Which display output to use?

[8HRR52J]

Hi guys, I am new to OC, and am in the development stage of a very strange and (I think) the first ever type of build!

I am a newbie to custom builds as I usually only repair and replace hardware in laptops so my knowledge is lacking, however, I am curious as to what display output you would use if you had 2 Nvidia discrete GPUs in SLI config?

For example; If I were to buy the Asus deluxe Z97 ATX board, attatch 2xGB GeForce GTX 770's, and plugged in a monitor to the motherboard's HDMI or DVI-D out; would I be using the full power of my SLI GPUs, or, the onboard graphics (as part of Intel's processors for this socket), or both? I would have thought you would be using all of the graphic utilities attatched to the mobo, but I am probably wrong!

Unless (God forbid I am right) could somebody please tell me why I am wrong, and which output I should use to utilize the power of both of my GPUs?

thank you!

 

[Uncle Petey]

Connect the cards together with an sli bridge and then use the monitor cable of your choice directly from the top card.

 

[8HRR52J]

Thanks petey,

So if i were to connect a display to the motherbouard HDMI out, which graphics card would that output use?

Thanks

 

[Ian Evey]

It would use the onboard graphics which is in effect a hd4600 graphics chip. Not 1/2 as powerful as a 770. Thus bypassing the 770's.

 

[8HRR52J]

Thanks Ian! That was what I was dreading

Why do they even have motherboard display outputs for ATX then? Surely with all the PCIe slots they assume you're gna add a discrete gpu!? V. Strange

So, just to sum up, if using SLI or crossfire, you can connect your desired display to either one of the graphics cards' display outs, and it will use the power of both of the cards?

Thanks guys

 

[Ian Evey]

As long as you have your monitor / TV plugged into the top card and sli or xfire is enabled in the amd or nvidia control panel, And as long as the game supports sli or xfire then yes it will use both cards and give you higher fps in games and allow higher resolutions ( over 1920x1080 ) to be playable rather than struggling with 1 card.

The hdmi on the motherboard is an output for the graphics chip that is built into the CPU, I'm not sure there are many motherboards nowadays that have onboard graphics it's all on the cpu.

 

[pob9]

Thanks Ian! That was what I was dreading

Why do they even have motherboard display outputs for ATX then? Surely with all the PCIe slots they assume you're gna add a discrete gpu!? V. Strange

So, just to sum up, if using SLI or crossfire, you can connect your desired display to either one of the graphics cards' display outs, and it will use the power of both of the cards?

Thanks guys

for people like me that run a 2nd monitor off the onboard gpu for monitoring purposes

 

[8HRR52J]

Thanks for clearing that up. Do you think a single gtx770 would be enough for current games (BF4 etc) at standard 1920x1080, stock clock and what kind of fps would I be expecting?

Thanks

 

[Ian Evey]

Yeah, in bf4 i had a 670 4 months ago which is a bit slower than a 770 and i got 50 to 80 fps on ultra with msaax2, so a 770 nowadays is good enough for most games on ultra settings @ 1080 resolution.

Some games you may have to turn down AA or use high settings though to get 60fps constant.

 

[biuro74]

Thanks for clearing that up. Do you think a single gtx770 would be enough for current games (BF4 etc) at standard 1920x1080, stock clock and what kind of fps would I be expecting?
Thanks

If you plan connect just one graphic card, you may connect monitor to onboard HDMI socket and use Lucid MVP drivers to force using horsepower of graphic card through motherboard built-in video-out socket. It's just energy saving.
It won't work with multiGPU.