Multiple different video cards in one machine?

[dwolfman]

So what kinds of things could happen if I want to put multiple cards in my computer but they aren't all the same?  Anybody tried this?

Right now I just have a single Radeon HD7770 in my main computer, hashing away when I'm not playing games.  Some time soon I hope to be able to afford a better video card, but would not want to just quit using the 7770 for mining.  If I got like an HD 7870, would I be able to plug both cards in and still have things work ok for gaming and mining?  I'm not wanting to run them in Crossfire mode, as I'd just have the 7770 mining 24/7, while the HD 7870 would be the only one the games run on, then would be mining when not playing games.  Motherboard does have two full-length PCI-E slots and supports Crossfire, so plugging in two cards shouldn't be an issue for that at least.

[logicbomb666]

I think if you stay within the same series (7xxx) you shouldn't have any problems.  I could be wrong, but I think you mix and match different series you might potentially run into driver issues.

[dwolfman]

I was planning on sticking with same series anyway.  The only non-7xxx card I have that can mine bitcoins is the 4850 in my CentOS linux server, and it's staying there for now.

Thanks for the info, though it may be a little while until I can do anything about it.

[Gator-hex]

You can mine with different cards, they don't need crossfire to mine!

You can game on one card while the other one is mining.

You only need cards of the same family if you intend to game in crossfire mode.

[MashRinx]

This is definitely doable.  It's can be more complicated to get your miner optimized with cards of different type ans I found it significantly more difficult for LTC mining, but it is doable.  I have a machine running a 7950 and 6870 fine and another running at 7970 and another with a 7970, 6870 and 5830 all running together with CGminer without issues.

Crossfire, if anything, is detrimental to mining, but if you're planning on crossfire gaming, that's a different story.

Good luck

[tronath]

I think if you stay within the same series (7xxx) you shouldn't have any problems.  I could be wrong, but I think you mix and match different series you might potentially run into driver issues.

Yep, I never got legacy drivers to work alongside the current ones :/

[n4l3hp]

I have 2 6870s, 1 5850, 1 7950, 1 5670 (slot used to be occupied by a 5970 until it died), 1 BFL FPGA Single, 1 MMQ, and 4 X6500s  on 1 rig running BFGMiner without issues. All of my GPU cards were made by Sapphire.

Win7 x64
13.1 & 2.8 (1084.4)
Athlon x4 620 on a Gigabyte 890GPA-UD3H
Using IGP as primary display
Corsair AX1200 PSU

[bcpokey]

You can mine BTC on various platforms, I was running a 7970 with 2 5870s and a 5850, and a 7950 with a 5870, no problem. HOwever scrypt mining did not like it one bit, when 5xxx was mixed with 7xxx it would not run properly, when I swapped 5xxx only and 7xxx only, it ran fine. This was under cgminer and reaper I did not try BFGMiner.