Two video cards on one PC: how it works, why they are needed and how to connect them

Anyone who has wanted to get more performance out of their computer has undoubtedly wondered, “Can I add an extra video adapter to my motherboard and get twice the performance instead of buying a more expensive and newer graphics card?” But as a rule, the answer is no, you won’t be able to get twice the power from running two GPUs. However, it is possible to improve performance with two graphics cards, but there are some limitations and certain problems.

Why do you need two video cards on one PC?

First, it’s worth understanding why two video cards are needed on one computer and what advantages they provide:

1. The main advantage of the two GPUs is the additional increase in graphics performance in games, as well as the ability to support very high resolutions (2K and 4K), which require large amounts of resources and memory.
2. Some situations may require a large number of monitors, such as a workspace. As a rule, a video card is capable of working with 2-3 monitors, but if 4-6 displays are needed, then in such cases a second graphics card will be the ideal solution.

conclusions

What is FSP Booster X3? Firstly, it is a fashion accessory that the advanced gamer or computer enthusiast can show off to their friends. It's no joke - a separate power supply for video card(s)! On the other hand, this is a necessity for those who fulfilled an old dream and installed two video cards in SLI or CrossFire mode, and suddenly it turned out that the power of the old power supply was not enough.

And the completely practical side is the opportunity to save money. After all, why throw away, in principle, a good 500-Watt power supply if it is no longer enough for the needs of the new graphics system? It's easier to buy a separate power supply for video cards. Fortunately, the cost of FSB Booster X3 is in the area 70$

, which is comparable to an average power supply for a computer or a very good control panel adorning the front side of the case. And despite the fact that the FSP Booster X3 does not have the best cooling scheme, this device will cope with its task and, perhaps, will save you from further power supply upgrades.

We thank you for the provided power supply..

Mikhail Degtyarev (aka LIKE OFF) 01/30/2007

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Difference between SLI and Crossfire. Which technology is better to choose?

It's worth starting with the fact that NVIDIA's SLI is more demanding, unlike Crossfire. For SLI to start working, you need 2 video cards with the same graphics processor and the same amount of video memory. On the other hand, you can combine video adapters from different manufacturers, for example, from MSI and Asus. However, it is better to get both video cards from the same manufacturer for stability. To connect video cards to each other, an SLI bridge is required. Lastly, SLI motherboards tend to be more expensive than those offering Crossfire.

AMD's Crossfire is more flexible. You can combine all video cards created on the same architecture, even with different amounts of video memory. For example, Crossfire will work with AMD Radeon RX 580 and AMD Radeon RX 570 video adapters. Also, a bridge that goes through the PCI Express ports on the motherboard is not always needed. Finally, Crossfire is available on a much larger number of motherboards, which are also cheaper than SLI.

In general, both of these technologies are similar. The only thing you need to keep in mind is the budget spent: which of the two video card combinations will bring the best performance for the same price.

Characteristics of FSP Booster X3

The FSP Booster X3 power supply is designed specifically to provide power to one or two video cards with PCI Express power connectors. This power supply is installed in the 5.25″ bay of the computer case, in addition to the main power supply, and is connected to an electrical outlet.

• Installation in 5.25″ chassis bay
• Compatible with nVidia SLI and ATI CrossFire
• Active power factor correction
• Blue LED backlight

There are not so many characteristics, since this power supply has only one +12V rail and only powers video cards. Well, then let's move on to looking at the device itself.

The power supply comes in a large, even very multi-colored cardboard box. Carefully packaged, inside it contains:

The FSP Booster X3 power supply itself

• Set of power cables for two video cards with PCI Express interface
• PCI blank with network power socket
• Network cable
• Mounting kit for installing FSP Booster X3 in a housing

Since the FSP Booster X3 power supply is installed in a 5-inch bay of the case, power is supplied to it from the rear side of the case, through a PCI plug with a socket.

