Dual gpu questions

[Duskguy]

so i've got a computer running a 1 gig nvidea gtx 550 ti.
specs say it will need approx 400 watts of power.

now i have a 750 watt powersupply, if i were to add another card, would it require all 400 watts as well, meaning i need a bigger powersupply?

and if i get another gpu, i understand its better to run two of the same card, but would it work if i run a slightly lower spec gpu such as an nvidea gt 610, or am i likely to burn out the lower card.

and lastly, if i were to just get a better card as the main gpu, would it be worth it, or would i risk burning out the 550ti by running it with a better card?

[Rbstr]

Most computer parts have a thermal design power (TDP) which is about the maximum expected heat output of the part under load. That's roughly equivalent to the amount of power the part draws.
You can look this up for nearly all CPUs and GPUs to get an idea of what you need.
The TDP of a 550Ti is 116w. So a second one would add about that much draw.

You're not going to "burn out" anything by doing SLI with two cards...but IIRC the lower spec card doesn't render, it does PhysX in enabled games.

Advice for you: Don't buy a crappier card than the one you already have. Either upgrade and ditch the 550 or do normal SLi...a 550ti is like $150.

[Duskguy]

the gt 610 has the same features as the 550ti, it just isnt as fast, hence why i was asking about it burning out if it tries to keep up.
if the lower card would just be doing phys x, would an equal card actually share the rendering with the first?
if all the second card would be doing is supporting the 550, doing phys x or other basic processes, i can get the 610 for $60, about half the price of another 550. buying a more expensive card is unfortunately not an option for now as i need to throw the money toward school books, so the second gtx 550ti for ~$130 is as much as i could do

[Rbstr]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Link_Interface

Don't buy a 610 for any application, it's junk.

[Goku]

GTX 550 Ti is a weak card IMO. Save up a few bucks and get a stronger single card instead http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500225

[Duskguy]

guess i'll just see how far the 550 can get me for now.

just wondering though, what is conidered better, 2 cards or one more powerful one?
for example if i blew another $130 on a second 550, would i get better performance/graphics over blowing $150-$200 on a single better card, or would the performance be comparable?
because as i said, i am on a budget due to needing school supplies and gas money (it keeps going up!). besides its a new computer with a new 550, not going to just toss it while it's still a decent card if i can just augment it with a better main card/ a second same card.

[Goku]

I prefer stronger cards just due to the fact you do not put up with the multi gpu issues. Single card drivers are solid over all, but SLI/Crossfire can be a total mess at times. When neither of those technologies are not working you are stuck with a low end card. This isn't the case with single stronger card. With that in mind you really only should consider SLI or Crossfire if you have high end models (7900/670/680) and need the extra performance.

Keep in mind that 560 is $125 after MIR. To offset the cost further just sell off the 550 Ti.

Review here of 550 Ti SLI review (http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/08/22/msi_n550gtxti_cyclone_ii_sli_video_card_review/1). Really isn't that impressive at all IMO.

[Duskguy]

I prefer stronger cards just due to the fact you do not put up with the multi gpu issues. Single card drivers are solid over all, but SLI/Crossfire can be a total mess at times. When neither of those technologies are not working you are stuck with a low end card. This isn't the case with single stronger card. With that in mind you really only should consider SLI or Crossfire if you have high end models (7900/670/680) and need the extra performance.

Keep in mind that 560 is $125 after MIR. To offset the cost further just sell off the 550 Ti.

Review here of 550 Ti SLI review (http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/08/22/msi_n550gtxti_cyclone_ii_sli_video_card_review/1). Really isn't that impressive at all IMO.

alright, i'll keep that in mind. as i said, im on a budget, and if im going to buy a new card, its going to have to be a lot better than what i've got. i looked into the specs and all that. most likely and soonest upgrade would probably be the 560 ti, which is about $150-$200 depending on sales and MIR. but i was also looking at the gtx 600 series cards, and perhaps if they go on sale towards the end of the year, or early next year, which is when i planned on getting a card, for the reason of sales, i'll just get one of the 600s.

as i said, for now i'll just hold onto the 550 and just deal with whatever graphics it can smoothly run in PS2

[Goku]

I'm sure you will find playable settings for the 550 Ti. Sorry if I sound like a bit of an ass. I just can't stand that card. Mostly due to for months the GTX 460 was at a cheaper price point and is a far better performer compared to the 550 Ti. Even on Newegg the 550 Ti was outselling the 460. The 500>400 thinking has tricked many consumers is all...

