Specifics tasks for separate GPU's

SO I have a single 280m GTX in my M17x right now, but I want to place a second one in there. The games I play don't see a benefit from SLI, but I think my current card is starting to go bad because my games crash more and more although the temps don't go above 60C.

If I stick the second 280m GTX in there, is there a way with the nvidia software or ntune to dedicate my game to the second GPU and leave the primary card for everyday use/normal tasks? To offload the graphics? I can't just take out the primary GPU and only put the second one in there right? The second GPU depends on the primary to work at all?

 

if you think the card is dying and you dont need sli then just put the new card in and dump the old one.
or put the new card in primary slot and old card in secondary and when it does finally die just dump it.

 

That's not possible with the M17x. The cards' form factor is based on primary/secondary, so they're not interchangeable.

 

Hello, hankaaron57, actually they are interchangeable, both run on the same vBIOS and have the same form factor (standard MXM 3.0B cards). You just have to swap the heatsinks and reapply thermal paste in the process.
And to answer your question, no, there is no way of doing that unless the application supports it. The load applied on the graphics cards is dictated by the drivers.

 

I don't think that's the case with M17x R1, it runs master/slave in 1st and 2nd slot if I remember correctly.

 

This is one of the models i own since close to release date and i pretty much know every square mm of it so i can assure you that there is no difference in the vBIOS for both nVIDIA and AMD cards.
That was true for the pre Dell model with MXM 2.1 slots.