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Josh 2009-02-06 21:17
Hi!
I have an AMD system based on an ASUS M3A78-EM Micro ATX MotherBoard ( picture here )
The Onboard GPU is ATI Radeon™ HD 3200 with a VGA (D-Sub) a HDMI and a DVI outut.
There is a PCIe x16 v2 slot free
I'd like to add a Graphic Card in order to use 3x 19'Monitors
I don't need much gpu power as this is mainly for office 2D work @ 3x(1280x1024)
I prefer a "0 noise" card
- Which card should I choose? What Mistakes should I avoid?
- Can I mix DVI and DSub between the 3 Monitors or must I buy a card with Two DVI in order to have all 3 monitors on DVI?
- There are no 3200 based PCIe cards; the nearest GPU I could find is the 3450. Will it use the "same" driver as the Onboard 3200?
- I will use XP pro until Windows7 is available, but I'd like this setup to work under Vista in case Microsoft decides to use Vista's restrictive WDDM in Windows7...
- Should I buy an ASUS Graphic card as my MB is also ASUS?
- The MB is ATI CrossFire™ Certified and I found a Sapphire Radeon HD 3450 256MB PCI-e that is also certified. Would that be a good choice?
Any suggestion and help is welcome!
In advance thank you!
Josh
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ecarlson 2009-02-07 15:12
That's probably fine, though you'll probably have to try it to be sure. It doesn't have to be made by Asus. Hopefully the motherboard will allow the onboard video to be used at the same time as the PCIe X16 video card (that used to be a big issue back in the old AGP days).
I'm running 3 LCD monitors at that res at work in XP. One is on the onboard VGA port, probably an Intel Chipset (don't remember at the moment). Unfortunately this particular onboard video doesn't have the best output quality: Your onboard video is probably much better. The other 2 are on a Matrox PCI card: 1 VGA and 1 DVI.
Both the DVI and VGA outputs on the Matrox card look perfect on my monitors, so as long as you have good quality VGA outputs, and your monitor has a good analog to digital converter circuit, you shouldn't notice any difference, but if you have the choice to go all digital, then that is what I would recommend.
Are you currently running 2 monitors via the onboard video?
- Eric, www.InvisibleRobot.com
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Josh 2009-03-04 23:00
Txs for the answer!
I've been so busy that I didn't have much time building that system. in addition to it, I ordered a card that was to big; I received the replacement "small factor" one yesterday
I should get to it this WE and post the results.
I will not be able to have all DVI as both MB and graphical cards have one DSub+one DVI each, so at least one monitor must be on DSub. Alternatively, I could plug them all on DSubs as I received DVI to VGA adapters...
Josh
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ecarlson 2009-03-05 00:37
Ok, let us know how it goes. I would use as many on DVI as possible. There's no reason to go backwards to VGA if you have DVI ports. You might want to compare the quality of your 2 VGA outputs to decide which one provides a better image (closer to DVI quality) for the 3rd monitor: Hopefully both VGA outputs will be fine, but one might be better than the other.
- Eric, www.InvisibleRobot.com
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