for cod and it's rather pathetic that such a big title has issues. But if you want to drop cf then a 290x will be better than just a 7970. 7970 cf is better though; when it works. Having 2 different gpus on the same driver should have no issues. People will often post on here to get more monitors but not for gaming and will be suggested low end cheap cards with whatever current card they have. Even I run mixed cards in the same rig for extraneous purposes. Had no issues and been doing this for years on different gpus/rigs. Although before windows 7 it was a pain, I won't go into that.