Will a 2nd monitor hinder performance

[raine]

I am currently running a ViewSonic VX2453mh-LED at 1080P via HDMI and am considering adding a second monitor to the setup (gaming and watching vids simultaneously) and was wondering what, if any performance hit I might see while gaming if I was to get that second monitor.

[SCHISCHKA]

You won't notice anything but some games are dicks about which screen they display on. I use my tablet to watch videos and Skype while gaming instead of my second monitor. It's much easier

[Louie M]

I use 3 monitors and I have never had a problem with it hindering my performance.

[Guest]

Nothing noticeable but the YouTube video would slightly hinder it, though I'm sure you knew that :b

[raine]

6 minutes ago, SCHISCHKA said:

You won't notice anything but some games are dicks about which screen they display on. I use my tablet to watch videos and Skype while gaming instead of my second monitor. It's much easier

Much easier sounds nice, but unless the tablet has a 10"+ screen with a detachable keyboard dock that has a USB port that folds closed like a laptop I'd rather go with a second monitor. I'd rather avoid buying a case, stand and all the adapter cables that most people would end up buying to use the tablet as a multi-purpose device. The only thing I've seen that really fits the criteria is almost a decade old now and I'd prefer to avoid decade old refurbished technology and keep to stuff released <12 months ago.

[tomaatvk]

10 minutes ago, Quibiss said:

Been using more than one screen on my gaming setup for almost ~6 years now and I have yet to encounter any game that had any real issue (besides the occasional resizing and reallocating your stuff you had open in the background due to the game starting in a non-native resolution). 

To OP: The only real issue I enounter, which is not a performance issue, but a bit of a bugbear for me is that my GPU does not downclock to its idle state due some Nvidia shenanigans with 144Hz refresh rate and Gsync. So you might want to consider that in case you care about power consumption. 

I personally noticed that whenever I have 2 displays connected, no matter which ones, it idles fully and with a 3rd monitor connected, which can even be a 1024*768p display, it cannot downclock below 1101MHz (a slightly overclocked GTX 1070). This causes the GPU to use an extra 20 watts resulting in higher idle temps to the point where it almost can't run fanless on idle anymore.

 

On the other hand, having 2 displays connected vs just one is a difference of night and day and I can fully recomend it. The jump from 2 to 3 displays all depends on how much you multitask. If you are like me and have to work with 10 or more windows open at the same time it is really nice to have more than 2 displays but if you aren't going to be doing that 2 will do just fine.

 

I have also noticed 2 issues thusfar with using multi monitor setups. The first one is the gaming thing listed above and the other is that for whatever reason under certain conditions programs don't fullscreen propperly leaving the edges of the display uncovered (but this is only very occasionally).