Adding a 1030 to Dual 1070 setup, what happens to vram?

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outstander079

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Hello there!
Newbie here,
I currently have x2 GTX 1070s in my rig, with NO SLI.
The rig is primarily for 3D GPU rendering, I use render engines such as Octane Render and Iray.

Recently I've noticed how much my renders actually are slowing down because one of the 1070s is in use for the monitors. I also have a dual monitor setup:
A 29-inch ultrawide (21:9): http://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-29UM68-P-ultrawide-monitor
And a 24" 1920x1200px: https://www.asus.com/Monitors/PA248Q/

Which made me think about adding a cheaper card only for the monitors, so the 1070s would be dedicated to rendering only.

The 21:9 monitor must be connected to a DP port, otherwise will be limited to 16:9. I also need an HDMI/DP port for the second monitor, with these in mind after lots of searching I think the GTX 1030 would be a great choice.

I have found this version: https://www.msi.com/Graphics-card/GeForce-GT-1030-2G-LP-OC/Specification
This one by MSI has both DP and HDMI ports. It all seems correct and ready to go.
However, my question and concern is what happens to the 8gb VRAM from the 1070s?
I will be disabling the 1030 from the rendering software, so it will not be using it but would that work? Would the 8gb remain and 3gb be dedicated to the screens only? Considering I'm not going to do any SLI.

It makes sense that it does work but I just haven't seen anybody do this.

Also while you are at it, if you have any other/cheaper choices for the GPU, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thank you.
 
Solution
DRagor
If you connect both monitors to 1030, they will use only 1030 VRAM, and all resources of your 1070 will be for rendering programs. However, make sure your board has enough x16 slots and all 3 cards can fit together.
Another option would be to just use integrated graphics of your CPU, if it has one and motherboard has DP and HDMI slots. It requires changing certain settings in BIOS to allow iGPU work along dedicated GPUs.
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DRagor

DRagor

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If you connect both monitors to 1030, they will use only 1030 VRAM, and all resources of your 1070 will be for rendering programs. However, make sure your board has enough x16 slots and all 3 cards can fit together.
Another option would be to just use integrated graphics of your CPU, if it has one and motherboard has DP and HDMI slots. It requires changing certain settings in BIOS to allow iGPU work along dedicated GPUs.
 
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outstander079

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Thank you very much!
This is the motherboard: https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-X99-Designare-EX-rev-10#ov
The CPU is a 5820k. I don't have integrated graphics on my CPU.
FYI, the cards are both Asus Strix ROG 1070.

I've already tried fitting the cards together at the second and fourth PCIE slot with no problems, so I think I should be fine. I'm now only concerned about the cooling of the two cards, since they'll be literally sticking to each other.

Thanks!
 
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DRagor

DRagor

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Ok, so in such setup I would put one 1070 in top slot PCIE16-1, then 1030 in PCIE16-2 slot and finally second 1070 in PCIE16-3 slot. That way both 1070 get best cooling you can give them without limiting their functionality (putting them in 1070-1070-1030 setup would force you to use lowest slot, which is not good as it shares PCI lanes with top slot). And 1030 does not need much cooling anyway so it does not care to be in the middle.
 
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outstander079

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Ah, I thought the 1030 must be in the first slot to work! Okay, that seems like a good solution for cooling.
Something about the sharing of the lanes though, I never really understood how these lanes work and 'share', but the Designare EX motherboard has this feature called " Premium 3-Way PCIe x16 Multi-Graphics Support " which supposedly gives you x16/x16/x16 with a 28-lane CPU? Would that make any difference in this case? I may be wrong though.
I checked with GPUz and both my 1070s are running at x16 right now.
And I don't have anything else like a u.2 or m.2 storage installed.
Does this mean no matter in what order I put the cards, they would go at x16/x16/x16 ?
 
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outstander079

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Something I just found out, there's this review/comment on Google for the MSI 1030 card, it says that the card supports first monitor at 3840x2160px and the second monitor at 1920x1080px maximum.
(link: https://goo.gl/WDiuRM "Not for 2 x 4K monitors" comment)
My first monitor is 2560x1080px , and the second is 1920x1200px. Does this mean I would get black bars on top and bottom of the second monitor? Or would it somehow add up?
 
