2 different graphics cards

[Tecmine]

hey, i have just purchased an asus geforce gtx 550 ti 1gb and have a spare gts 250 512mb  kicking about would it be worth sticking it in the spare pcie slot? will it share its memory with the other card or just do nothing at all?if yes do i have to alter anything in the bios to help them work together? i have a 620w psu is this enough to run them both? any help would be much appreciated.

[patio]

Your MBoard needs to support this...
Also the cards have to have the same chipsets i believe...not likely in this case.

The 2 methods for doing this are called SLI or Crossfire...

[Darthgumby]

The 550 is a great upgrade and will really surpass the capabililties of the 250.  If you SLI these, while in theory it may work, you may be limiting your graphics output as the lesser one would be pulling resources from the greater one, and vice versa.  If it were me, I would just keep the 550 in the main case - it will save on power consumption, heat, and troubleshooting than having both.  You can get another 550 later once prices go down.

The second lesser card - i'm sure you have someone you know that would be greatful to use it in their system.  Most stock PC's people buy have on-board graphics, which really suck.

[Transfusion]

You can use the GTS 250 as a dedicated PhysX card... or do folding@home on it without affecting your everyday computing performance... or use it in a dual-monitor configuration... It is a pretty powerful card, but no you will not be able to SLI it with the 550.

[Tecmine]

cool cheers for the help folk, i will stick to the 550 then. I am using EVGA precision tool and a bit of extra cooling to oc the 550 a bit further, it is a cracking card.