If you use Guiminer, you can select the card you want to use in a drop down-menu.
The 7970 will show up as 'tahiti'
As long as you keep your monitor connected to your old card this card will be used as primary card.
In windows you don't need to connect a monitor/dongle on the 'mining' card for it to work, but you can't change overclock settings in AMD control panel. So for first use you should connect a monitor and set your desired settings. (max core clock, min mem clock, manual fan).
You should use 64-bit windows, i've run into memory issues running 32-bit windows for LTC mining (only 3 GB available). With 64-bit you can use >4GB in the future.
Of course there are multiple ways you get this done, but guiminer is a relatively easy entry in the mining world. Welcome
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