Watch a PC running AMD and Nvidia graphics cards at the same time

Wondering what it looks like when AMD and Nvidia video cards are sitting in the same computer, running a program together? Here’s what it looks like — and how it changes performance for the graphics-intensive real-time strategy game Ashes of the Singularity.

In the video above, Oxide Games’ Dan Baker shows how the title runs before and after adding an Nvidia card to a system running with an AMD card already installed. Stardock CEO Brad Wardell narrates. They took the video during the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this week.

This configuration enables you to use AMD and Nvidia video cards in one PC, and you don’t need cumbersome setups like AMD’s CrossFire or Nvidia’s SLI (which link multiple cards together — but only of the corresponding manufacturer, and the cards must be identical). You just plug into your existing PCIe ports.

This will allow people to add better cards incrementally, saving money by adding less expensive cards instead of upgrading to a pricier one (or buying two for CrossFire or SLI). It’ll also help people get ready for virtual reality, which requires high-end GPUs to run.