Basic question about 2 monitors on 1 GPU

[MunkyTOS]

Hey OC'ers,


I have 2 monitors that I run off of a gtx 770 4gb. I only game on one monitor at 1080p, the other is for browsing and chat. Should they both be plugged into the GPU or would it help performance at all having that secondary monitor plugged into the motherboard?

 

[Mpegger]

It can help performance on the main screen you game on. By having 2 monitors on 1 GPU, the GPU must use some resources for the 2nd monitor, even if it's just a static image. If anything is not static on the 2nd monitor while gaming on your main, it can affect it. I used to run both monitors on my 780Ti, but switched the 2nd to my iGPU after I noticed what I thought was micro stuttering on my main screen during gaming. Turns out it was MSI Afterburner running on the 2nd screen updating every second which caused the stutter (was perfectly in time with the 1 second update interval of the graph), as well as a audio VU meter running on that screen (which caused even more stuttering cause it was always trying to update at 60fps).

 

[MunkyTOS]

I shall give it a shot thank you, my other question that I forgot to ask was will I see any difference in performance with displayport vs hdmi in either?

 

[Mpegger]

Currently, Displayport has higher bandwidth then HDMI, and is required for high refresh rates (120Hz+ monitors). HDMI on your card would only support up to 1080p @ 60Hz. Newer version of HDMI supports higher resolutions and refresh rates, but Displayport is still the connection of choice.

I do not know if there is any performance difference when comparing the same resolution and refresh rate between the two ports. Unless there is some kind of processing being done by the screen (as a consumer TV would do over HDMI), there should be no difference other then resolution and refresh rate support.

 

[EarthDog]

The difference is pretty negligble honestly. Test it and see