Any 1070 Win10 / 970 OSX dual boot success stories / tips?

[oddparents]

I'm about to take the plunge into using my old 970 as a second card in my machine for OSX.

Got the 1070 for gaming and a little VR fun - but all my music apps live on my Hack (Logic FTW!), and I can't wait anymore on Pascal support.

I have a 4K monitor, but IGFX are HD4600 - no DP, so nothing above 1080p there. Was thinking of using a DisplayPort switch and installing my old 970 as second card. I know Windows will be fine (NVIDIA'S drivers will relegate the old card to PhysX duty), but I'm worried about BIOS, DSDT, or Clover tricks I may have to use to get OSX to ignore the slot 1 1070 and only use the slot 2 970.

Before I take the plunge, has anyone done this who would be willing to help me avoid some pitfalls and stress?

Thanks in advance.

 

[oddparents]

OK - so I'm gonna be "that guy" who replies first to his own thread:

SUCCESS!! There are no guides on this because it is RIDICULOUSLY EASY TO DO. Some of these steps may not apply to you, since I have a very unique machine with both 4K and VR (I do game development in Unity in my spare time).

The only caveat (other than an inconvenient cable swap until my switcher comes in: I have to be plugged into the 1070 to see the BIOS Boot Selection Menu, due to how I have things set up - my Win10 isn't set to boot through Clover.

So here's a "guide" for those nervous about taking the plunge - just do it, it works great!!

• Basically, just popped the 970 into the 2nd PCIex slot (a x8 on my MB).
• When I want Windows 10, I leave the DP connector in the 1070; for OSX, I move the connector to the 970 after I pick the right option in my BIOS' boot selection screen.
• WIN 10: latest NVIDIA driver recognized the 970 and relegated it to PhysX duty - we will see if this translates to performance gains in my work in Unity and across games.
• OSX - I'm running the latest release of Sierra. NVIDIA Web Drivers don't talk to 1070s, so they gave preference to the 970 immediately. My system saw the 1070 as "GTX 970 - 1600x800" and the REAL 970 as "GTX 970 - 404K" (recognizing my Crossover 404K monitor and setting 4K@60Hz) with no issues.
• You may have to move the "system" taskbar to a second monitor, depending on the order Sierra and the Webdriver place your cards in. It's in System Prefs > Displays > Arrangement. Just drag the small white bar to your "dominant monitor.
• DO NOT enable "mirroring" - it causes the lower res display to plap right in the middle of your larger, more capable monitor.
• Acceleration is fully working on the 970 in OSX Sierra. CUDA works, too!

That's it! It's almost plug and play. If you've been on the fence about this one, don't hesitate.

Power use and heat generation are negligable, since the 1070 stays at idle in OSX - just as the 970 does in Win10! I expect to see a good bit more heat once I start rendering and gaming on the Win10 side, since the 970 will ramp up to do PhysX calculations.