[Duskguy]

lol, yeah thats not hy i got that card. cyberpower was not selling any gtx 400 cards and this was the standard with the system i went with. was offered only amd fx processors so went with the 8 @3.6 ghz since it was on sale for the same price as the [email protected] at the time, upgraded the case for expandability, upgraded from a 500 powersupply to a 750 and got overclock capable raptor g skill x ram. had to settle for the video card because i wanted the computer as close to $800 with as many key features as possible.

and yes, i realise $800 is overpriced for a gamer computer but 5 years of xbox left me completely computer illiterate. last comp was built around 8 years ago. the cables are all last generation, and are basically the same as the ones that powered the floppy drive. yeah, it had a floppy drive, and had a single core processor and there was NO dual gpu/HD capabiility.

edit: and yes, i realize the fx cpu is crap overall, but reviews of it arent bad, so it will hold till amd makes a good 6 core to replace the phenom quad cores, or hell, makes a phenom 6 core.

[Goku]

Ah I see. Well you have to work with what you got. Steamroller doesn't sound bad, but no idea if that will be AM3+. There were leaks of a Piledriver ES and it didn't look that good.

Any PC is better then a xbox if its made for gaming IMO.

[Duskguy]

i'll have to keep an eye out on CPUs, because at this stage it may be that i will need a new mother board for a CPU upgrade if they move on from AM3+ sockets.

the piledrive/steamroller dont look too bad from the few articles i quickly read about their development, but i'll have to wait till they are well and truely finished and tested before thinking of buying them, which brings me back to possibly needing a new MoBo...but then again at least if things are moving towards integrated graphics, i wont hav to worry about dual video cards as the CPU graphics will augment the card.

[Rbstr]

Well, it remains to be seen if discrete cards and cpu-graphics are ever going to play particularly well together.
Intel has a thing going with Lucid Virtu that seems to be going that direction.

A discrete card is going to be necessary for a while yet.
The issue is that putting a whole kickass video card onto a CPU die more than doubles the transistor count, without counting memory. The big nVidia 600 series cards have 3.5 billion transistors. Ivy Bridge has 1.5billion, including its graphics! (Plus, the CPU companies aren't very good at graphics...AMD now bought ATI but it's still not integrated that well)
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/cpu/intel/IvyBridge/review/Ivy-Bridge_Die_Labelsm.jpg
Personally I hope Intel goes back to selling graphics-less CPU's in the budget-minded-gamer range of ~$200, so we can get more back for the buck. It doesn't seem very likely because of how processors are designed and fabricated.

If I were you, I'd wait it out for the next generations and armed with new knowledge put something together with the cost more efficiently allocated. Even if you've got "meh" hardware I never find much value in upgrading when everything is current.

[Duskguy]

i understand that cpu graphics wouldnt be good, but was reading an article where it was saying the cpu graphics would simply augment the gpu card. would be like having 1.5 graphic cards and not needing to run SLI. how well it will work out and all remains to be seen.

edit: and i prefer my cpu to be gpu-less for now. but in the future, who knows, the cpu might suffer almost lowering of processing power with a gpu that is meant to augment a card.

personally i would like to see these cpu companies look at optimizing their processors and having a gpu meant not to power the graphics as a whole on its own, but instead just there to add power to the graphics card. the integrated gpu for example would do physx only while the actual graphics card did everything else.

[fb III IX ca IV]

With Nvidia, you MUST have the same card, also with the same amount of ram (you can't SLI a GTX 460 768MB and 1GB). AMD allows for cards within the same series (for example a 6950 and a 6970 because they are in the 6900 series) to work together in CrossfireX. The only exception I can think of is the dual GPU 6990, even though it is a 6900 card it is in a "series" of its own.

[Duskguy]

With Nvidia, you MUST have the same card, also with the same amount of ram (you can't SLI a GTX 460 768MB and 1GB). AMD allows for cards within the same series (for example a 6950 and a 6970 because they are in the 6900 series) to work together in CrossfireX. The only exception I can think of is the dual GPU 6990, even though it is a 6900 card it is in a "series" of its own.

i did not know that... good thing i no longer plan on running dual cards, otherwise i might've screwed myself over badly.

