4 30" monitors-Dell says "No"

L

Leer

n00b
Joined
Sep 23, 2004
Messages
3
It’s not for me, if for the CEO.

I thought I had the answer from the net but Dell tells me I am wrong


I would like to run four of the dell 30 inch monitors on two nvidia 8800GTS/GTX (non SLI) at low resolutions in the 1028 range. Has anyone see four monitors running off two 8800’s?

This is for an owner of the company and although the budget is generous I can’t do $6,000 in monitors and another $9,000 in a workstation to run it per Dell’s recommendation.
 
You mean you want four monitors to all display the same desktop? I'm pretty sure you need a Quadro card or something of the sort to do that. Someone in the display forum has done it, but he had to buy a special card I believe.

P.S.
What the hell does your CEO need FOUR 30" monitors for?
 
Two 8800's can run 4 monitors but my first question is this:

As stated they will not be SLi so this is not for gaming but for "work related" material. If this is the case most 7 series can do the same and save you a nice chunk of change.

The answer here lies in how you want the monitors set up.

Do you want:
- All 4 to display the same image.
- 1 exceptionaly large desktop spread across 4 monitors
- A mix of the two

If size is not an issue either I would direct you to the Westinghouse 37" LCD monitor.
These are prices at about $1000 and 2 of these bad boys should provide the same real estate required.
Many people use this as a TV but it also serves well as a monitor as it has 2 DVI connections and can output 1920x1080 at 60hz or a smaller (albeit little fuzzier) resolution.

2- LVM37-W3 = $2000
1- 8800 GTX=$600

Total=$2600 :D
Again, if space is not an issue here.

P.S. http://www.tech-recipes.com/windows_tips523.html
Clone mode by default in windows allows each monitor to display the same image.
Stretch will give you one huge viewing area.
 
You should be able too, but whether the drivers do it or not is a different story.
 
I think the problem lies in Dual Link Mode... A 30" display should need both DVI connectors in order to function properly...
 
I don't see why you wouldn't be able to, each DVI port can do 2560x1600, so you should be able to run 4 30"ers at 2560x1600 on two 8800 GTS, of course you will have to have SLI disabled. If you want better gaming performance I'd recommend the 8800 GTX, if you enable SLI you'll lose 3 monitors and be down to 1 while SLI is enabled, but you can enable/disable SLI as needed with a restart.

I run 3 LCDs on two GF7 series cards just fine.
 
You'll be fine, I've run 3 monitors with my dual X1950XTXs and 4 off of my dual quadro 4500s. Just make sure the cards you buy have dual link dvi connectors. I believe every 8800 has two. You don't have to run 4 of the same image or 1 large image. You can setup the monitors however you see fit within windows and even run different resolutions if you want to. I run two 1280x1024 and one 1920x1200 in the middle right now, three distinct screens that you can minimize and maximize to and from.
 
I tried to keep it short for a fast read but skipped some info.

It is to run 4 different desktops at a lower res do to older eyes using the system.
1 email
1 web
2 camera

The last 2 are going to be used to watch his house being built via security camera. We are in Vancouver and the house is in Mexico.

A 7 series card is an option as well but he does have a 19 year of gamer in the house as well.
 
I just got off the phone with EVGA and the tech read me some info from his KB and it is possible.

Just as other have send in this forum and others I visited. It is possible to use 7 and 8 series cards to run 4 DVI lines to four monitors in non SLI mode only.

Thanks for the fast replies. I wish finding a house in Vancouver was this responsive.
 
It's also possible to do with a single (but expensive) matrox QID card, if you don't need much acceleration and will be running at lower resolutions (up to 16*12 I think). You can find look at them here. But you would have more flexibility using Nvidia or ATI cards.
 
Arcygenical said:
I think the problem lies in Dual Link Mode... A 30" display should need both DVI connectors in order to function properly...
Click to expand...

Dual Link DVI is NOT the same as connecting two DVI ports.

No offense, but for someone who has been around here for a while that is a pretty noobish mistake.
 
Leer said:
The last 2 are going to be used to watch his house being built via security camera. We are in Vancouver and the house is in Mexico.
Click to expand...

