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Forums -> Multiple monitors -> Best card(s) for 4 UXGA monitors with Vista Aero?
Greg Stevenson   2008-04-03 10:42
Building a new system primarily for software development and will be running multiple virtual machines. Right now I'm looking at a Q9450/Q9550 with 8GB ram running either Vista Ultimate x64 or Server 2008 as the host OS. I want to have four monitors at 1600x1200 (possibly WUXGA as well). Reading the forum posts, I am concerned about performance under Aero glass which will need to be enabled in at least some testing scenarios. So I'm looking for suggestions for cards (and possibly MOBOs) that will give good performance in this setup. Most of the posts on graphics cards seem to only address single monitor or lower resolution situations. Can be either one quad or two dual cards. Must work well with UltraMon of course.

Any suggestions would be most appreciated.

Thanks,
Greg
Christian Studer   2008-04-03 10:55
I use two Nvidia Quadro FX 3500 PCIe x16 cards for 3 monitors running at 1280x1024 each, performance with Aero is excellent on 64-bit Vista.

Christian Studer - www.realtimesoft.com
Greg Stevenson   2008-04-05 00:19
Christian,

Looked at the specs and it seems like a perfect fit. Also looked at the price (ouch), but hey if I was willing to buy a Hercules card back in the day, I can spring for a pair of these.

Thanks very much for the suggestion!

Greg
Greg Stevenson   2008-05-09 07:32
>>I use two Nvidia Quadro FX 3500 PCIe x16 cards for 3 monitors running at 1280x1024 each, performance with Aero is excellent on 64-bit Vista.

Ok, Christian. I got 64-bit Vista and a 3500, but only the first channel seems to work. Vista seems to recognize the second DVI as some generic monitor and nothing shows on the display. Doing a search indicates that I am not alone and Nvidia has not responded to posts regarding the issue. You apparently did not have it or found a resolution. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Greg
Christian Studer   2008-05-09 11:35
As far as I remember this worked fine for me out of the box, the system is a Dell Precision 690, both video cards were already installed.

I'm currently using the 162.65 Nvidia drivers, and all 3 monitors are connected via DVI.

Christian Studer - www.realtimesoft.com
Greg Stevenson   2008-05-09 13:46
Christian,
Your response is going to cost me many hundreds of dollars. Before making the post I used Vista's let me grab the latest driver feature. It's useless. After seeing that you had no problems and your driver version, I went to Nvidia and got the latest driver (now 169.47) Things are now as they should be and I'm going to get my second 3500 and two more monitors. Thus the $$$. ;-)

Thank you very much!!
Greg
GregS   2008-06-08 14:42
Christian,
Just an update. Got my second 3500 and two more monitors. It ROCKS!!!

Again, Thank you very much!!
Greg
Christian Studer   2008-06-09 11:15
You're welcome, glad to hear it's working fine!

Christian Studer - www.realtimesoft.com
Daniel   2008-07-04 02:04
Hi. It would be great to see some screenshots of your system.

I'm looking forward to it ;)
Kent Brodman   2008-07-08 23:59
What do you think of a Matrox M9140 for Vista?
http://www.tweakpc.de/news/14251/matrox-extrem-desktoping/
:)
Forums -> Multiple monitors -> Best card(s) for 4 UXGA monitors with Vista Aero?

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