[SOLVED] System with GTX 970 and GTX 750 inside?

[Xenone]

Few days ago I bought a system on Ebay as it was very cheap and had 4 500GB Samsung SSD's that cost more than what I paid for the hole rig. When I got the PC, I was surprised when I saw that it had GTX 970 4GB plugged into first PCIe slot and a GTX 750 2GB into second and the GTX 970 had original plastic cover caps on all ports while the GTX 750 didn't, I went back to the Ebay listing and there was a picture of the back and the seller had 3 monitors plugged into the GTX 750 and none to the GTX 970. When I first booted the PC and started going thru the settings, I noticed that it was setup so GTX 970 is used in games. I'm really interested to find out why would someone have this weird setup with a GTX 750 just for monitors and GTX 970 to render games? I don't see any performance gains. The only thing I can think of is that the seller used the GTX 750 for monitors output and stream encoding and played games on the GTX 970? If anyone has any idea, please let me know, I'm very interested in this setup.

 

[k1114]

It just unnecessarily complicates things. Even if used as you said, why not just plug the monitors in the 970 that are used for gaming and the extras in the 750? There's no extra setup that way. Having all monitors in the 750 requires settings to be changed to accomplish the same thing. Maybe they were trying some power saving method but even that doesn't make sense because non 2d modes are <20w and idling both gpus uses more power than just using the 970 alone.

 

[Xenone]

It just unnecessarily complicates things. Even if used as you said, why not just plug the monitors in the 970 that are used for gaming and the extras in the 750? There's no extra setup that way. Having all monitors in the 750 requires settings to be changed to accomplish the same thing. Maybe they were trying some power saving method but even that doesn't make sense because non 2d modes are <20w and idling both gpus uses more power than just using the 970 alone.

Thanks for your reply, after brain storming for a bit, I also though about the possibility of the previous owner mining on the GTX 970 when he wasen't gaming and had the GTX 750 for output to all monitors so he can still use the PC for browsing the internet or watching videos while he was mining. I'm positive the card wasen't just used for mining because the PC already had Steam, LoL and PUBG installed when I got it and after going thru some folders, I found un-deleted folders and game saves to bunch of more games like GTA V, Need For Speed Payback and many more, I'm sure he wouden't play those on a GTX 750 when I don't even think half of the games would be playable on a GTX 750. I personally run a GTX 980ti with triple monitors and I was wondering if putting the GTX 970 into my rig along with the GTX 980ti but plug in my gaming monitor into the GTX 980ti to output games on it and the two secondary monitors into GTX 970, would it have any noticable performance gains? I do play podcasts or sometimes watch YouTube videos on a second monitor while I play games. Obviously taking the load of two monitors from a GPU will help gain few extra FPS or drop 2C-4C in tempture but will it actually be noticeable? I have a 850W PSU with extra PCIe plugs and enough PCIe lanes to run the GTX 970 so I'm not sacrificing anything except using a bit more power. And if I record a clip or stream a game, I can also use the GTX 970 for encoding which I do from time to time.

 

[k1114]

The mining theory could be the reason. As for having both gpus in a rig, podcasts/youtube is so little performance required, it's a drop in a bucket for a 980ti. You will see no change. Do you see a performance dip when you record/stream that would be worthwhile to have both gpus? Remember that although you are taking the load off the 980ti, you are adding more heat to it from the 970 running so you won't see a temp drop, you'd get a temp increase which could affect turbo to get a fps drop. While many people have had the same idea to have multiple gpus, you can see it can have the complete opposite affect in some cases.

Kind of a correction to my earlier post but even with the monitor in the 970, the 750 may still need apps added to the list to switch for the other tasks so it's pretty much the same either way.