Psychiatry is covered by BC's health insurance. I think he needs that more than a fancy computer.:rolleyes:
 
Leer said:
It’s not for me, if for the CEO.

I thought I had the answer from the net but Dell tells me I am wrong


I would like to run four of the dell 30 inch monitors on two nvidia 8800GTS/GTX (non SLI) at low resolutions in the 1028 range. Has anyone see four monitors running off two 8800’s?

This is for an owner of the company and although the budget is generous I can’t do $6,000 in monitors and another $9,000 in a workstation to run it per Dell’s recommendation.
Click to expand...

okay, you can tell when some guy is wrong when he's a dell rep. I've been fed countless bs from dell when it comes to hardware. The internet is more reliable.
 
The Gonz said:
If size is not an issue either I would direct you to the Westinghouse 37" LCD monitor.
These are prices at about $1000 and 2 of these bad boys should provide the same real estate required.
Click to expand...
No, the 37" westinghouse will most certainly NOT get you even half the real estate.

The resolution on the westinghouse is 1366x720 per 37"

The resolution on the dell 3007wfp is 2560x1600. per 30".

You do the math.
 
Damuman said:
No, the 37" westinghouse will most certainly NOT get you even half the real estate.

The resolution on the westinghouse is 1366x720 per 37"

The resolution on the dell 3007wfp is 2560x1600. per 30".

You do the math.
Click to expand...

Real Estate = Total Viewable Area != Total Pixels

Not to mention the westinghouse 37in is 1920x1080
Looks like you missed the 100page Thread about the monitor :rolleyes:
 
Damuman said:
No, the 37" westinghouse will most certainly NOT get you even half the real estate.

The resolution on the westinghouse is 1366x720 per 37"

The resolution on the dell 3007wfp is 2560x1600. per 30".

You do the math.
Click to expand...

The crummy version of the 37inch westinghouse is not being discussed. The 1080p version is.
 
J-Mag said:
Dual Link DVI is NOT the same as connecting two DVI ports.

No offense, but for someone who has been around here for a while that is a pretty noobish mistake.
Click to expand...

None taken. I admit that I don't know much about graphics cards, and I can't afford more than 2 20" widescreens. Overclocking, cooling (especially water), modding and silencing are my areas.

I don't really game, so I could really care less about GPU terminology.
 
Arcygenical said:
None taken. I admit that I don't know much about graphics cards, and I can't afford more than 2 20" widescreens. Overclocking, cooling (especially water), modding and silencing are my areas.

I don't really game, so I could really care less about GPU terminology.
Click to expand...

Ahh, that would explain it ;)

I assumed everyone around here gamed, at least on occasion. Anyway, I had thought that dual link DVI was two cables hte first time I ever heard of it when the 30in Apple display was announced. Also, I have seen at least 4 or 5 posts with this error on this forum alone...

Interestingly I saw that the Quad HD panels shown at CES are actually run by dual dual-link connectors. SO there are some monitors out there that use two cables. :cool:
 
The phrase is: "couldn't care less"

If you "could care less" it means that you have some amount of "care" which you could lose.
 
mjz_5 said:
stop saying shit. dual link doesn't mean two DVI!
Click to expand...

Thats already been mentioned and done read the thread and dont be a dick.

To the OP It can be done but do you really want to run them at such low resolutions?? It will look pretty bad 1024 on a 30" = yuck
 
J-Mag said:
Real Estate = Total Viewable Area != Total Pixels

Not to mention the westinghouse 37in is 1920x1080
Looks like you missed the 100page Thread about the monitor :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I know that resolution is total pixels which is total area, that's my argument.

Anyway i avoid westinghouse at all costs because of my time working at the company that owns them. There's always a reason stuff is cheaper, and theres a difference between cheapest price, and best price.
 
Hmm, the original poster says his CEO is gonna' use them at low resolution (i.e. not the native resolution) because he’s visually impaired. That completely negates the reason for purchasing a >$1200.00 30” LCD monitor. He would probably be just as happy with some cheaper 30” LCD TVs at 720p. In fact, the text would probably be easier for him to read…
 
I would agree... dont run LCDs at non native res... get LCDs that fit the res size that he wants...


its not as simple as buy the most expensive things...
 
heck with that low of res, you can run it on one agp card and one pci card.

sad to see all that hardware go to waste

at that low of resolution get 4 of these
http://stores.channeladvisor.com/Bigcitydirect/items/item.aspx?itemid=530103

or

http://www.spectroniqstore.com/product/details/9
13x7 res and dvi inputs

are the security cameras controlled by the computer? do they have their own input card and output through the computers video card? if not just run the feeds straight to the tv and have any single video card computer run the other two.
 
