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Hazel 2008-12-25 11:43
I'm looking at purchasing three widescreen 1920x1080 monitors (possibly 1920x1200) and a motherboard/GPU combo to drive them.
I will have each monitor in portrait orientation, all side-by-side, for a total combined desktop of 3240x1920. In the future I may add a fourth monitor.
I can choose my own monitors, but I'm looking for advice on the PC side of things. I have used dual-head cards before, but not multiple cards, or 3+ screens. In particular I'm keen to know if there are any 'gotchas' I need to watch out for, as regards installing multiple graphics cards.
If possible, I wouldn't mind if my GPUs can handle Vista's Aero interface, but that isn't the be-all-and-end-all.
1. Is the best plan to buy an SLI motherboard (so that I can install two dual-DVI PCI-E cards in the x16 slots, albeit with SLI disabled)?
I have noticed in the gallery that many people simply use PCI graphics cards. However I'm guessing (a) I will have far fewer cards to choose from, (b) many of these wouldn't be up to the job of the Aero interface, and (c) these might not have enough memory to cope with driving dual high-res displays? Also (d) in the past I have noticed suppliers charging a premium for decent-spec PCI cards - presumably the market is a bit more niche since PCI-E became dominant.
2. What is the minimum PCI / PCI-E standard I should be looking at? In my research I came across a guy saying there was no actual need to get a PCI-E x16, as in reality the gain over x4 would not be noticeable. Having said that, it seems that most cards are x16 anyway. But getting twin x16 cards restricts my choice of motherboard. I haven't yet come across any motherboards that have twin x16 slots without also having SLI or Crossfire, which are totally redundant for my purposes.
3. Are dual 1920 by 1080+ resolutions going to be a problem for some/most graphics cards? I have read about several dual-head graphics cards that can only drive DVI displays up to 1600x1200.
4. Can anybody recommend any cheap-and-cheerful motherboard/GPU combinations that will be up to the job? Have I basically got bags of options, or is there anything I need to watch out for?
Note that I won't be doing much in the way of 3D graphics. I will simply have dozens of windows open, many with some basic 2D DirectDraw animation, but nothing very taxing.
Nevertheless I do want to be able to drag windows around without compromised performance or jerky screen update. Further, absolute reliability is crucial. I can't afford to use a flaky system due to GPUs that don't 'like' coexisting with a second card.
If going dual-PCI-E is likely to be less hit-or-miss than taking a gamble with PCI cards, I can deal with paying a little extra for the privilege. For example I read an anecdote that a guy had to put one of his GPUs in a particular PCI slot to get his system to boot! Doesn't bode well! My intuition would be that SLI/Xfire systems are DESIGNED to have dual GPUs, and so might be less likely to run into problems...?
Other than the high resolutions and the number of screens, I have minimal requirements, so I'm hoping I can do this fairly inexpensively.
Thanks in advance.
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ecarlson 2008-12-25 16:50
Shouldn't be a problem. A matched pair of sub $100 (maybe even sub $50) dual-dual-link-DVI video cards and a $100-ish motherboard with dual PCI-e 16X slots should work. I don't have any specific cards or motherboards to recommend, but from taking a quick look at NewEgg, it looks like there should be dozens of each to choose from.
- Eric, www.InvisibleRobot.com
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Roberto 2009-01-01 22:35
hello there.
I had the same question, and have 3 HD monitors. ( Vista 64 )
What you can do is use the Asus 3870x2 4 x dvi model.
http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?modelmenu=1&model=2057&l1=2&l2=8&l3=636&l4=0
It's one card, needs 1 slot, and my guess is that you can get them for around 300 euro, since they are getting absolete.
good luck
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