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Two montiors and GPU memory usage?

K

kaihonsou

Member
Hello.

I have a 22' monitor and a smaller 17' widescreen monitor to the right of it. I mainly game on the 22' and read my stream chat, internet and whatever on the second monitor.

Im considering an upgrade from my 460SE to a 7850. To justify the new card I need a 24'. Would using the 22' just for giggles as well as the new 24' gaming monitor put any real addition strain on the GPU?
 
It won't really put any strain to use the 2nd monitor for chat/internet windows browsing stuff.

But with the 7850 you could use all three monitors, I'd say give it a try and see what you think. Especially try gaming on eyefinity, sometimes you don't really look at the side monitors directly but use them as help for peripheral vision (see some movement out of the corner of your eye etc) so it's not as critical if the side monitors aren't the same size as the center monitor. And you could still use all 3 and just game on the center monitor and have chat going on the side monitors.

As for power consumption, I think the card will run at a lower power state with just one monitor, so going beyond one will be an increase, although whether you do 2 or 3 total won't add much of a difference in power consumption between the 2nd and 3rd. However, if using 2 or 3 monitors, I suggest using the windows+P command to change the display mode to single monitor to allow the video card to run in lower-power mode, then hit windows+P to switch to extended mode to activate the other monitors. I use that hotkey to switch between eyefinity for triple-screen gaming (FPS like Bioshock), extended mode for high productivity windows mode using all 3 displays, and single monitor for just browsing on the center monitor or playing a single-monitor game like Starcraft 2.
 
You know, back in March I heard techpowerup rumors that NV's drivers would spend less time rendering the side displays and focus the GPU horsepower on the central display, but apparently that never happened. It would be GREAT to see that happen, for reasons you stated.. you only need the sides for peripheral vision. They can be rendered with lower image quality and lower framerates, and almost nobody would care because human peripheral vision is pretty crappy and mostly good for motion-sensing, for which you don't need high-rez textures, DoF, anti-aliasing, etc.
 
While I don't know if it will be of concern to you, running more than 1 screen will result in an increase in idle GPU temperatures (as KingFatty said). This is a result of the card downclocking only the core clocks and keeping the memory clocks at 100%, even when in 2D/desktop mode. On my 7970, temperatures went from ~54 C to ~35 C when I ditched my second screen. If I recall correctly (I'm at work so I can't check), the GPU would idle at 350/1500 in dual screen mode, while dropping to 350/150 when running only 1 screen.

Simply having the screen plugged into the card resulted in this behavior, even when powered off. Do note that I didn't try disabling the display in the driver so I'm not sure if that would force the GPU to clock down to single monitor idle mode.
 
It clocks down if you disable the side monitors, I believe. I have presets for single-monitor, extended, and Eyefinity modes for this and other reasons, such as saving power.
 
Pretty drastic! Cant believe i've left my PC idle for hours for years, and just two key strokes and could of been saving on money and wear on the card. Much more quiet as well when not gaming.

onevtwo.png
 
I live by the Win+P command in Windows 7, when I'm not using my second monitor (which is actually my TV) I disable it.

As for your OP, so you plan on gaming on the 24" (unless you really meant a 24 foot monitor 😛) and using the 22" for internet/chatting? I think you'll need to run the game in windowed mode for that to work, as if it is fullscreen it will make the other screen blank (I think). Can anyone confirm this?
 
96Firebird said:
As for your OP, so you plan on gaming on the 24" (unless you really meant a 24 foot monitor 😛) and using the 22" for internet/chatting? I think you'll need to run the game in windowed mode for that to work, as if it is fullscreen it will make the other screen blank (I think). Can anyone confirm this?
Click to expand...

The 2nd screen will not go blank when running a fullscreen application on the primary. This may be application specific, but all the games I have played have never forced the second screen to be off/blank. The big drawback was the fact that you have to run in fullscreen windowed mode if you really want to use both screens freely.
 
Some games make the second monitor go black, but thats what Xsplit is for 😉

Question is now...23" IPS or 24" TN? Wish I never started looking this up. 4 hours later and I have a major headache.
 
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