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DRagor

DRagor

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Typically all GPUs share CPU lanes only - that would mean with 28 lanes your CPU has, you would have x16/x8 on your 1070s (since x16/x16 is 32 total which is more then 28). In fact I think you do have x16/x8, because I never heard of such scenario where GPUs can use more lanes then CPU has. This premium feature, as far as I see it, only means the slots itself are all x16 (unlike in other mobos from that time which had only x8 in second slot and x4 in third for example). That means in case of your motherboard, order of cards does not matter, but with 3 cards you should still be limited to x16/x8/x4 setup. Which should be fine as long as 1030 ends in x4 mode (it is not going to use even that many lanes in reality - well in fact the model you linked only has 4 lanes physically connected anyway). However, if the setup I proposed (1070/1030/1070) would cause second 1070 to get only 4 lanes, that would be not good - in this case you should try moving 1030 one slot down (to PCIE4 slot), it can be tough as 1030 will be touching lower 1070, but like I wrote before, 1030 does not need much cooling so it should be doable.

As for monitors - can't give you precise answer. According to Nvidia specification, 1030 can output max 7680x4320@60 Hz. In case of multiple monitors, this should get split up between them, so I believe both your monitors should be able to get their full resolution as their total summed number of pixels is lower then card's maximum.
 
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outstander079

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I see, well, I think I'll end up putting the 1030 in the lower slot. I just tried moving the 1070 to the lower slot and it is so big that it forces me to disconnect my USB 3.0 cable, which I prefer not to. Then the lanes won't be a problem either. If this setup made a significant change in the temps, I'll try 1070/1030/1070. The lanes won't make a significant change in render speed anyways! Just in speed of loading the 3d scene in the vram, as far as I know.

The resolutions make sense to work too, I guess I won't have any choice but to check it my self!

I just have one last, small, question! I rarely play games with the setup, but when I do, would the game be only using the 1030 or all of the cards? What happens if the game needs more than 2GB vram, would it ignore the 1030 and go on with 1070s or would it be limited to 2gb?

Thank you for all of your help!
 
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DRagor

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Game can only use multiple cards if they are connected through SLI bridge - otherwise it can use ONLY the gpu that monitor is connected. That includes VRAM. If game will need more VRAM then 1030 has, it will use normal system RAM instead - obviously causing some performance drop - but it will not touch 1070 VRAM.
 
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outstander079

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Update (for anyone who is thinking of doing the same, or whatever):
I got the MSI 1030 card, put it in the last PCIE slot (I decided I didn't what to disconnect the USB3.0 cable). Connected DP and HDMI cables, it was a bit tricky to get it to work.
First, it didn't detect the card and gave me black screens, then I realized I have to change the 'initial display output' to PCIEX16_5 (or something like that).
Then, windows booted up and everything seemed normal until I ran a program (anything, including Google Chrome), Then it would 1. Freeze, 2. Give me black screens, 3. Show glitched screens on both monitors. At this point, I thought something is really bad, either the 1030 is faulty or some other parts, but after several restarts and choosing 'Optimized defaults' in BIOS it finally booted up with no problem and no freezes. Everything has been going smoothly, no problem with resolutions, vram or anything.
The first 1070 is running at x16, the second 1070 is at x8 and the 1030 is at x4, which is okay for me. The 1070s are in priority.

The only thing I wish was different is the default GPU for gaming! The only way I have now (if I want to use the 1070s for gaming) is to go to bios and change the initial display output to one of the 1070s, and connect the monitors to the 1070. It's better than nothing but I wish there was an easier way! If you have any other thoughts on this, I would appreciate it if you shared.

Thanks to DRagor for all the help!
 
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DRagor

DRagor

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Well, unfortunately there is no other way. Although I think you could avoid BIOS changes. Just boot as normal, then once in Windows move monitor cables from 1030 to 1070 and that should work (you may need to change default monitor after moving 1st cable). When done gaming move the cables back to 1030.
 
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outstander079

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Hmmm... will try that. I did think it was kind of odd because I had moved the monitors to the second 1070 in the past without having to change the BIOS. But it didn't seem to happen in this case.
 
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