Externally, FSP Booster X3 looks like anything, but not a power supply. Rather, it looks like a chassis for installing an HDD, or like a cooler for a hard drive, but who knows, maybe in a year such power supplies will become as commonplace for a computer as an optical drive. In the meantime... for now it’s a little unusual that there are no ventilation holes visible on the PSU case. They are located only at the ends of the body, front and back. And the front ones are additionally covered with a body kit made of transparent plastic with the “FSP” logo. This decorative curved curtain illuminates with a bright blue light when your computer is running.

On the back of the power supply we see three sockets (from left to right):

• for connecting the power cord
• 4-pin PCPlug connector
• dual PCI Express slot

The PCPlug connector is needed to connect the FSP Booster X3 to a regular computer power supply. It is by the presence of voltage on the PCPlug connector that the power supply for video cards will know when to turn on and when to turn off.

Why FSP supplies its power supply with a Y-shaped PCI Express power cable with a dual connector is not clear to me personally. Firstly, if you have one video card, then the second power cable will carelessly dangle in the case. Secondly, if you want to change the cable to a more modern one, with shielding and RF filters, it may be difficult to connect it to the dual connector. In general, a small defect that may be corrected in future versions of the model.

But let's talk about cooling. As I already mentioned, there are not many ventilation holes on the power supply case - only in the front and in the back. The fans are installed in the front part of the case, closer to the gamer's ear. Both fans are installed in such a way that they direct air inside the power supply, that is, inside the computer.

Is there a lack of hot air inside your computer case from a 100-Watt processor and two powerful video cards? Please, we are always happy to add some heated air from your video card power supply!

True, inside the power supply the approach to cooling is much more logical: the presence of only one DC bus and relatively low power made it possible to use the saved space to install massive radiators. They are placed along the air flow from the fans and do not create much air resistance.

As for the build quality, there is nothing to complain about here - neat soldering and reliable installation of elements. In general, FSP power supplies are famous for this.

Test results

Installing the power supply into the case will hardly seem difficult to anyone. It is simpler than installing an optical drive, and much simpler than replacing the standard power supply with a new one. The only problem that you will have to solve is how to more conveniently extend the 220-Volt cable from the PCI plug to the FSP Booster X3 inside the power supply.

Our stand, which we used to test ATX power supplies, is not suitable for the FSP Booster X3, since it requires power supply on the +3.3V and +5V buses for operation, and it will not be possible to take cross-load characteristics for the Booster X3, because this The power supply has only one output bus - and it is +12V. Therefore, we will use improvised means to test the voltage on this bus under different loads.

As can be seen from the table, at loads from 50 to 300 W, the voltage did not go beyond the permissible 5%, which means the power supply is ready to work with both one mid-level video card and two high-end video cards - both In this case, they will be supplied with the required voltage.

How to install multiple video cards on one PC

Connecting two video cards is not that difficult; even a beginner can handle it. Just follow the instructions and carefully interact with the components inside the PC.

1. Both video cards must be connected to the PCI-e x16 and PCI-e x8 slots. It is worth making sure that they are fastened well, only after that the video adapters can be screwed to the case.

2. Connect the appropriate wires from the power supply to the graphics cards to supply electricity.
3. Then connect the video cards to each other via special connectors using a bridge.
4. Close the case, connect the power supply, monitor and other peripheral devices. This completes the technical part, all that remains is to configure the work in the system itself.
5. Launch the OS and install drivers from the manufacturers. Additional utilities are installed automatically, so there is no need to download third-party software.

Once the drivers are installed, Crossfire automatically starts working, no additional actions are required.

But to activate SLI you need to perform several steps:

1. First you need to go to the “Nvidia Control Panel”, which opens by right-clicking on the desktop.
2. Find the “3D Settings” section, and from there go to the “SLI Settings” item.
3. In "SLI Configuration" enable "Maximum 3D Performance". After this, you need to save the changes and reboot the OS.

