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Add a 2nd video card

kenmokenmo Posts: 923
edited January 2019 in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

I presently have a I7-4770 with 32 GB of DDR3 memory with a Nvidia GTX 1060 video card 6 GB vram. It replaced a GTX 750 TI with 4GB vram. I know of SLI and miss mateched video cards will not work in SLI.  However on Sicklefield's youtube channel she has three mismatched Nvidia cards in her computer for DAZ work. Will I gain any benefit by adding the GTX 750TI in DAZ Studio/Iray? Will It also give a boost to other 3D apps like Vue, Poser, 3DCoat?

Cheers

Ken

Post edited by kenmo on

Comments

  • kenshaw011267kenshaw011267 Posts: 3,805
    edited January 2019

    It will not connect with the 1060 by sli, and the cards likely don't even have connectors, but plugging the card into the computer in an available slot will make it available for rendering. 

    I'm iray this works by the both cards rendering a scene if both cards can hold the entire scene in each cards VRAM. This will speed up renders, by how much is anyone's guess as that 750ti doesn't have a lot of CUDA to contribute.

    Post edited by kenshaw011267 on
  • prixatprixat Posts: 1,590

    You'll also get a benefit if the 750ti is driving the monitors, allowing the 1060 to handle a bit more rendering.

    Superfly can use multiple GPU cards. I'm not familiar with the other programs you mention
    Newer GPU renderers, like Iray, can use multiple cards without needing SLI, and often recommend turning SLI off for 3D and back on for gaming.

    (I still use a 750ti, it has plenty to contribute cheeky laugh)

  • Dim ReaperDim Reaper Posts: 687

    Although iray will use the second card, it will drop it if the scene requires more than 4GB of GPU memory.  But if you render a lot of smaller scenes, such as portraits then it will work.  As Prixat said above, you could use the older card to drive the monitors (as long as you don't use the machine for gaming because then you'd lose access to your faster card unless you kept swapping the monitor cable).  Just be sure that your power supply is big enough to run both cards.

  • kenmokenmo Posts: 923

    I would prefer the 1060 drive my monitors. The main reason being for viewport in Vue. Also not sure WHY using two cards would max out my vram at 4GBs as the 1060 ha 6GBS.

  • Dim ReaperDim Reaper Posts: 687
    kenmo said:

    Also not sure WHY using two cards would max out my vram at 4GBs as the 1060 ha 6GBS.

    No, it wouldn't max out your vram at 4GB, but both cards need to load the scene for rendering.  If that scene requires say 5GB of vram, then the 4GB card will be dropped but the 6GB one will continue.  If another scene requires 7GB of vram, both cards will be dropped and iray will drop back to the cpu for rendering.

  • kenmokenmo Posts: 923

    Thanks kindly for that explanation. Sounds like you need to mate the cards memory amounts to be the same or very close. Does the slower speed of the GTX 750TI hinder the GTX 1060?

  • kenshaw011267kenshaw011267 Posts: 3,805
    kenmo said:

    Thanks kindly for that explanation. Sounds like you need to mate the cards memory amounts to be the same or very close. Does the slower speed of the GTX 750TI hinder the GTX 1060?

    No. It actually helps the 1060 in rendering when the scene fits in the 750ti's VRAM. The rest of the time it will mostly just be inert, there will be a few seconds longer at boot to initialize the card too but you'll hardly notice that. The only issue is going to be that Nvidia is getting close to dropping support for that generation of cards when that happens I don't think you'll be able to keep using the two cards together as I think they need to use the same driver.

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