Two graphics cards

If I purchase a system with two graphics cards will the fan or fans run louder?

 

Depends on the Game your playing. But also the airflow in your system makes a difference as well so this become a setup airflow issue if you want to keep things cool. Any games that drives two GPU will always incite fans to kick in some higher then other. But the longer you play the noise from the fan will be heard as they are working. Also if you do 4k that would more then likely induce fan noise for running those specs.

 

Depends on the system, what model is it? If you limit the framerate of a game, you can technically get lower temps and therefore less fan noise with a game which is well optimised for SLI/Crossfire as both GPUs will be utilised less than a single card would. If you are pushing for higher framrates though and you let both cards run free, then it will likely run hotter and louder (depending on the cooler design).

In practice though, most games are not well optimised for SLI/Crossfire, so I would generally avoid it and spend the money on a system with a faster single GPU. SLI can be fun for messing around with and benchmarking, but its not practical for gaming.

 

Lenovo M920 tower is the system.

I do not do any gaming. I have read conflicting information whether a second GPU will improve performance of video streaming. Would having a second card improve video quality on Netflix or other sites?



The only option for a discrete card NVIDIA Geforce GT730 2GB DDR5 which is not really a high end card.

 

Dual GPUs will have no effect on video streaming quality. Even the GT730 should be able to handle any resolution for video streaming upto 4K at least, just make sure you set all the Nvidia driver options to improve video quality since you do no gaming.

 

If you are trolling I rate 7 out of 10, otherwise your streaming quality depends completely and ONLY on your internet speed UNLESS and I mean UNLESS, you are streaming video game yourself then its possible to use your card number one to play the game and card number two to stream the footage.
This is what you might have read, however as you stated Netflix, it all depends on your internet connection speed, use Speedtest.net to determine your speed, if its below 5mbps your internet is inadequate for anything other than 720p or 1080p at low bitrate.

And an advice, some streaming services like Viasat allow you to download a movie or episode before viewing it usually allowing higher quality video.

I also looked up your system, NVIDIA GeForce GT 730 is the highest end you can fit in it otherwise you use Intel integrated graphics which is more than adequate to play even 4k Blu-ray content.

So if you were not trolling, I hope I explained this properly to you, it all depends on your internet connection to be able to sustain the video bitrate being streamed to you, most stream services will drop video quality down a couple of notches if your internet connection is not fast enough to a videophile this is noticeable.

 

What options are those?

 

The main thing you will want to change is the dynamic range. By default it is usually reduced, but you want it to be full such as this:


The other menu has a bunch of options for enhancements such as edge enhancement and noise reduction. I've never played around with them much though because i've always found the playback quality to be fine.



You can leave the 3D Settings menu alone, as that only impacts 3D graphics applications such as games.