Two different VGA cards in my computer, is that possible?

It's possible. Though I doubt you can turn it on through the software, but you can always turn off, plug monitor to another card, and start the computer again.

Yes you can do this, Now your going to want to make sure that you have both Nvidia or both AMD and since these standalone cards are not capable of crossfire, When you play a game, it will run on your primary monitor/display while the other displays show whatever other content you have up. So when i'm not using a triple gaming monitor setup, only my middle monitor is of the game while the 2 side displays have Outlook and a browser or whatever. One thing is if your displays are 1920x1080 or whatever, you should game at this resolution because if you game at 800x600, all of your displays will change to this 800x600 resolution which could make those other windows not so useful.

If I have two AMD cards, can't the Catalyst Control Center/Calalyst Pro does that?

If isn't there any monitor connected to the VGA, it will be off?

And can I keep they both connected to the monitor. the gaming one through the HDMI and the professional one through the DVI. Change only the monitor display settings, instead of plug/unplug many times the cable?

thank you.

good points gutz. But your not gonna be able to SLI a Professional and a gaming card. Make sure your power supply handles the two different cards

Are you using multiple monitors? I'm kind of confused because you wouldn't want to actually turn them on or off if you are. You'd just hook your main monitor up to the gaming one, and the rest to the "professional" one. as jgutz2006 said. Except for the part about the resolution... Monitor resolutions are set independantly.

If your using a single display there's no reason to have a "professional" card in there at all. Unless you are using it for GPGPU compute, but then i wouldn't think you'd need to have the monitor hooked to it.

You can. If you install 2 cards you can use both of them as long as the operating system supports it.

Windows xp and windows 7 are able to run multiple video drivers. Ubuntu can as well.

Vista is crap at it.

It is easier to run two cards of the same brand.

Also, you can disable/enable screens via catalyst control center (amd) or nvidia's equivalent.

The only way I know of to enable/disable a card in windows through a GUI is device manager.

Again, you are saying you have them both connected to the SAME monitor? Why do you have 2 cards then???

K, too many replys...

Well I want to build the following settings:

I5 3570K
P8Z77
16Gb (4x4) Corsair Vengence
SeaSonic S12II 620 Bronze
EAH6870

And, soon, a Professional VGA.

I have and will use, always, just one monitor at 1080p
And Windows 7 64b.

6870 for games only.
A FirePro V5900 (maybe) for autocad (and other) only.

You could connect them as you said, and use the monitor inputs to "select" which card is feeding the display, but I wouldn't think you'd have to be connected to the FirePro at all for Autocad to use it. It should be aware of the card and either automatically use it or give you the option to do so.

I'm also led to believe the professional card is only going to do any good if you are doing 3D rendering. Not sure how much difference it will make, so better off for someone who does that sort of thing to comment

If I choose, on my monitor, to display the 6870. The FirePro will be turned off?
is the reciprocal true?

I will use it to:

Autocad 3D rendering, lights...
Autocad and 3D Max animation.
Simulation...

My guess is that what you are trying to do isn't going to work the way you want it too, it's too weird (though I understand what you want to do, and it makes sense).

Here are the two smooth options I see for you:

Get Two computers, one for gaming and one for your professional work, hook them up to the same mouse, keyboard, and monitor via a KVM switch (a device which will let you switch which computer the devices are connected to with a button press)

Or

Determine which scenario is more important for you to optimize, either gaming or pro work, and go with it in your hardware build. A pro card can run games at a reasonable detail level, and a gaming card can run CAD (from my limited experience) reasonably well.

If you go down the road your thinking, you will likely encounter a major drawback that makes the whole setup unusable, which is unfortunate, because it's a decent idea.

I can't afford having two computers.

6870 is "weak" for animation at high resolutions, it takes sooooo much time to render.

That's why I want to make a game/pro. config.

There is no harm in trying what you are planning, I just don't think it is going to work, so I was giving you a few alternatives to try if you get your HW and it doesn't work.

If you have an existing desktop PC, then you don't really need to buy two computers, you just have to choose what task gets the new hardware and what gets the old. If you don't have a desktop, in about a week or so you will likely see alot of sandybridge Mobo+Ram+CPU combos flooding ebay/craigslist, you could probably snag yourself a good deal there.

Alternatively, you could try running two monitors to your two video cards (this would probably be the more budget friendly alternative), I wouldn't run out and buy a new monitor, just use one sitting around to test it and make sure it works as you expect it to.

I'd like to know why people suggest getting 2 cards of the same brand (ie: 2 AMD or 2 Nvidia).

First of all, you can definitely use an AMD card and an Nvidia card in the same PC. I've done this (I use crossfire 5850s and have a GT240 for PhysX). In fact I have even had my main monitor plugged into the CF 5850s and a 2nd monitor plugged into the GT240. This works fine.

The benefit of using an AMD and an Nvidia card is that the workstation cards use totally different drivers than the gaming cards. As far as I know, you can't install both driver sets (gaming+workstation). If you can, then this is irrelevant... but I just think it would be significantly easier to run an AMD FirePro and an Nvidia GeForce with 1 set of drivers each.

As for the single monitor thing, I see no reason why you can't have both cards plugged into it. They will both be "on" and trying to output a signal at startup (POST), but in Windows you can just select the monitor to be displayed on whichever card, and disable the monitor on the other card. There might even be a way of macroing that with windows commands, although I don't know how.

Do you think using two AMD/Nvidia VGAs's might create some issue when I instal/update their driver?

I already have that EAH6870.

So the next one must be a FirePro or Quadro.

I don't know but these Quadros seems to be too expensive.

AMD FirePro seems to be a cheaper solution.