Three monitors- three uses. Two GPUs?

[discodecepticon]

I asked this over on r/pcgamingtechsupport and the r/pcgaming techsupport thread, but I'm seeing conflicting answers.

 

I have three monitors (one 1440p two 1080p) Each does a different job (1440p= games/ general use like movies when not gaming. One 1080p= discord... and usually nothing else. The second 1080p= general use like youtube/ podcasts while playing games)

I am running all of this from a GTX 970.

My question is:
If I buy a new GPU could I keep running the two 1080p monitor from the GTX970, and use the new card for games on the 1440p? (EDIT: I'm not looking to SLI)
 

I'm trying to be cost effective here, I don't really have the money for an RTX 2080... but I could get a GTX 1660 or an RTX 2060 without a problem.

IF this does work- what are my limitations? Someone said that if I open a program on one of the 1080p monitors then that monitor would always render the window even if I moved it to the 1440p monitor.

If you guys cant help me, IDK what to do other than to find another card and do some experimenting.

[Derrk]

you can't mix different cards. You could get another 970 to run SLI, but having one 970 and a 2060 would not run together

[Mick Naughty]

What exactly are you trying to do? 

 

Could just run them all on a new card. Or just the 1440 on the new better card and the two on the 970.

Dragging videos isn't the best, best to refresh once moved as it could just go green and just have audio. Not like you should be doing that often.

[Arttu89]

36 minutes ago, Derrk said:

you can't mix different cards. You could get another 970 to run SLI, but having one 970 and a 2060 would not run together

You can most definetly mix diffrent cards, you just can't SLI them, you can even mix AMD with NVIDIA if you like.

 

Back on topic:

The above video might also clear this up a little, you can do a setup you want, but you have to keep mindful of setting/choosing the prefered graphics card for each application you open. This is a bit of a hassle as like with everything on Windows you can get the occasional hiccups, but it should generally give you the result you want.

 

Although instead of playing around with 2 graphics cards and 3 monitors, I'd just replace the 970 with a 1660/2060 and plug all 3 monitor into that for simplicity's sake.

[discodecepticon]

6 hours ago, Mick Naughty said:

What exactly are you trying to do? 

 

Could just run them all on a new card. Or just the 1440 on the new better card and the two on the 970.

Dragging videos isn't the best, best to refresh once moved as it could just go green and just have audio. Not like you should be doing that often.

I was wondering if the second thing was possible (1440 on one card and two 1080s on the old card) 

[Stefan Payne]

10 hours ago, discodecepticon said:

My question is:
If I buy a new GPU could I keep running the two 1080p monitor from the GTX970, and use the new card for games on the 1440p? (EDIT: I'm not looking to SLI)

Yes but it doesn't give you much advantages, especially with such a high end card.

If you could replace your 970 with a very low end card or use the integrated Graphics, it would make sense however.

 

10 hours ago, discodecepticon said:

IF this does work- what are my limitations? 

Everthing will be done on the primary card, the secondary card is only a display output device.

10 hours ago, Derrk said:

you can't mix different cards. You could get another 970 to run SLI, but having one 970 and a 2060 would not run together

You can, depending on what you are doing with it.

If you use the second card only as a display output, there is no problem.

 

You can't however use it (much) for 3D Stuff...

[Mick Naughty]

5 hours ago, discodecepticon said:

I was wondering if the second thing was possible (1440 on one card and two 1080s on the old card) 

Yea you can do any combo you want. 

 

Just cant sli two 970’s and do that. It will work with sli off or if you get a better card to run with it. 

[KarathKasun]

There is no reason to do this.  Even if the 2nd GPU is just displaying the desktop, performance will still be negatively impacted, perhaps even more than just using a single card to drive all three monitors.