Mixed AMD/ATI and nVidia GPUs on same board?

[Elmojo]

Hi all,
My current system is built on an EVGA X58 SLI FTW3 (This one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188065) mobo and is running a GTX480 water cooled card.
I'm getting into mining, and know I'll need to switch over to AMD cards to be worth anything.
My question is this: Can I keep my GTX480 and add another card just for mining? If I do, it'll be either a Radeon 5970 or 7970.
The new card will most likely be watercooled as well.
Is this possible? More importantly, is it advisable?
TIA
-Elmojo

[1714119660]

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[1714119660]

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[1714119660]

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[1714119660]

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[1714119660]

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[TheHarbinger]

Hi all,
My current system is built on an EVGA X58 SLI FTW3 (This one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188065) mobo and is running a GTX480 water cooled card.
I'm getting into mining, and know I'll need to switch over to AMD cards to be worth anything.
My question is this: Can I keep my GTX480 and add another card just for mining? If I do, it'll be either a Radeon 5970 or 7970.
The new card will most likely be watercooled as well.
Is this possible? More importantly, is it advisable?
TIA
-Elmojo

Shouldn't be a problem, most of the miners will let you select which card or cards to mine on.

[kpriess]

Hi all,
My current system is built on an EVGA X58 SLI FTW3 (This one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188065) mobo and is running a GTX480 water cooled card.
I'm getting into mining, and know I'll need to switch over to AMD cards to be worth anything.
My question is this: Can I keep my GTX480 and add another card just for mining? If I do, it'll be either a Radeon 5970 or 7970.
The new card will most likely be watercooled as well.
Is this possible? More importantly, is it advisable?
TIA
-Elmojo

Not only possible but the best way to mine if your mining PC is the same as your daily-use personal one..

[Elmojo]

Awesome!
So my system won't have any issues running cards from different vendors?
That's excellent news!
Now I just have to find a 5970 for sale...

[The-Real-Link]

I was in your position just a couple weeks ago myself.  I always run Nvidia but you know how that goes for mining so I wanted to put some ATI cards in my main system too. 

Put in a 5970 and nope, let their specific drivers install (downloaded) and rebooted and nope, no problem at all.  Afterburner or other temp tools might require a dummy plug or your monitor plugged into one or the other card to show all the temps sometimes but you can get it to work just fine.

If you're presumably going to be installing the ATI card in a slot below the first then shouldn't have any problems.  For my cooling and how my fans are placed, I had to swap out my whole PCIe layout to make it work.  Different case though.  My main NV card is for example, in slot #7 atm.

Good luck!

[Elmojo]

I was in your position just a couple weeks ago myself.  I always run Nvidia but you know how that goes for mining so I wanted to put some ATI cards in my main system too. 

Put in a 5970 and nope, let their specific drivers install (downloaded) and rebooted and nope, no problem at all.  Afterburner or other temp tools might require a dummy plug or your monitor plugged into one or the other card to show all the temps sometimes but you can get it to work just fine.

If you're presumably going to be installing the ATI card in a slot below the first then shouldn't have any problems.  For my cooling and how my fans are placed, I had to swap out my whole PCIe layout to make it work.  Different case though.  My main NV card is for example, in slot #7 atm.

Good luck!

Awesome, thanks for sharing your experience!
That sounds exactly like my situation.
My GTX480 will (hopefully) stay where it is, and I'll add 1x5790 or 2x6950 depending on what I can get at a reasonable price.
I plan to watercool all (2 or 3) cards, so space shouldn't be an issue.

[Zenitur]

I think it is possible. This is my xorg.conf generated by amdcccle tool:

Code:

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier     "aticonfig Layout"
	Screen      0  "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0" 0 0
	Screen         "amdcccle-Screen[2]-0" 800 0
EndSection

Section "Module"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
	Option	    "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
	Option	    "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
	Option	    "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "0-CRT1"
	Option	    "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
	Option	    "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
	Option	    "DPMS" "true"
	Option	    "PreferredMode" "800x600"
	Option	    "TargetRefresh" "100"
	Option	    "Position" "0 0"
	Option	    "Rotate" "normal"
	Option	    "Disable" "false"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "1-Default monitor"
	Option	    "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
	Option	    "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
	Option	    "DPMS" "true"
	Option	    "PreferredMode" "1280x1024"
	Option	    "TargetRefresh" "60"
	Option	    "Position" "0 0"
	Option	    "Rotate" "normal"
	Option	    "Disable" "false"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
	Driver      "fglrx"
	Option	    "Monitor-CRT1" "0-CRT1"
	BusID       "PCI:1:5:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "amdcccle-Device[2]-0"
	Driver      "fglrx"
	Option	    "Monitor-Default monitor" "1-Default monitor"
	BusID       "PCI:2:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0"
	Device     "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
	DefaultDepth     24
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     24
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "amdcccle-Screen[2]-0"
	Device     "amdcccle-Device[2]-0"
	DefaultDepth     24
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     24
	EndSubSection
EndSection

I can play games with first ATi and mine bitcoins with second ATi. If you change one fglrx string to nvidia, you can use nvidia and ati. Use /usr/lib/libGL.so.1.2 from nvidia driver for games, and libOpenCL.so.1 from ATi for mining. But I can't check it...

P.S. One time I forgot change OpenGL library, and ATi crash in startup. I think it cannot start with nvidia OpenGL. But nvidia can start with ATi OpenGL library (or Mesa OpenGL), but without 3D support.