Introduction

We've done it! Now the computer's video system consumes power comparable to the power of the entire computer as a whole. Especially if the gaming station has two Hi-End video cards installed in CrossFire or SLI mode, for such a machine it is definitely necessary to select a powerful power supply with PCI Express connectors, through which electrical power is supplied directly to the video cards. But it is not always possible to replace the power supply with another one. Or another situation - such a computer has the most powerful processor, memory to capacity and several hard drives in a RAID array. In this case, you will have to either buy a very powerful and, accordingly, very expensive power supply, or take two power supplies - one for the system unit, and the other dedicated to powering video cards. The benefit in this case can range from $50 to $100, which is quite significant even for a wealthy gamer. Today we will look at just such a special power supply for video cards, FSP Booster X3
.

Example of a server power supply

GPU DELL D1200E-S0-LITEON PS-2142-2L 80PLUS PLATINUM 1400W

Perfect for a farm with 6 video cards. Main characteristics:

• Input voltage: 200-240V AC 50-60Hz
• Output power: 1400W (12V DC 114.6A)
• Efficiency: 80PLUS PLATINUM 94%
• Power supply size: 8.50 x 21.00 x 4.00 cm
• Weight of the power supply itself: 1.12 kg

Wires for powering additional connectors of video cards of the 6pin or 6+2pin type are used in loop-type heat-resistant 80°C tinned wires of the American standard 18AWG. And also the 220V power cord has a sealed EURO plug.

A little about blocks

Budget Chinese power supplies, created on the knee in Grandfather Liao's basement (such, unfortunately, still come across), have one bad property: the number of “zero” wires in them does not always correspond to the standard pinout.

Accordingly, the power of such a unit may turn out to be less than declared, and in terms of reliability they do not shine - if you manage to operate such a device for at least a year, consider yourself very lucky.

And now I’m gradually bringing you, friends, to the worst thing: top-end video cards don’t have enough power, even an 8-pin connector. For example, the GTX 1080 Ti consumes 250 Watts and requires one six-pin and one eight-pin connector to connect it. That's why such devices have two connectors.

When selecting components, you should pay attention to what connectors are on the video card and whether the power connectors on the wires coming from the power supply correspond to them.

You should also know that there is a so-called “universal” 6+2 pin connector. It has 6 pins, grouped monolithically, as a single block, and two more can be connected using a special latch.

What to do if you bought components, but it turned out that the power supply does not have the required plug? You can always purchase a special adapter with a SATA or Molex connector - at least one cable, in most cases, will remain free.

Which one you connect through the adapter does not matter: the same power is supplied to them.

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that when assembling a computer, the main thing is not the presence of connectors on the power supply, but its power: it should be enough to provide energy to all components of the computer.

And if you are assembling a computer “for the future,” it is better to take a power supply with a power reserve - it remains to be seen what upgrade it will undergo in a couple of years and what video card you will use at that time.

For a deeper understanding of the topic, I advise you to read the publications “Choosing the right video card according to the parameters for a computer”, as well as “Connectors for computer video cards: video connectors and on the motherboard”. You can read about where it is better to buy components for the system unit here.

Thank you for your attention and see you next time on the pages of my blog! Don't forget to share this article on social networks and subscribe to the newsletter!

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With additional

They sometimes, and on gaming computers, almost always use powerful video cards, which often require additional power, since the voltage supplied through the connection interface is not enough.

This need can be determined by the appearance of the video card: on the reverse side (most often) of the PCI-E connector they have a slot for additional power supply. If the card is quite powerful, but does not have a connector for additional power, then it is simply not required.

Today you can see the following slots:

• 6 pin – older version and less powerful;
• 8 pin - appeared relatively recently, differs in the supply of higher voltage.

Without going into details, in the end we get that the six-pin connector supplies 75 Watts, and the eight-pin connector supplies 150 Watts. Are there any options? There are, but more about them below.

How to cheaply upgrade a laptop with an external video card

How to cheaply upgrade a laptop
An external gaming video card for a laptop is a fairly expensive device. In addition, not everyone understands that the space for the card is considered the narrowest in the device and it is not always practically possible to install a high-performance card there.

The best option for laptops is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060. This device is affordable and is one of the most advanced in the segment. It runs almost any game and can work on multiple monitors.

Advantages and disadvantages

the fastest modification;

work with a frequency of 8 GHz;

support for all drivers;

decent FPS;

two fans with a wide range of settings.