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Adding a second GPU

Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2018 9:16 pm
by Pibuz
Hi to all!
I have a little help to ask you guys, since I'm no hardware expert. :mrgreen:

I'd like to add a second GPU to my recently-bought pc, which mounts:

CPU (Processor):Ryzen 7 1700X 8x 3.40GHz (YD170XBCAEWOF)
Mainboard:B350 MSI Tomahawk (7A36-002R)
Video Card (VGA Card):Zotac GeForce GTX 1070 Mini, 8GB GDDR5, DVI, HDMI, 3x DisplayPort (ZT-P10700G-10M)

I read that my motherboard doesn't support SLI, but it's "crossfire" ready.

Given the fact that i have no clue of what that means (...) would basically be useful to add my old GTX480 to get a little computing power for Indigo openCL?

Thank you a lot, and sorry for the (maybe) dumb question!


*EDIT* I found here some specs
https://www.zotac.com/us/product/graphi ... ini-0#spec

and seems like the new GPU DOEAS HAVE "SLI HB Bridge Supported"

*EDIT2* I found a post by ZomB saying that Indigo doesn't use SLi or Crossfire :lol:
So, basically, it's just connect the two f***ing videocards and play ahahahahah Am I right?

Re: Adding a second GPU

Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2018 1:03 am
by Oscar J
The GTX will probably be pretty useless for OpenCL rendering. But you're right, no need for SLI when rendering with Indigo. :)

Re: Adding a second GPU

Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2018 1:08 am
by Pibuz
hmm... they're both GTX ahahahahahah
i guess you meant the 480

Ok then I'll give that a try and I'll let you guys know!

Re: Adding a second GPU

Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2018 8:23 am
by pixie
I once share the same problem, but indigo itself had sorted out these issues. :)

Re: Adding a second GPU

Posted: Sun Feb 04, 2018 2:39 am
by Pibuz
Ok guys! I added the second video card (turned out to be a GTX950, and not a GTX480.....), and a second screen!

It's very cool!

I had to connect the second screen to the 950 because I haven't the right adaptor. Is there a way to monitor the contribute of each video card to the calculation?

Just to know if I have done something wrong!

Thanks you guys!

Re: Adding a second GPU

Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2019 2:33 pm
by Lal-O
Oscar J wrote:
Sat Feb 03, 2018 1:03 am
The GTX will probably be pretty useless for OpenCL rendering. But you're right, no need for SLI when rendering with Indigo. :)
Hi Oscar J !

What do you mean with the useless GTX ? I already have a GTX Titan X and is been working pretty fine so far, so...am i missing something? Do you have any other better sugestions :D ?)

Curiosly i found this topic looking out for some info about adding a second video card to my pc , i want to know if is possible to use 2( or 3 ..or 4 ..etc) different GPUs, like 2 Nvida and 1 AMD or 2 Radeon and 1 Nvidia and so on, being all different models.

I am asking this because now i can not afford other Titan X but i need more power so, any other a cheaper GPU would be fine unless they get useless together :roll:

Re: Adding a second GPU

Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2019 3:04 pm
by OnoSendai
Lal-O: Mixing different kinds of GPUs works fine.

The only thing to watch out for is if one is way more powerful than the other you may lose some efficiency.

Re: Adding a second GPU

Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2019 4:56 pm
by Lal-O
Thx for the reply Ono 👍

Re: Adding a second GPU

Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2019 7:04 am
by Oscar J
Lal-O wrote:
Wed Feb 27, 2019 2:33 pm
Oscar J wrote:
Sat Feb 03, 2018 1:03 am
The GTX will probably be pretty useless for OpenCL rendering. But you're right, no need for SLI when rendering with Indigo. :)
Hi Oscar J !

What do you mean with the useless GTX ?
I meant the GTX480 that Pibuz was talking about.

Re: Adding a second GPU

Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2019 7:50 am
by Lal-O
Oscar J wrote:
Thu Feb 28, 2019 7:04 am
Lal-O wrote:
Wed Feb 27, 2019 2:33 pm
Oscar J wrote:
Sat Feb 03, 2018 1:03 am
The GTX will probably be pretty useless for OpenCL rendering. But you're right, no need for SLI when rendering with Indigo. :)
Hi Oscar J !

What do you mean with the useless GTX ?
I meant the GTX480 that Pibuz was talking about.
Oh , i see...but could it be really useless? I mean ,would it not give some extra little power even if is an old model or that gpu has not the required technology to work for OpenCL? :?

Re: Adding a second GPU

Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2019 11:40 pm
by Oscar J
Lal-O wrote:
Thu Feb 28, 2019 7:50 am


Oh , i see...but could it be really useless? I mean ,would it not give some extra little power even if is an old model or that gpu has not the required technology to work for OpenCL? :?
Well, consider that the oldest Nvidia GPU in the benchmark is a GTX 560 and that provides about 5% of the performance of a 1080 Ti. OnoSendai just mentioned that you lose efficiency with GPUs that don’t have roughly matching performance, which could actually result in a net loss of performance. Then there’s the issue of 250 W power consumption and how much heat the GTX 480 will generate. Is it worth it? And that’s before even taking into account the huge bottleneck that is 1,5 GB of GPU memory, which will prevent rendering of anything remotely texture- or geometry heavy.

In essence, probably more or less useless. :wink:

Re: Adding a second GPU

Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2019 5:06 am
by Lal-O
Oscar J wrote:
Thu Feb 28, 2019 11:40 pm
Lal-O wrote:
Thu Feb 28, 2019 7:50 am


Oh , i see...but could it be really useless? I mean ,would it not give some extra little power even if is an old model or that gpu has not the required technology to work for OpenCL? :?
Well, consider that the oldest Nvidia GPU in the benchmark is a GTX 560 and that provides about 5% of the performance of a 1080 Ti. OnoSendai just mentioned that you lose efficiency with GPUs that don’t have roughly matching performance, which could actually result in a net loss of performance. Then there’s the issue of 250 W power consumption and how much heat the GTX 480 will generate. Is it worth it? And that’s before even taking into account the huge bottleneck that is 1,5 GB of GPU memory, which will prevent rendering of anything remotely texture- or geometry heavy.

In essence, probably more or less useless. :wink:

Definitely is useless :lol:

So, i finally decided the second gpu for my pc and i went for the 1070 Ti, i can not wait to see how it works with my Titan X. I hope it worth it :D