Dual graphics card for gaming? (...and...mining...?)

DrealFC · April 13, 2021

Okay, I understand this can be quite spicy to talk about graphics card, especially for mining...

But let's saayyy...

The current setup of mine with a i7-8700K, 16GB RAM and a MSi 1060 Armor 6GB was built in 2018 where the first(?) mining craze was happening,

and the graphics card is now barely handling medium/high settings for Apex Legends where occasional frame drops happens here and there.

And because I am running a dual monitor setup, whenever I drag a window to another monitor with a Chrome tab playing Youtube videos on one of the monitors,

"bullet time" would happen where there is an extreme delay for the dragging movement. So I have been looking for a graphics card upgrade since last September, but I was just freshly graduated and could not find a job to support that idea.

From where I am, graphics cards are scarce like rest of the world and the price of buying the cards solely is insane, and distributors have been packaging their RTX 30s with other products such as gaming monitors or full pre-builts, as limited bundles, i.e. 10 bundles at a time, which usually sells out in minutes to hours.

At the beginning of this month, I finally managed to purchase one of the bundles with a GIGABYTE G32QC A 31.5 inch curved 165Hz monitor and a GIGABYTE RTX 3060 Gaming OC 12GB for about 940USD.

While my room is not big enough for an extra monitor and I am trying to sell the monitor so as to "reimburse" the money spent for the bundle, or specifically, the 3060.

And now I am left with a question, sure I am going to game on the 3060, but what can I do with my 3-year-old 1060?

Watching the previous heated video of Linus talking about Nicehash, although I have no experience in mining cryptos, I have been wondering if I can use the 1060 putting into the same setup for mining so as to gain some value back,

Here are my doubts:

1. Is it going to work with 2 graphics card, especially when I am running a 650w power supply?

2. From what I have understood, even if it works, it is most likely that running a 3060 with a 1060 at the same time, there is going to be no improvement in performance comparing to running the 3060 only, am I correct?

3. Even if it works, is it possible to play games on one card on one monitor while mining of the another card and monitor? If that involves an upgrade for my PSU, how many watts of PSU will I need?

4. (It is going to be spicy...) If I am going to work at my office and leave my PC to mining fully while I am not at home, will the dual card setup give any more mining power/benefits comparing running 3060 only in the cost of using more power?

Thank you very much.