2 graphic cards

MrMonolitas

Hey guys, i have a question. Since i will be building ryzen pc soon, i was wondering what are the benefits of having two graphic cards in the same rig. I have to make a notice, not in sli or crossfire. Is there anything i could do with two seperate graphic cards? Video encodig, rendering or something like that? I was thinking about one high end graphic card and further down the road get cheaper video card ( when miners going to drop the prices finally ) for... Something... would it make some things easier for me? I know this question is very vague... Well i could do mining i suppose.

Rusque

Unless you need it for whatever you do for a living, you may end up bottlenecking at the CPU level (depending on what you do) which will defeat the purpose of running simultaneous tasks.

As far as mining goes, you'll really want to figure out associated costs (cooling and electricity) before doing that these days. Most mining isn't worth it for individuals as you'll have to either be a miner for alt-coins that no one cares about (gogogo DOGE!) or try to compete against BTC/ETH farms which will annihilate your single card hashrate. You may/may not manage to mine anything and depending on associated costs, you may actually end up losing money - so do the math first.

I say just get one card and enjoy your machine for yourself.

Ridelynn

Yes, you can do it. A lot of people do it that drive a lot of monitors (4+), or do crypto mining or other GPU data computation tasks.

They will not work together though, you have to have individual tasks for each card. That means gaming will only work on one of the cards. In the theoretical task of video rendering, without special distribution software (which does exist, but for the sake I'll assume your not using), you render 1 video per GPU just fine, but you couldn't use all the GPUs to render just 1 video and have it speed that up.

For the most part, unless you need it for massive multi-monitor support (and even then there are arguably better solutions), or are doing it specifically for some task (crypto mining, render farm, AI training), then most avoid it.

Excession

If it is for mining, would probably be better just building a PC specific to that task.

MrMonolitas

Ok, then it seems mining isint an option. And mostly will be getting one card. I will be runing 2 monitors maximum. 1 144hz and 2nd one will be just simple cheap monitor to keep browsing or so. But one card should be handling that. I was pushed to this question because of 370 or 350 motherboards. 370 offers two lanes for graphic carda and 350 doesnt. I dontwant to change motherboard letter on. Thats why i was asking what are the reasons people get 2nd card.

Quizzical

This is kind of like asking, if I put an FPGA in my system, is there anything I can do with it?  Well yes, there are things you can do with it.  But unless you have some particular desired use in mind, it's not likely that you actually will do anything with it, and so it would be a waste of money.

Ridelynn

Well, the biggest reason for the 370 over the 350 would be SLI/Crossfire.

If you aren't planning on that, then yeah, all other things equal, that second PCI slot doesn't do you anything.

Loke666

Mixing a cheap and a high end graphics card in the same rig seems like a bad idea, you really want to identical for crossfire or SLI.

The main reason for it is when you run more then 2 screens. You will also get a boost in performance but it isn't as much as most people think, my experience is usually around 20% improvement, maybe 30% if you are lucky. But with some cards the performance actually is even worse and not all games support 2 or more cards even if FPS games tend to.

Unless you get a mid range card for free it is in my opinion always better to put the money into one card unless you plan to do like Quizz and use many screens.

A high end card will outperform 2 SLId/X-fired medium ranged card, if you don't believe me check out any good GPU chart site (like Toms hardware) and compare the improvement by yourself.

wanderica

I would only recommend 2 cards if you're running a high end 4K setup or an eyefinity multiple screen setup.  With 2 screens max and 144 Hz 4K is out and the second screen will likely be in extended desktop mode.  In other words, you'll only be rendering graphics on your primary monitor.  Is that 1080p or 1440p? 

You're mostly correct on the 370 vs 350 boards.  The 370s support both crossfire and SlI, while the B350s support only crossfire.  Many games these days are offering SLi/Crossfire profiles after launch, sometimes mostly as an afterthought.  Scaling is all over the map depending on the game.  Also, as we move more and more into DX12 exclusive games in the coming years, that support may dwindle even further.  I find single card solutions to be the better option by far at anything less than 4K, especially with Gsync or Freesync.

Hrimnir

So, I did SLI back in the day of the Voodoo 2, and the second time I did it was with GTX 760's.  I personally wouldn't recommend it to anyone who enjoys have a hassle free gaming system.  If you're the type of person who likes to chase benchmark scores and that sort of thing, then by all means.  But there are just too many minor issues with SLI/Crossfire that IMO makes it a poor choice for "actual" gaming (frame timing issues, some games not supporting it, etc etc).

I really do think you're just better off getting 1 more powerful card.

MrMonolitas

Thanks guys, i think you convinced me. Im not that kind of person to chase benchmarks, i just want a good quality gaming, dont even mind crank down the graphics. There are not alot of options with 2nd card and available ones doesnt give you benefits for my set up. 

Speaking about 370 vs 350b i really did not realise that you still can so crossfire with 350b. 

Also, pairing 1800x with 350b wouldnt be a big problem? Since essentially mother boards are the same, just high end board offer more "things" to play with. Is that statement correct ? 

Ozmodan

albers said:

Thanks guys, i think you convinced me. Im not that kind of person to chase benchmarks, i just want a good quality gaming, dont even mind crank down the graphics. There are not alot of options with 2nd card and available ones doesnt give you benefits for my set up. 

Speaking about 370 vs 350b i really did not realise that you still can so crossfire with 350b. 

Also, pairing 1800x with 350b wouldnt be a big problem? Since essentially mother boards are the same, just high end board offer more "things" to play with. Is that statement correct ? 

You are correct.  The 350b is the sweet spot for that processor.  Putting two graphics cards in a system these days is more problematic than helpful.  You should always aim for the best graphics card you can afford.