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Running on Sierra and Win7/Win10 two Nvidia cards: a gtx 1060 and a rtx 3060

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Sep 11, 2017
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Motherboard
Gigabyte GA-Z170X Ultra Gaming
CPU
i7-6700K
Graphics
HD 530 + GTX 1060 + RTX 3060
Mac
  1. iMac
  2. MacBook Pro
  3. Mac Pro
Classic Mac
  1. Power Mac
  2. PowerBook
  3. Quadra
Mobile Phone
  1. Other
I thought to share this solution as I did various test before buying the RTX 3060.

UPDATE Feb 2023: In reality if you have only 1 Windows installation, so Win 7 or Win 10/11, it's enough you install the GTX 10xx card in the default pci slot (mine is #3) the RTX xxxx in the next one (mine is #2) then you connect one port to a card and the other type to the second gpu.
Once you start on Mac it chooses the GTX 10xx (of course after you installed the proper config and Nvidia web drivers) so you can do your works on a Mac. When you need the RTX 3060 just restart choose the windows installation drive and... it starts on Gtx 10xx after booting if you don't switch your monitor to the other port (mine is Display port). So once you switch to the right port you can see the RTX 3060 desktop display.
It looks that the Pc switch to the port it find a monitor connected to, and because the gtx 10xx is in the default PCI it starts with that one. So all that BIOS things I explained below are not required a part from the one that selects the drives you want select for booting.

So it's very simple to have a build with an "old" Nvidia for Mac and a new Nvidia for PC.

It's a little more complicated as I explain below to have that plus two different Windows installations on two different drives

The Sierra build was done for the last web drivers for the gtx 1060 a few years ago, I didn't change it. As you know putting two cards on this Gigabyte board it bring both PCI to 4x speed instead of 1 at 8x as it was with only the 1060, but to me is fine. So I installed the 1060 on PCI 3 and the new 3060 to PCI 2.
But to add more problems I had also to install WIN 10 that I hate, but required to run certain software. Installed on a proper SSD disk. So I ended up with WIN 7 on NVME, Mac Sierra on SSD disk, WIN 10 on another SSD disk.
Everything, as far as I know (I'm pretty a noob in Hackintosh) was related to Bios settings and NVIDIA Control Panel setting plus a command line command:
- so I left my Bios setting as they were but renamed to "Pc/Mac 1060" when booting Mac or PC using gtx 1060 as main card
- Then I set it up a new preset "Pc 3060" where I choose "PCI 2" as boot card, all the rest similar to the 1060 one
- Having a single monitor, a ultra wide LG 3440 x 1440, I connected the 1060 to HDMI port and the 3060 to Display Port (this set up is a little bit tricky but it turned to be working fine)
- Because NVIDIA software recognize that you've installed an RTX 3060 it requires even in the Win 7 1060 boot disk to install the lates driver for the 1060 too.

Here the examples:

The different profiles I saved in this years, on top the one mentioned here, including Intel Iris Graphics used to test and install the cards.

IMG_5483.JPG



The 3060 profile that choose the right "PCI 2" booting card (on the 1060 is PCI 3)
IMG_5482.JPG



The Boot Option where you choose which disk boots if you don't press F12 to choose it manually (note that I do not keep both Win 7 and Win 10 disk at the same time on the list, had some booting problems as Microsoft gives priority to Win 10 that I hate). So I know could be an hassle to change it manually but again, it saves another bunch of problems I'm not able or I do not like to solve. And at the end, who needs to reboot continuously PC/MAC and vice-versa?
But there is another tricky thing happening about BIOS, as it always starts on the card installed on the main GPU PCIe slot that is #3 in my case, so where is installed the 1060, so I've to switch to HDMI input to see Bios when need it.

IMG_5481.JPG



So here is the screen when you press F12 and can choose if booting Mac or PC for both profiles (SSD 860 is Sierra, SSD PNY is WIN 10 in this pict)

IMG_5480.JPG



This is almost everything about the set up, now few other words on how I work with that.

First the problem I encountered in the first tries: I had to disable CHKDSK on both Win 7 and Win 10 installations, if not every time I change from Win7 to Win10 it keep checking disk and it takes ages, once I disabled it, it rarely ask you to do it, may be for a restore partition or a little one I couldn't disable but it's few megabytes and it takes seconds. (chkdsk is a command line command and you'll find many guides on the net).

Once done that it worked almost flawlessly but I had to do another little job: I opened the NVIDIA Control Panel on both Win 7 and Win 10 installations, went to the Multiple Monitor options (as it sees 2 monitors even if I've only one with 2 connections as explained before) and uncheck the other Monitor: in my case on Win 7 Gtx 1060 set up I unchecked the Rtx 3060 and in Win 10 Installations unchecked the Gtx 1060.
This doesn't mean that you are not able to use them during your session as I'll write later. But it avoids that that panel keeps the other card alive consuming electric power uselessly (the other card measured by an utility software absorb 7/8 W while unused).

The bottom line: using this set up could be a little tricky as I said, but it works. The only real problem for me is having only 1 Monitor, that means I had to switch input (HDMI or Display Port) every time I boot Pc or Mac and this is a little of a problem on this LG one, as they use a kind of tiny joystick on the center bottom of the frame that it doesn't look that solid...

The surprise: once I was working on Win 10 installation and had to switch to Mac for a quick check of one of my emails ( I use the Mac for security and privacy and my old Final Cut Studio sw ) I didn't load the Mac 1060 profile but only choose the Sierra boot disk with F22. As explained above, BIOS always show up on main PCIe card so 1060 on HDMI and with my surprise automatically once chosen Sierra boot disk it started Mac normally on 1060 without any issue!
That means that if you don't need to run two different Windows installations, as instead I do, you can use this set up and easily run the Windows installation on the RTX series and the Mac on the "old" Gtx 10xx! That means you just choose with F22 which disk boots if you need to change the one you put as Default in Bios.


So this is it. Maybe somebody else already wrote about this, and even more professionally, but as noob I thought it may help somebody noob as me!! Take care!
 
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