Best reasonable way to drive three monitors?

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Dr. X

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We need to build a couple new CAD workstations for the office and instead of giving both new machines to the grunts I'm specing one out for myself and giving my old one to one of them. I found another monitor in our storage room that matches the two I'm using now so I'd like to setup my new machine to run the three monitors. I was going to use a Quadro FX 580, and with that in mind, what would be the best way to drive this third monitor? Should I get a mainboard with integrated video and run it from that? Or should I get an additional card to run it? It seems any card that can run three (or four) monitors would be breaking the bank. Thoughts?
 
Eyefinity? The new 5X00 series was designed to run multiple monitors without added strain to the card. Might be a solution for you. Of course if your monitors do not support display port you'll need to invest in the DP dongle or upgrade the monitors.
 
The monitors are DVI-D. So I'd just need one dongle?
 
Dr. X said:
The monitors are DVI-D. So I'd just need one dongle?
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You can use the cheaper Displayport to VGA adapter and then do VGA to DVI adapter.

That said, what is the 3rd monitor for? If it's just 2D, why not just get a cheap FREE->$25 videocard to add into the system? It will cost less than the Eyefinity adapter itself.
 
the new eyefinity FireGL card has 4 display outputs, might be too expensive for what you want, but you can also use 2 cheaper cards to drive 3 monitors, any 2 cards really, 2 of those quadro cards could work too.
 
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I think any of the Radeon 5xxx series with 2 DVI and 1 Display Port plugs can power 3 video cards. They don't even need to be grouped into an Eyefinity display. You wouldn't want to do that anyway if you're doing CAD work. You will need one active DP to DVI adapter. Don't mess with going through VGA because you'll lose clarity that way, which is no good for doing image related work. The active adapters are $100 and well worth it. You should be able to get this working for less than $300.
 
The FX 580 is basically a Quadro 9500gt.

Does your motherboard have another PCI-e slot to run another graphics card? Eyefinity provides you with triple monitor support, but if you don't have another slot for your 580 then its kind of pointless.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...e=pci_express_x1_video-_-14-129-152-_-Product

There are cards that fit in PCI-E x1 slots but at that point you may as well get the eyefinity card. If you are willing to change the motherboard and you only need to run a third monitor then get a motherboard with onboard video and at least 2 PCI-E slots that can fit a video card to future proof yourself. That way if you hate the onboard video you can just pop another card in.
 
just a heads up, the quadro 580 card only has 1 DL-DVI port and 2 DP ports (only two can be used at once). So if your monitors have DVI only, you'll need an adaptor.

With that said, I would either go with one of the new FireGL cards (if the software 'supports' it). Either that or I'd do what Spare-Flair suggested and grab a cheapo videocard to drive the 3rd monitor if the users not going to be running anything 3D on it.

good luck
 
Maybe I wasn't clear, but this is a new build. I don't have any of the components yet.
 
no NOT get a consumer level graphics card if it's a professional CAD work station. Get a Quadro or FireGL


trust me on this
 
that will work fine for driving 3 monitors, just keep in mind that at least one of those monitors will have to be a display port or you'll need a DVI-Display Port adaptor

What software are the CAD people using? Just basic autocad stuff? or something more advanced (solidworks/unigrpahics/proengineer)?
 
dr.stevil said:
that will work fine for driving 3 monitors, just keep in mind that at least one of those monitors will have to be a display port or you'll need a DVI-Display Port adaptor

What software are the CAD people using? Just basic autocad stuff? or something more advanced (solidworks/unigrpahics/proengineer)?
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Yeah, just basic Autocad Architecture, just 2d work.

Doesn't the card come with the adapter?
 
whats your buget? current gen dedicated workstation cards are going to be about 1000-1500 for a FirePro card or 1500-2500 for a quadro card

last gen is looking at 500-1000

If its just 2d stuff, just get a 5670, for 100 bucks, use the 3x outputs and get a xeon or Core i7
 
doah. Yes, you're correct. it does come with one.


those will work beautifuly then. Good luck with the build.
 
Don't get sucked into Eyefinity for this, if you just need a 3rd display output the cheapest way is to just use onboard video for the 3rd output or a $35 video card add in next to your main video card. If you go this route and are on Vista make sure they are all the same brand of cards though.

This way you can stay on all DVI ports since it doesn't sound like the monitors you're using are going to have DisplayPort, and the Radeon 5xxx option requires 1 DisplayPort monitor (~$180 for 22") or 1 active adapter (~$100).

If you have DisplayPort monitor as an option then a 5670 would work great if you don't need the workstation functions of the professional cards.
 
What's up with this active adapter stuff? I'm not up on displayport. It looks like the cards I'm looking at come with an adapter. What's the difference?
 
Dr. X said:
What's up with this active adapter stuff? I'm not up on displayport. It looks like the cards I'm looking at come with an adapter. What's the difference?
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I have no idea about the Quadro and FireGL cards, but as far as consumer cards go all GPUs are limited to 2 DVI outputs per GPU. Thus, if you want to use 3 or more outputs from a single GPU (like ATI's 5xxx series) you need to use an active DisplayPort to DVI adapter. If the card has 1 DVI output and 1 DisplayPort output, chances are a passive DisplayPort->DVI adapter will work just fine (since that adds up to 2 DVI outputs).

If the card comes with an adapter it will work, but you might not be able to use more of the same adapter. For example, with the Eyefinity6 cards there are only 6 display port outputs. 2 of those may be used with passive DP->DVI adapters. After that, you must use active adapters.
 
kllrnohj said:
I have no idea about the Quadro and FireGL cards, but as far as consumer cards go all GPUs are limited to 2 DVI outputs per GPU. Thus, if you want to use 3 or more outputs from a single GPU (like ATI's 5xxx series) you need to use an active DisplayPort to DVI adapter. If the card has 1 DVI output and 1 DisplayPort output, chances are a passive DisplayPort->DVI adapter will work just fine (since that adds up to 2 DVI outputs).

If the card comes with an adapter it will work, but you might not be able to use more of the same adapter. For example, with the Eyefinity6 cards there are only 6 display port outputs. 2 of those may be used with passive DP->DVI adapters. After that, you must use active adapters.
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Ah, ok. Well, I'm going to run two cards, so one card with have a monitor on DVI and displayport-->dvi adapter, and the other card will just be on DVI.
 
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