What Is a Dual Graphics Card?

Dual graphics cards use two graphics cards (integrated-independent, independent-independent) to be bridged by a bridge and work together to process image data. The graphics cards produced by NVDIA and AMD on the market call this working method SLI and Cross Fire respectively. To achieve dual graphics cards, you must have motherboard support. This working method can theoretically be improved to twice the image processing capacity of the original single graphics card, but the power consumption and cost are also high.

Dual graphics

Dual graphics cards use two graphics cards (integrated-independent, independent-independent)

Dual card interconnection is so-called

Windows 7 and above systems are already supported

PowerXpress

AMD PowerXpress, also known as ATI Switchable Graphics Technology, is a hot swap between mobile graphics

AMD Mobile Hybrid Crossfire Technology

technology. Combines the low power consumption of integrated graphics with the outstanding performance of discrete graphics for optimal power management. Graphics cards that support this technology include the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3000/4000/5000 series and the current AMD Radeon HD 6000M series. Like NVIDIA, it is also divided into two modes. It can be manually switched when it is used with an Intel integrated display. When it is used with an AMD platform (such as Fusion APU), when the independent display is used for rendering, it can use the general computing power of the APU DirectCompute calculation, assisted processing and rendering if necessary. Combining dual GPU performance, this is actually an APU-to-dGPU ATI Hybrid CrossFireX crossfire mode.

CrossFire

CrossFire, also known as ATi Multi VPU, Chinese name: Cross Fire; refers to the ability of two or more graphics cards to work together in Super Tiling mode. Evans & Sutherland Computer has applied Multi VPU to the development of commercial aircraft simulators for the past three years. The Multi VPU can divide the screen display into multiple square areas, just like a chess board. One graphics card is responsible for rendering all the black cells and the other is responsible for all the white cells. This is actually how the Multi VPU architecture works. Among them, one graphics card will be set as the master card and the other will be the slave card and both cards will eventually be connected to the display through the interface. The interface or interconnection device needs to be connected to the DVI interface of two graphics cards at the same time. This method is very conducive to load balancing. At least theoretically, the rendering speed of a frame will be twice as fast as before. However, this is only a theoretical value, and the performance may be slightly different. ^[1]

SLI

SLI (Scalable Link Interface) allows multiple graphics chips to work simultaneously to achieve higher performance. Senior players should remember that 3DFX launched VOODOO2 SLI for the first time, connecting two VOODOO2s of the same brand together through a dedicated data cable to provide top 3DF performance at the time. Although the two graphics cards also work at the same time, the SLI technology introduced by nVIDIA is actually different from the SLI technology of 3DFX. The SLI of VOODOO2 is responsible for the rendering of parity frames through the two graphics cards, thereby reducing the burden on the graphics card and improving performance. Purpose; nVIDIA's SLI technology is different.

When two graphics cards are connected through an external bridge connector, the driver can automatically recognize the configuration and enter "SLI Multi-GPU" mode. In "SLI Multi-GPU" mode, the driver configures the two graphics cards as one independent device: that is, all graphics processing programs treat the two graphics chips as one independent logical device. ^[2]

Desktop GPU with SLI support

GeForce GTX TITAN X	GeForce GTX 980 Ti	GeForce GTX 980	GeForce GTX 970
GeForce GTX 960	GeForce GTX TITAN Z	GeForce GTX Titan Black	GeForce GTX TITAN
GeForce GTX 780 Ti	GeForce GTX 780	GeForce GTX 770	GeForce GTX 760
GeForce GTX 660	GeForce GTX 555 (OEM)	GeForce GTX 465	GeForce GTX 465
GeForce GTX 570	GeForce GTX 580	GeForce GTX 560 Ti	GeForce GTX 590
GeForce GTX 560	GeForce GTX 480	GeForce GTX 550 Ti	GeForce GTX 460
GeForce GTX 470	GeForce GTX 680	GeForce GTX 670	GeForce GTX 690
GeForce GTX 660 Ti	GeForce GT 545 (OEM)	GeForce GTS 450	GeForce GTX 275
GeForce GTS 250	GeForce GTX 295	GeForce GTX 260	GeForce GTX 650 Ti BOOST

Hybrid SLI

NVIDIA's Hybrid SLI technology is hybrid SLI. It first appeared on NVIDIA s GeForce 8 on-board GPU. The GeForce 8 on-board GPU, codenamed MCP78, is NVIDIA s mGPU product on AMD platforms. As we all know, Hybrid SLI is composed of Hybrid Boost and Hybrid Power. The Hybrid Boost technology refers to the interconnection acceleration function between the on-board display core and the discrete graphics card, while Hybrid Power refers to the discrete graphics card and the onboard Shows the energy-saving effects achieved by the cores operating independently under different task load conditions. Simply put, it can show strong graphics performance when needed, and automatically switch to silent, low-power operation mode when only daily calculations are performed. The ultimate control can be achieved by using any GPU (graphics processor) that supports NVIDIA Smart SLI technology and any motherboard (onboard GPU) that supports NVIDIA Smart SLI technology. Maximize performance when running demanding 3D games and applications. When performing only daily computing tasks such as browsing the web, word processing, and watching high-definition videos, it can automatically drop to the on-board GPU alone to reduce noise and reduce Extend battery life. ^[3]