#Dual GPU expert opinion on how to sidegrade

15 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

coral pilot
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!!!Solution down below!!!
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I´m having some compatibilty issues with my Radeon Pro W7500 and RX9070XT working properly in tandem on my mainboard. Already starting on boot up and sometimes breaking my driver going into basic functionality in a fresh Windows install and having weird slow animations even without a broken driver. If the setup works...it works a charm. But again and again having to fix drivers and reboot is a hassle.
Otherwise the W7500 barely hits my need for 3440x1440p 200Hz+ and is kinda perfectly performance sized for me.

Worked perfectly beforehand with 2 x RX 5700XT on my board...And I´m regretting my decision of upgrading to weirdly interacting newer/more expensive cards. The Rx 5700s already sold again and I would need a passive cooled server rx 5700 again where I can slap a radial fan on the end myself. And then use a risercable and press the card on the bottom of the setup.
Passive cooled options which aren´t thicker then 2 slots are welcome to be mentioned...I couldn´t find them myself.

Another Mobo is off the table cause it´s already the best I was able to find for AM4 mATX (AsRock x570m Pro4). Seems to be a known problem with this platform anyway. And I really really don´t wanna step up in ATX size.

Now I´m thinking of switching to another GPU in the next weeks. Single slot needed. Powerusage doesnt matter. The PSU has headroom. Nvidia is off the table for me cause I´m not supporting their huge use in military and greediness.
I´m looking into Intel now. Specifically the Arc Pro B50 and adding a nerdware cooler on it afterwards. But I´ve seen they seem to need x8 to work properly? I only have 4.0 x4 on my second slot tho.
Or a W7600. But I´ve seen LLS issues with the RX7600 adding to the Pro <-> RX Problem which might occur and that makes me double second guess this.
Maybe I have to wait for the 9000 Pro series from AMD?
Other single slot and performant non pro variants are ofcourse welcome too. But I struggle to find some.

knotty forge
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My case also doesn't have enough vertical height so I can only run single slot cards as secondary and AFAIK we are in a tough spot

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There are frankenstein mobile RTX 4050, 4060, 4070 cards you can buy out of China but they require custom drivers and become unusable if you ever decide to get an NVIDIA main card

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At this point you could just consider buying a bigger case and getting a secondhand RX 7700 or something

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If you can resolve your driver issues your W7500 should be an excellent card though
I have a 4080 SUPER, Radeon Pro W5500 driving 3440x1440 155Hz HDR and I can comfortably LSFG to my max resolution (though I'm running an x8 x8 bifurcation board) while doing H265 recording in OBS

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If you have an open PCIe 5.0 x4 slot you could even consider OcuLink and an external 9060 XT or 5050, though that'll probably run you 100+ USD before you even get a new card

coral pilot
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Getting an Nvidia card would be my last resort if everything else fails.

I'm eyeing the w7600 right now from a shop. If it doesn't work I'll send it back.
But that's another 450€ I'd have to tank unknowingly.

Bigger case is what I don't wanna do either. I like my small dell optiplex somewhat compact sleeper build. It's exactly how much space I need.

I'm in contact with AMD support about my problem. They are surprisingly responsive. Maybe stuff can be sorted out.

AM4 only offers pcie 4. And external doesn't fit my need for clean aesthetics. Plus I might step on it while it's under my table haha.

knotty forge
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I don't remember having these slow animation problems when I was on PCIe x4, at most some games felt a bit less smooth, so if it's a software bug it's probably not going away if you install a W7600

coral pilot
# knotty forge I don't remember having these slow animation problems when I was on PCIe x4, at ...

It's probably a software bug/driver combination bug.
Since everything was fine with my dual Rx 5700xt set up. Every time I install normal adrenaline driver it gets converted to pro either instantly or shortly after. Updates disabled.

or something my bios doesn't like about the card. Cause it won't show a picture if I start my pc with both monitors on my 9070.
At least one has to connect to the 7500 to give me an output. Even when loading further into windows. Afterwards I can swap cables.

coral pilot
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!!!Summary and solution!!!
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This issues arose because Windows 11, in a dual-GPU setup, handles neither:

cross-GPU desktop composition,

nor display topology switching,

nor monitor re-enumeration

in a deterministic and performant manner — and only the combination of:

primary switch → display disable → layout restore via monitor ID → GPU separation

brings this setup into a technically consistent state.

No disabling of hardware accelerations or registry modification can fix this so far. (Yes I´ve really tried everything I have at hand)
The only solution to not get stuttery/micro laggy windows is by having all monitors connected to one GPU.
This might be fine with most people.
But there are games which arent only showing stuff on render level. And if there is something which roots in the above mentioned because ofs...the GPU affinity gets to the 7500 which leads to more frame copies and cross-adapter-fallback. Those games (in my case DotA2) can only be properly shown on a card which handles rendering and LS at the same time. Otherwise you will have like 10 times the loading time with 5-10fps at least) There is no other solution for this.

Now I don´t want to swap around my cables from the LS to the rendering gpu and vise versa whenever I want to switch between playing DotA and any other game which behaves normally.
Plus I need to have my cables connected to one GPU to not have laggy windows.
The only solution for me was connecting both GPUs to the same main monitor I´m gaming on.
And building a powershell script connected to a scheduled task which is connected to link on my desktop which does the following.

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Close LS.
Activate monitor connection from 9070 to gaming monitor with MultiMonitorTool.
Set that as main display with MMT.
Disable monitor connection from 7500 to gaming monitor. -> missing output lets the gaming monitor change to 9070
Have a config from MMT come in and fix the order of displays (because it will get messed up every time because windows can´t do it)
Open LS.
Open DotA.
Game.
Close DotA.
Close LS.
Activate and set connection from 7500 to gaming monitor as main display with MMT.
Disable connection to 9070 with MMT.
Use the other config from MMT to fix order again.
Open LS again.

knotty forge
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Complicated. I'm glad you found some way to automate it
There seems to some jank involved in basically any setup but this is definitely among the worst I've seen

coral pilot