Secondary GPU

[nintendoeats]

I have a 7970 at present, but I just found the 6950 I replaced in a drawer (I could swear I sold that...). 2 questions:

1.If I put it in but do not attempt to use it for display, will FAH use it?
2. My motherboard is low on PCIe lanes and starves the second 16x slot. Will that have a meaningful effect on folding performance?

I realize that I could just try it, but if the answer is known then I'd prefer not to shove my staticy fingers in my case for no reason.

Thanks

[Rel25917]

1. yes
2. yes but it it should still be pretty good. Actual results vary by computer but expect maybe 5-10% reduction.

[nintendoeats]

Excellent, thankyou.

EDIT: I wasn't really thinking last night. The 7970 pulls around 300W at load. The 6950 pulls around 250W at load. I have a 600W PSU. Never mind then :p

[wilding2004]

Excellent, thankyou.

EDIT: I wasn't really thinking last night. The 7970 pulls around 300W at load. The 6950 pulls around 250W at load. I have a 600W PSU. Never mind then :p

I doubt they would actually use that much power folding, as it doesn't stress the entire card in the same way a game might. For example a high end GPU would be crippled playing Crysis with a 64bit memory bus, but for folding it wouldn't make the slightest difference. I'm seeing power usage between 40% and 65% of TDP on both my R9 200's and GTX900's.

As long as your PSU can supply enough current, you should be ok with a 600w. It depends on what you mean by a 600w supply There are still some manufacturers who list power as the cumulative power of all the voltage rails, instead of the max sustained output.