3 Monitors?? what to do

[DJS2]

Building a ~$700 computer for business related topics (a decent amount of small tasks running in the background). Im planning on a nice C2D build.

Anyways. There are 3 monitors setup (1 for stocks, the other 2 for various things). What is the best way to set it up? Do I need two separate video cards and therefore a mobo with 2 pci-e slots?

 

[AltTabbins]

2 Cards will work. Or if the monitors hava vga ports, do 1 dvi and get a vga splitter cable for the other 2.

Other options are getting a pci-e card and a pci card with 2 dvi slots on each. Or you can try out a usb to dvi. Just google usb to dvi.

 

[DJS2]

Or if the monitors hava vga ports, do 1 dvi and get a vga splitter cable for the other 2.

The monitors are all VGA. But the splitter will make the same image(s) of on two monitors rather than have them separate yes?

 

[dystopic]

not if you use a video card that supports dual-link DVI output... many or most do AFAIK. you just need a Y dongle.

edit: many/most newer cards, anyway

 

[fluxion]

i think they also make cards that plug-in to a pci-e x4 slot, so you dont necessarilly need to get board with dual x16 slots

 

[twsmit]

I would get a mobo with built video and couple that with a x16 card. Plenty of motherboards are out now with either dvi, vga or both onboard.

 

[AltTabbins]

I would get a mobo with built video and couple that with a x16 card. Plenty of motherboards are out now with either dvi, vga or both onboard.

But not all of them will allow you to use both the onboard and a videocard.

 

[sovs]

But not all of them will allow you to use both the onboard and a videocard.

I think most will allow this. I have a matrox pci (dvi +vga) and asus m2n-mx-se (onboard vid) running 3 screens (1280x1024x32), very cheap setup.

 

[twsmit]

But not all of them will allow you to use both the onboard and a videocard.

While I don't have first hand knowledge to argue either way on the current crop of boards, 10 years ago I was running a dual monitor setup with a voodoo 3 pci and onboard ATI graphics.... (ah nostalgia) My educated guess based on past experience is that this should work, however maybe someone else knows for sure?

 

[slideways666]

hardware solution-- matrox triplehead2go -all screens same resolution-- 19"x3= 1280x1024=3840x1024 max resolution...But easy as plug and play

software solution-- SoftTH... Has a config file so you can run differnt monitors and if your running dx10 (vista) with a newer card-- you can run i thin up to 8888x8888(which of course you woudlnt)... But you can basically run any 3 monitors you want.. Though youll need a 2nd gpu-- The best gpu does the render and outputs to the center screen.. The 2nd gpu just does the output to screens 1 and 3.. So doesnt have to be a uber card... But downside is -- setting it up can be tricky..


I went with th2g.. love it-- works great.. But do wish i could do widescreens... Well -- big wide screens i should say.. You can do a th2g with 16x10 and 1280x800 res..

Go to widescreengamingforum for more info..

 

[billb]

Building a ~$700 computer for business related topics (a decent amount of small tasks running in the background). Im planning on a nice C2D build.

Anyways. There are 3 monitors setup (1 for stocks, the other 2 for various things). What is the best way to set it up? Do I need two separate video cards and therefore a mobo with 2 pci-e slots?

Yes you will meed 2 video cards. First off, anything to do with stocks is low res, so even a 64meg PCI card ($10?) is overkill (think of all those rich geezers tracking their stocks on PII computers! ...the brokerage houses gotta keep the res low). As for the other two monitors, if you're not gaming, any 256meg card with dual outputs will be fine (8x, 16x, doesn't matter which). My guess is that a C2D is overkill too for basic business apps. You're talking about something like a P4 2.8.

Oh, and the proverbial Ultramon........

But then, it's your money ...and it's probably deductible, right?