Meant to be Seen

Hi,

Could we have the best of both worlds ? Two video cards on the same PC. RTX 2080 Ti for 3DVision and RTX 3080 for Superdepth3D / Vk3DVision ?
I wonder if such a configuration would work.

3080 is not much faster than 2080 Ti. I think it's not worth it at this point.

This can be technically possible with CPUs and motherboards that support two PCI express slots at full x16 speed. We can install a 2080ti in one and 3080 in the other slot. Dual boot windows where first windows uses 2080ti as primary GPU and 3080 disabled via device manager, and second windows with 3080 as main GPU and 2080ti disabled. You can even disable and switch PCI express slots via BIOS but that's not necessary and you'd have to do it every time you load windows. You'd have to switch monitor connection between the two GPUs though unless you have a dual monitor setup, or maybe use a switch but it may bug the connection and 3d vision activation. Case airflow and cooling is also something to be aware of unless you have water cooling for both GPUs. And of course a powerful enough power supply.

I was wondering about this myself and ready to test such a set up, but as john105 mentioned 3080 is not worth it at this point if you have 2080ti. I have Asus Rampage VI extreme and my CPU supports more than 32 PCI express lanes. I also game in VR so 3080 might give some boost to VR games. I would only go for dual GPU dual Windows set up once a powerful enough GPU is released to justify the cost.

I do this currently with 980ti/2080ti, but as Captain 007 points out, you have to manually swap the display cable from one GPU to the other each time.

I do this, because using an old driver the 2080ti is not supported. Plus the 980ti has Dual Link DVI on it, if I want to use my old monitor.

My motherboard has manual on/off switches for each PCI express lane. You can use GPUz to see what bandwidth the GPU is running at (x4, x8 or x16) as well as the express lane version.

AFAIK, Asus was the only manufacturer that put manual switches on the motherboard. I am unsure, if they even do it anymore though.

I was curious about this too, playing cyberpunk I really could have used some extra grunt (superdepth itself cost me around 10 FPS, and not being able to use "performance" DLSS didn't help). I figure a future 3080ti might be tempting, but yeah it does sound like a hassle to switch back and forth. luckily (or unfortunately ?) not many games are pushing the boundaries, the new consoles might change that though when these next gen only games with ray tracing start releasing...

Shift-E wrote: ↑Fri Jan 08, 2021 8:30 am luckily (or unfortunately ?) not many games are pushing the boundaries, the new consoles might change that though when these next gen only games with ray tracing start releasing...

Nanite = my new favorite gaming termonology

If you haven't seen it, check out the UE5 demo. High Resolution gaming, is going to get very detailed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC5KtatMcUw

I'm undecided about convolution reverb and soundfield rendering, I'll have to hear them in person, before deciding, if it is anything new and great.
As it is currently, sound in a lot of games, is hugely disappointing to me.
Wwise, simply needs to go away.

I'm running such a setup.
Windows 10 Dual-Boot.

1. Win 10 - 2004 - Nvidia 452.06 - RTX 2080 TI - 3d Vision
2. Win 10 - 20H2 - Nvidia 461.09 (always up-to-date) - RTX 3090 - Mono

The Purpose for Win10 rtx3090, is new or dx12 games such as cyberpunk, to get the most fps. I did not know about Superdepth3D and Vk3DVision, but my quick google search did descibe the 3d as "created" not as real geometry 3d, so I dont like to use them at all. Did I get this correct? Or is there any other software, which is able to deliver real geometry 3d with a nvidia driver newer then 452.06?

Recently I was running into the cpu bottleneck issue (just using a subset of available cores) when 3d vision is on (RE3 some places, Final Fantasy 15 etc.). Do you guys have a work around for this? I dont think nvidia will fix this anymore ;(

When the second card is disabled via Device Manager, does its GPU fan(s) still run automatically to avoid overheating (even if disabled)? I currently have a hybrid cooled 2080 Ti used in dual boot setup - one for VR gaming with latest OS and NV drivers, and the second boot strictly for 3D Vision gaming. I am using one of my two side case fan slots for the 2080 Ti hybrid fan and radiator, and it works great - GPU and CPU/computer never get above 60 C, while PC is very quiet. I was thinking about removing my other side case fan, and replacing it with a hybrid 3080 Ti fan and radiator (assuming this single-fan GPU option will be made - 3090 currently has only two- and three-fan/radiator configurations for its hybrid models). Changing my dual boot setup to include different GPUs is only feasible if hybrid cooled GPUs still have active fans when disabled...

By the way, with 4K 3D TVs like LG's E6, one does NOT need to switch display cables for dual GPU operation, since each GPU card can have its own dedicated cable and HDMI input.

it seems like the GPU fans do not scale with the GPU temp. For e.g. the unused GPU temp is increasing with the temp inside the tower (or with the heatet air released by the active GPU). I have my system optimised to be low noise. so after playing 1 hour GPU intesive games my used 3090 has 78° and the totally unused 2080ti has 70° and the fans of the unused GPU do not speed up at all. so the unsused or deactivated GPU fans will not speed up if temp goes up. but I dont think this will be critical, because all other parts of the mainborad for e.g. are also heatet by the temp inside the tower, so why should the inactive and "passive" heatet GPU take damange?

Do you use anything like MSI Afterburner to control/override GPU fan speed? I wonder if this override would also work on disabled GPU cards, at least changing the constant fan speed (since I have EVGA card, I use EVGA Precision to set fan curve, then I quit app before using 3D Vision - fan performance curve remains active until PC turned off)...

Thanks for the feedback, gghocker.

No I dont use a software for the fans. the 3090 has a silent switch and the 2080ti is silent enough. but I did try to install MSI Afterburner (including RivaTuner) for showing FPS as I am used to it, on the 3DV system with the deactivated (missing driver) 3090. The RivaTuner did crash immediatelly ;( No other software did show the temps of the deactivated (missing driver) 3090 so I am pretty sure, you can not control the fans, because the system doesnt even know the temp of the deactivated GPU.

For the non 3DV system with both GPU working driver. Of cause it should work.