Ease off people! Damn, the question is simple, YES two of those cards WILL be able to run the 4 monitors. Each DVI port is dual link, and the GPU can easily output that level of resolution in a workstation envrionment...I don't think it would perform 3d apps very well under that level of load...

Dell doesn't support or acknowledge a ton of things that their equipment can do. They say a 3007fpw won't run on my m1710, but it does just fine.

DO NOT run it in low res mode though. If you do it WILL look like crap. The pixels in an LCD are actual, physical units. If the monitor is rated at 2560x1600, then that is the actual number of physical pixels. If you lower the resolution, the system has to use software to combine some of the pixels so that they show the same thing, and the image starts to look blocky, especially on a monitor that big. If you want lower resolution, buy a monitor that supports the native resolution you want. I can't imagine anyone paying $4800 for monitors and then crippling them with low resolutions.

(Look at dells outlet monitors...they are completely re-conditioned, so they are as good as new with the exact same warranty as the new monitors...you can get the 30's for ~$1050 each)
 
rather than lower the resolution just turn up the font size, use large icons, etc.
Windows has a ton of built in features to make it easier for grandma to read her email or your blind CEO to see his pr0n
 
Brent_Justice said:
I don't see why you wouldn't be able to, each DVI port can do 2560x1600, so you should be able to run 4 30"ers at 2560x1600 on two 8800 GTS, of course you will have to have SLI disabled. If you want better gaming performance I'd recommend the 8800 GTX, if you enable SLI you'll lose 3 monitors and be down to 1 while SLI is enabled, but you can enable/disable SLI as needed with a restart.

I run 3 LCDs on two GF7 series cards just fine.
Click to expand...

Good lord, how many of the [H] staff use three monitor setups?

Kyle does, I do, you do and I think Steve does too.
 
I want 4 :p

I do have another LCD I could plug in :D

Actually, 3 is the sweet spot right now, 1 connected to SLI'd video cards, the other 2 connected to a third video card. If I went to 4 then I'd have to get a 4th video card, cause I want SLI enabled at all times, and right now you can only have 1 display enabled with SLI enabled on those two video cards.
 
Just two 19" 1440x900 LCDs here :(
I get by though...
the HDTV doesn't count as it is only on for movies and NFS
 
The Gonz said:
If size is not an issue either I would direct you to the Westinghouse 37" LCD monitor.
These are prices at about $1000 and 2 of these bad boys should provide the same real estate required.
Many people use this as a TV but it also serves well as a monitor as it has 2 DVI connections and can output 1920x1080 at 60hz or a smaller (albeit little fuzzier) resolution.
Click to expand...

The two previous 37" Westinghouses were "LTV" models, whereas the w3 is an "LVM"...

"M" stands for monitor, so it should (better) work well as one...

If this CEO needs to just make things big, so now you will just run the monitors in native res for him, how about just a plethora of cheaper LCD monitors connected via Matrox's TH2G?

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/gxm/products/th2go/home.php

Not positive, but if you have four outputs, I think with this you could connect 12 monitors to one computer... (there's a DVI one coming soon as well) Buying a dozen cheap monitors with a ~$250 device (per each three-monitor set-up) to connect them all (and can give you a potential combined real estate of 3840x1024, if you wish) is still cheaper than a $1K 1080p monitor (with less potential res)

Well, it's another potential option anyway, so I wanted to throw it out there...
 
I agree with the sentiment that running the lower res on one of those higher res monitors is a bad idea. Things might get bigger but that will probably not translate into "more seeable" (is seeable a word?). No, you will want to keep your resolution high (at native) and use windows various "accessibility" options to make icons bigger, zoom in on web pages, email, etc. For the love of Pete, don't drop the resolution below native.
 
Eshelon said:
I agree with the sentiment that running the lower res on one of those higher res monitors is a bad idea.
Click to expand...

