Solved Mix Nvidia GT560 & ATI HD 4850

[jcmcabee]

Hello Everyone - I am new to the forum and I need some help.

I have a Gigabyte GA-880GA-UD3H MoBo with Nvidia GTX 560 (also Gigabyte) GPU. I am currently limited to two monitors on the 560 and would like to add a third monitor. I have an old ATI HD 4850 that I was thinking about installing along side the 560 so I could run three monitors.

Is it possible to mix the two without killing either of the video cards and/or the motherboard? The 560 will remain the primary GPU for heavy applications and the 4850 will handle the light stuff.

Thanks for your help.

 

[RoasterMen]

You cant, Unless you use your GTX 560 as your PhysyX.

 

[Thorsen]

If you wanted to keep your current card and do SLI, you would need to get a new mobo, this one is the most compatible with your current one so you can use the same CPU and RAM: Newegg.com - ASUS M4N98TD EVO AM3 NVIDIA nForce 980a SLI ATX AMD Motherboard

and then you would need a second GPU: Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GV-N56GOC-1GI GeForce GTX 560 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

That adds up to about $320....

Or you could purchase a new GPU that supports three monitors through Eyefinity....

I am pretty sure this one will handle 3 monitors, but you might want to look around for the best deal for you: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127688

 

[stormy13]

you have two expansion slots, but one is slower x4 instead of x16:

Which for the purpose that jcmcabee is asking about, won't make any difference as the HD 4850 will only be used for a third monitor. Not sure where SLI and Crossfire came from but neither of those are needed to run two cards for extra displays.

To answer the original question, yes it should work as Windows 7 allows the use of two different cards/drivers. If this was Vista then no, it wouldn't work.

You cant, Unless you use your GTX 560 as your PhysyX.

Actually you can, as above. The one thing that can throw a wrench into the works is Nvidia and Physx. Nvidia decided a long while ago that if you have a Nvidia card and AMD installed at the same time and try to play a game that supports GPU accelerated Physx, then that feature gets disabled at the driver level and falls back to software mode. There is (or was as I'm not sure if it is still being updated) a workaround to this by using a modded driver set that has had the restriction removed. It was/is mostly used by those with a fast AMD card and useing a slower Nvidia card for Physx.

 

[RoasterMen]

you have two expansion slots, but one is slower x4 instead of x16:

Which for the purpose that jcmcabee is asking about, won't make any difference as the HD 4850 will only be used for a third monitor. Not sure where SLI and Crossfire came from but neither of those are needed to run two cards for extra displays.

To answer the original question, yes it should work as Windows 7 allows the use of two different cards/drivers. If this was Vista then no, it wouldn't work.

You cant, Unless you use your GTX 560 as your PhysyX.

Actually you can, as above. The one thing that can throw a wrench into the works is Nvidia and Physx. Nvidia decided a long while ago that if you have a Nvidia card and AMD installed at the same time and try to play a game that supports GPU accelerated Physx, then that feature gets disabled at the driver level and falls back to software mode. There is (or was as I'm not sure if it is still being updated) a workaround to this by using a modded driver set that has had the restriction removed. It was/is mostly used by those with a fast AMD card and useing a slower Nvidia card for Physx.

So, If you have ex. HD 6990 and you also have ex. 8800GTX, you can use the 8800GTX as your Physyx?

 

[stormy13]

You can but you have to use modded Nvidia drivers or the Physx (GPU accelerated only) will be done on the CPU instead of the GPU, just like if the Physx card wasn't there.

Hybrid PhysX mod v1.03 / v1.05ff

 

[Thorsen]

Thanks for the info Stormy, I did not know that. I thought gaming with three monitors would require the cards to be used in SLI or Crossfire. correcting post now

 

[jcmcabee]

You guys are great. Thanks for all your help and insight. After much pondering, I have decided to go with an HD 7870, with the possibility of crossfiring.

Thanks again.