[Pancake]

The failures of buying a second 550Ti:

1. GTX 460 pwns 550Ti.
2.They suck, even in SLI.
3. Could have bought a better card.

When you do get that new card, you can use the 550Ti as a dedicated PhysX GPU.

[Rbstr]

i did not know that... good thing i no longer plan on running dual cards, otherwise i might've screwed myself over badly.

You know, man, there is the thing called Google that will tell you about anything you can type into a box...I even linked the Wiki article on SLI that explains _everything_.
It's not that you shouldn't ask questions to be sure about things. But doing the basic research is simply a thing you should do before anything else.

[Duskguy]

i went to best buy and spent an hour and a half talking to the geek squad guys about dual cards, and i was assured i could run 2 different nvidea cards.

perhaps im misunderstanding your meaning, but you are now saying i could NOT possibly run a 550 with a 680, and instead would need two 550s. am i getting this correct?

because earlier it was claimed, i believe by you yourself that i COULD do just such a thing.

hence my "i did not know that" as in i did not know the cards had to be exactly the same. if you meant they had to both be nvidea, then yes i knew that

[Goku]

What do you mean by two different Nvidia cards? As in two different GTX 550 Ti from different makers or a GTX 550 Ti and GTX 670? If its the GTX 550 Ti and GTX 670 well that is very very wrong. You can only SLI the same type of card, but they can be a different version of that same card. Like using this ASUS 670 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121637) and Zotac 670 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500242) are able to be used in SLI despite having different designs.

I would never seek advice from Geek squad to be honest. Far majority of the time they do not know anything really.

[Duskguy]

lol aparently.

and yes as i had asked originally i was intending on putting a gt 610 with the 550, and was told i COULD do that, but not recommended as said by Rbstr...who now says i should've known by looking at his link, which as far as i could tell makes no mention of same spec cards.

anyway, all of this is a moot point as i likely wont be running a dual setup as i have no real need for it and it wouldnt be worth it for me atm. only have a tv main monitor and a small side monitor which may not even be compatible with PS2 the way i want to use it, to display the map. <- which i can do by running the "real time" website with an "up to date" map on this laptop assuming their website really is real time when they get it up and running.

[Goku]

Yeah most employees even in Geek Squad in those type of stores don't know shit. At least you know that now.

Rbstr's link did actually have that info.

SLI allows two, three or four graphics processing units (GPUs) to share the workload when rendering a frame. Ideally, two cards using identical GPUs are installed in a motherboard that contains two PCI-Express slots, set up in a master-slave configuration

In an SLI configuration, cards can be of mixed manufacturers, card model names, BIOS revisions or clock speeds. However, they must be of the same GPU series (e.g. 8600, 8800) and GPU model name (e.g. GT, GTS, GTX).[20] There are rare exceptions for "mixed SLI" configurations on some cards that only have a matching core codename (e.g. G70, G73, G80, etc.), but this is otherwise not possible, and only happens when two matched cards differ only very slightly, an example being a differing amount of video memory, stream processors, or clockspeed. In this case, the slower/lesser card becomes dominant, and the other card matches. Another exception is the GTS 250, which can SLI with the 9800 GTX+, as the GTS 250 GPU is a rebadged 9800 GTX+ GPU.

In regards to the live map I hear SOE may do that for an extra monitor. I have a spare 19 inch 1280x1080, which would be perfect for that. I would prefer a in game option as you could put your chat box, squad/platoon list, and so on over there too. There is going to be app for tablets to have a live map I know, but i don't know if it can show the location of your squad mates for example.

[Duskguy]

alright, i missed that in the link, but from his explaination i got the understanding i could run the two different types.
for that, i apolgise rbstr, it was my misunderstanding.

and they might have that for the map? thats good news. not sure how well the 550 would perform like that, but i dont plan on running high graphics anyway, plan on going for steady fps, even if i have to turn a few things to low.

and i agree, the map as well as other random things on the side would be nice. i have a 27 inch tv and then a small 18-9 inch square monitor which would suit a map perfectly.

[Goku]

I don't think having the map up like that would cause any issues performance wise, but who knows.