Adding a second video card for driving more monitors

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Pumpkin Ghost
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Apr 24, 2005
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I currently have three screens total running off of my GTX 980. My primary display is a 144Hz screen native 1920x1080. My two side screens are both 60Hz 1920x1200 (16:10) native.

Right now both DVI links, and the one Displayport link are all in use, leaving only an HDMI link. This presents two issues:

1: If I do hook a fourth screen into the HDMI link, all displays get locked to 60Hz. Not ideal, as I like my 144Hz screen.
2: The HDMI link is limited to 1920x1080 (16:9). I want higher native resolutions as my other screens are bigger.

So I was thinking about adding in a cheap graphics card to drive other displays. I was looking at tossing in a GeForce GT 610. It's cheap, and has two DVI-D links. My question is, will this cause any type of funny business with my 980, or any performance issues while gaming at 144Hz?

Since they are both nVidia cards, I don't see there being an issue, but it's always better to ask.
 
If you're not doing surround it should be fine. I have a 980ti for a nvidia surround setup and a 650ti for two monitors for my iracing dashboard and telemetry. I tried a gt610 and I lost some performance in iracing in surround (some frame rate drop). I'm still trying to figure it out but I'm gaming with it as is.
If you are not doing surround I don't think you will have any issue.
The only thing is that your primary desktop may change with each power on depending on which card POSTs first.
 
Thanks for the info. No I do not plan on surround. I only game one my primary screen, the others will be used for productivity related things, and displaying other programs while I game.
 
2: The HDMI link is limited to 1920x1080 (16:9). I want higher native resolutions as my other screens are bigger.

you sure about that? I am running a monitor off of my GTX 970s HDMI port via an HDMI > DVI cable at 1920x1200
 
you sure about that? I am running a monitor off of my GTX 970s HDMI port via an HDMI > DVI cable at 1920x1200

Yeah, already tried it on one of the screen. It didn't go past 1080 for some reason. Even still I will be adding more screens later.
 
I believe nvidia mosaic mode is limited to three displays.

I could be wrong here though.
 
I'm not looking to do anything with mosaic mode. These are all independent displays.
 
What CPU are you running? Unless it's a Xeon you have a built in iGPU. Just enable that. More that enough for driving an extra screen.
 
What CPU are you running? Unless it's a Xeon you have a built in iGPU. Just enable that. More that enough for driving an extra screen.

My system is in my sig. Asus X99 Pro, with a 5930K, no built in video on the flagship boards/CPUs.
 
So small update for anyone who is still watching. I got the second card intoday. It solved ALL of my problems. I think I was maxing out the output channels on my 980. I also notice that wil all of my extra displays connected to the second card, when I'm in a game or any 3D program, alt+tab to desktop or something on another screen is instant now. The screens no longer flicker when alt+tab'ing out of a game. I'm happy with the setup so far.
 
Nice! Glad it's fixed. Yeah the mobile view no longer shows sigs so I couldn't tell what you are running. Nice rig.
 
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