I'm considering adding a second video card. I currently have a NVIDIA GeForce GT 640 and wanted to add a better card. Doing some research I discovered that I would have to add the exact same video card or they would not work together. So I have two questions. Is it correct that I must add the same card, and two would it be better to upgrade to say a NVIDIA GeForce GT 690 and have only one card or would two GT 640 be the better option.

Thanks for any replies.

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You don't have to add the same GPU. You can different kinds of GPU (ie Nvidia) but don't mix ATI and Nvidia, that gets really complicated. First you want to know if your motherboard and power supply unit can support another or even a more powerful GPU. Did you mean GTX 690? That is a very powerful and power hungry GPU. Best to find out first if your Motherboard will support more than 1 graphic cards. If it can, then look at the power source and find out what kind it is and what the specifications are, does it have the sufficient pins to connect to the GPU? If both are sufficient then as long as you can afford it and it's electric bill then go for it. But if you want a bump up in RAC without the huge $$ cost and electric bill, then a GTX 750Ti might be a good option. Some of them don't require extra power supply and give good RAC for their low power consumption. Lastly, will a full size GPU fix in your case and will a double slot fit on the board. Just some things to consider.


Happy Crunching..


Zalster

The simplest upgrade is to add a second GTX640, which will double your throughput with minimum pain and capital cost.
Pulling your GTX640 and replacing with a GTX690 will give you a massive hike in performance, but at a cost. GTX690s are power hungry beasts, but they do deliver the goods.
Nearly as powerful, and a lot less power hungry would be a GTX980 - drawing about half the power, but while benchmarking only a few percent below the GTX690.
Capital cost - well that's a bit of a game. Assuming your motherboard will support two GPUs then adding a second GTX640 will be the cheapest. GTX690 are getting rare (apart from the destroyed pair I have lurking around here - wrecked when a domestic water pipe flooded me...) so prices are disproportionately high (UK 730GBP to "some one's having a joke" 20,000.00GBP!!!), with the GTX980 coming in at about 350-500GBP I know which one I'd be buying toady...

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

 
In short - you can add another not-the-same GPU

E.g. most people in Number Crunching say GTX 750 Ti is the most effective (best performance/W ratio)
https://www.google.com/#q=750+ti
https://www.google.com/#q=750+ti+site:setiathome.berkeley.edu

Then you use a simple Option to tell BOINC to use them both


"exact same video card" may be written in motherboard or video card manual when they talk about SLI - which is irrelevant to BOINC - do you need/want SLI for gaming?

But GTX 750 Ti is six "tiers" higher than GT 640 on this table:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

So probably even for games one GTX 750 Ti is better then 2x GT 640 in SLI
 

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- ALF - "Find out what you don't do well ..... then don't do it!" :)
 

Thanks, I do play some games but don't need SLI. I'm looking at different cards but I think the GTX 750 sounds good. Since I started looking at getting a new card I have found out that the GTX 640 is on the motherboard not separate like I thought. I just sent an email to ASUS tech support to find out what the machine will handle.

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Keep in mind:
GTX 750 and GTX 750 Ti are not the same

GTX 750 (512 CUDA Cores, 55 W)
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-750/specifications

GTX 750 Ti (640 CUDA Cores, 60 W)
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-750-ti/specifications

Factory Overclocked cards may have higher W (and need additional 6-pin connector from PSU)

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- ALF - "Find out what you don't do well ..... then don't do it!" :)
 

Thanks, I missed that the first time round.

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The simplest upgrade is to add a second GTX640, which will double your throughput with minimum pain and capital cost.
Pulling your GTX640 and replacing with a GTX690 will give you a massive hike in performance, but at a cost. GTX690s are power hungry beasts, but they do deliver the goods.
Nearly as powerful, and a lot less power hungry would be a GTX980 - drawing about half the power, but while benchmarking only a few percent below the GTX690.
Capital cost - well that's a bit of a game. Assuming your motherboard will support two GPUs then adding a second GTX640 will be the cheapest. GTX690 are getting rare (apart from the destroyed pair I have lurking around here - wrecked when a domestic water pipe flooded me...) so prices are disproportionately high (UK 730GBP to "some one's having a joke" 20,000.00GBP!!!), with the GTX980 coming in at about 350-500GBP I know which one I'd be buying toady...

I'd just replace the original card with a 980 - it's faster than a 690 anyway and nice and efficient.

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-980-vs-GeForce-GTX-690

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