OTOH, if the source is a camera in Mexico, it will max out at something like 720x480 (I forget, whatever a largish video camera handles these days - I'm assuming it's not a fancy HDTV camera - it might even be a webcam at either 640x480 or 320x240. What is being used to get the video from Mexico to the office anyway?)

At those resolutions for source, it doesn't matter much what they do on the monitor, the image will be mediocre. A camera that can do 2560x1600 in colour with a decent frame rate would be $$$$ and that kind of bandwidth from a construction site in Mexico would cost a lot more than I would be willing to spend.
 
phide said:
Dan should be here shortly.
Click to expand...

Did someone say my name?

Brent_Justice said:
I want 4 :p

I do have another LCD I could plug in :D

Actually, 3 is the sweet spot right now, 1 connected to SLI'd video cards, the other 2 connected to a third video card. If I went to 4 then I'd have to get a 4th video card, cause I want SLI enabled at all times, and right now you can only have 1 display enabled with SLI enabled on those two video cards.
Click to expand...

I agree. Unfortunately right now I have to disable SLI in order to use my other two monitors.
 
J-Mag said:
Real Estate = Total Viewable Area != Total Pixels
Click to expand...

No. Screen real estate means how much space you have on your desktop. Will you be able to fit more documents on a 6000x6000 10" monitor or a 1000x1000 pixel 60" monitor? Fact is, the 30" dell gives you more real estate then the 37" Westinghouse unit.

- On topic:

There are a few ways you can do this. I'm not exactly crystal on whether or not this monitor requires 2 DVI inputs or not, for now we'll assume the worst that it does. Fear not you have a few options.

1. Get 4 video cards with dual DVI inputs. You'll want to pick up 2 PCIE cards i'm sure, you can also get 2 PCI cards with dual DVI inputs. There are quite a few available in fact, here's a complete list from newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&Subcategory=48&description=&Ntk=&srchInDesc=

The X1300 looks like a nice choice in particular.

2. You could also go for a motherboard that supports more then 2 PCIE slots, such as this one, which has 3:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813121060

The PCI bus has a limited amount of bandwidth, and driving 2 30" monitors might just overtax it a bit. I'd suggest doing ab it more research though before hand and making sure that everything will work correctly with the hardware you pick out.

3. Use 2 seperate PCs, 1 to handle video, the other to do his tasks.

----------

I notice people pointing out that the video resolution will be a lot lower then the monitor resolution is... His house isnt going to be under construction forever, and eventually he'll probably use them for regular work, so i dont think this is to big a deal.
 
twoeyes said:
No. Screen real estate means how much space you have on your desktop. Will you be able to fit more documents on a 6000x6000 10" monitor or a 1000x1000 pixel 60" monitor? Fact is, the 30" dell gives you more real estate then the 37" Westinghouse unit.

- On topic:

There are a few ways you can do this. I'm not exactly crystal on whether or not this monitor requires 2 DVI inputs or not, for now we'll assume the worst that it does. Fear not you have a few options.

1. Get 4 video cards with dual DVI inputs. You'll want to pick up 2 PCIE cards i'm sure, you can also get 2 PCI cards with dual DVI inputs. There are quite a few available in fact, here's a complete list from newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&Subcategory=48&description=&Ntk=&srchInDesc=

The X1300 looks like a nice choice in particular.

2. You could also go for a motherboard that supports more then 2 PCIE slots, such as this one, which has 3:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813121060

The PCI bus has a limited amount of bandwidth, and driving 2 30" monitors might just overtax it a bit. I'd suggest doing ab it more research though before hand and making sure that everything will work correctly with the hardware you pick out.

3. Use 2 seperate PCs, 1 to handle video, the other to do his tasks.

----------

I notice people pointing out that the video resolution will be a lot lower then the monitor resolution is... His house isnt going to be under construction forever, and eventually he'll probably use them for regular work, so i dont think this is to big a deal.
Click to expand...


unless i misread ur post.. you do not need 2 dvi ports for a dell 30 inch.. dual-link is just one dvi port with increased bandwidth.. so, all the user needs is 2 ati x1600 and he'll be perfectlly fine. while working at ATI, ive connected a crap load of monitors while testing.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top