graphics card Two Graphics Cards?

[PopsMG]

Hi, I recently bought a 1070 to replace my 1060, found one at a decent price and was like "why not"

I dont quite know what to do with the other card, so I was wondering, is it possible to put two cards in the same system, but have my 1070 be the one I play with and use my monitors with, and have my 1060 be the one I would say record gameplay clips and such , personally I dont want to put the card to waste by not using it, I heard it is possible but I wanna get your guys opinion.

[mariushm]

Yes, it's possible.

Simply put the 1070 in the first slot, the 1060 in another slot, and majority of games will default to the first video card detected, which is the 1070.

The few others, you can either force from their settings, or from the nvidia control panel.

 

In OBS or whatever you use to do the capture, you should be able to select the video card.

 

Note that the cards have a dedicated hardware encoder, in the same gpu chip silicon but separate from the gpu chip part that does the game stuff, so the hardware encoding affects a game very minimally, barely noticeable if noticeable at all.  (just the hardware encoder part reserving a bit of gpu ram, copying game frames into that ram, then OBS downloading the compressed stuff)

 

[Oshino Shinobu]

Technically, yes. But it's really not worth the effort for what you've described, you'd be better off just using the 1070 for everything. With NVENC and Shadowplay, recording gameplay really doesn't take any performance away from games and such. 

 

Best option is to sell the 1060 while the prices are good (for sellers). Just be wary of scammers at the moment, make sure to document and take pictures of everything as you box it up and such and keep note of serial numbers. I've had 3 people try to scam me when selling GPUs during the current shortage, one of which I'm still fighting with their bank for. 

[Kilrah]

-> Moved to Graphics Cards

[Vishera]

11 minutes ago, PopsMG said:

Hi, I recently bought a 1070 to replace my 1060, found one at a decent price and was like "why not"

I dont quite know what to do with the other card, so I was wondering, is it possible to put two cards in the same system, but have my 1070 be the one I play with and use my monitors with, and have my 1060 be the one I would say record gameplay clips and such , personally I dont want to put the card to waste by not using it, I heard it is possible but I wanna get your guys opinion.

 

Just now, Oshino Shinobu said:

Technically, yes. But it's really not worth the effort for what you've described, you'd be better off just using the 1070 for everything. With NVENC and Shadowplay, recording gameplay really doesn't take any performance away from games and such. 

 

Best option is to sell the 1060 while the prices are good (for sellers). Just be wary of scammers at the moment, make sure to document and take pictures of everything as you box it up and such and keep note of serial numbers. I've had 3 people try to scam me when selling GPUs during the current shortage, one of which I'm still fighting with their bank for. 

A second GPU can be really useful for GPU pass through in virtualized  environments,

But you will have to go through the hassle of hiding the fact that you use a virtual machine,and i recommend to use a KVM for that.

[Oshino Shinobu]

1 minute ago, Vishera said:

 

A second GPU can be really useful for GPU pass through in virtualized  environments,

But you will have to go through the hassle of hiding the fact that you use a virtual machine,and i recommend to use a KVM for that.

True, but that's a really specific and I'd say very uncommon use case. If OP's not fussed about the money, can be worth keeping it around for use in a HTPC or server in the future. 

[PopsMG]

14 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Yes, it's possible.

Simply put the 1070 in the first slot, the 1060 in another slot, and majority of games will default to the first video card detected, which is the 1070.

The few others, you can either force from their settings, or from the nvidia control panel.

 

In OBS or whatever you use to do the capture, you should be able to select the video card.

 

Note that the cards have a dedicated hardware encoder, in the same gpu chip silicon but separate from the gpu chip part that does the game stuff, so the hardware encoding affects a game very minimally, barely noticeable if noticeable at all.  (just the hardware encoder part reserving a bit of gpu ram, copying game frames into that ram, then OBS downloading the compressed stuff)

 

How would I say change in streamlabs obs and stuff, like in the control panel? and would it be possible to use it as a dedicated card for a vr headset as well?

[PopsMG]

8 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

True, but that's a really specific and I'd say very uncommon use case. If OP's not fussed about the money, can be worth keeping it around for use in a HTPC or server in the future. 

That would be pretty cool, have a small server or something

 

[Oshino Shinobu]

1 minute ago, PopsMG said:

That would be pretty cool, have a small server or something

 

It can be useful, depending on what you're using it for. You can set up a render server, Plex server and other things that benefit from GPU acceleration/transcoding. Or just keep it around for a small gaming rig if you want to have an HTPC in the living room you can use for couch gaming or something. 

[mariushm]

1 minute ago, PopsMG said:

How would I say change in streamlabs obs and stuff, like in the control panel? and would it be possible to use it as a dedicated card for a vr headset as well?

No idea in Streamlabs

 

I don't have two cards at the moment and I  have an older version of the regular OBS, 27.0.0  ... in this one the setting is where you select the encoder, with two video cards you would have nvEnc listed there twice, one for each card.