Two different GPU's at once?

[millions1030]

Current specs:

Motherboard- Gigabyte P55A-UD3 review 2.0
CPU- Internet core i5-760 2.8Ghz
GPU- HD Radeon 5770 1GB DDR5
RAM- 4GB DDR3

I currently run one monitor off that video card. Is it possible to add another video card whether it be another 5770, different series/family PCI-E Radeon video card, Nvidia card or even standard PCI video card and run another monitor separately. Or even play games and have one video card dedicated to one monitor, and the other video card to the other monitor? If possible, will this produce better quality/ performance gaming than a crossfire configuration?

 

[jryan388]

Gaming will only improve with crossfire. Get another 5770. It shouldn't matter which vendor as long as the clocks are similar (they will both run at the lower clock) and the amount of memory is the same.

 

[unksol]

It is perfectly possible to run 2 monitors off that card. You do not NEED another card. My friend runs 3 monitors off his 5750 for driving Sims. You can Chose to use bother or one monitor for gaming.

If you are not satisfied with gaming performance you could add a second 5770 in crossfire. Or replace it with a higher end card. Any modern gaming GPU can run 2 monitors independently, and you can always choose to only use one monitor for games. There is no reason to run 2 GPUs for 2 monitors

 

[millions1030]

It is perfectly possible to run 2 monitors off that card. You do not NEED another card. My friend runs 3 monitors off his 5750 for driving Sims. You can Chose to use bother or one monitor for gaming.

If you are not satisfied with gaming performance you could add a second 5770 in crossfire. Or replace it with a higher end card. Any modern gaming GPU can run 2 monitors independently, and you can always choose to only use one monitor for games. There is no reason to run 2 GPUs for 2 monitors

My reason for dedicating an entire. Video card to one monitor is so I can get the best performance possible on that monitor. I'm assuming eyefinity/ multiple displays would make my FPS/ over all performance deteriorate.

 

[quilciri]

Crossfire is also a little more flexible than SLI. You can crossfire any 2 cards in the same 2-digit series, so you can crossfire a 5770 with a 5750, but not a 5870 or a 6770.

 

[cumi2k4]

No you can't dedicate videocard A to one monitor while using videocard B to the other. The cards have to work together by crossfire or sli..

 

[randomkid]

My reason for dedicating an entire. Video card to one monitor is so I can get the best performance possible on that monitor. I'm assuming eyefinity/ multiple displays would make my FPS/ over all performance deteriorate.

If you plan to add just 1 monitor that works separately from the other ( I assume extended desktop ), then no need for another video card & you can connect both monitors to the same video card.
If you want to use 3 monitors for Eyefinity, you still need to connect all monitors to the same AMD video card* ( whether single or in 2 in crossfire ). The catalyst driver will ensure that whatever application you run will derive the maximum possible performance from both video cards.


*for the 3rd monitor, you must connect to a display port. So your 3rd monitor must have a display port input or you can use a display port to DVI/VGA adaptor. You can not make Eyefinity work by connecting to 2 monitors in 1 video card & 1 monitor to the other.

 

[millions1030]

Best answer selected by millions1030.