can 3 monitors be had?

A

alex paik

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 2, 2005
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392
so.. i have dual monitors on my 7800gtx.. and ive been reading up on the lcd case mod and i really want to do it.. can i add another monitor to the card? like the little 5 inchers in svid?

later on, i want to get another 7800gtx to run in sli.. then can i swap it back out to vga instead of svid? i hear vga comes out a lot nicer than svid.. if i do the extra monitor, it will act like i have 3 monitors.. just one really small one right? someone please help before i spend the money on a lcd..
 
You can buy a PCI video card, pop it in, use it and it'll display a 3rd monitor..

I have a PC that has 4 PCI video cards... All 4 monitors display my desktop (different portions of it)
 
My Brother and I were just discussing this. 3 monitors is the way of the future for gaming. I mean Iimagine a setup with one 24"lcd in the middle flanked by two 21"lcd's on each side :) That would make gaming extremely more realistic with true 180 degree viewing,

Matrox was onto to something big a few years with their Parehla card that could run 3lcd in games. It sad to see with these powerful new cards both nVidia and ATI have out, they dont open up this great possiblity
 
so pretty much, i would have to get a pci vid card if i wanted to add another monitor?
 
Labrador said:
My Brother and I were just discussing this. 3 monitors is the way of the future for gaming. I mean Iimagine a setup with one 24"lcd in the middle flanked by two 21"lcd's on each side :) That would make gaming extremely more realistic with true 180 degree viewing,

Matrox was onto to something big a few years with their Parehla card that could run 3lcd in games. It sad to see with these powerful new cards both nVidia and ATI have out, they dont open up this great possiblity
Click to expand...
Yeah, it's a nice idea. Unfortunately, I'm just shuddering at the kinds of framerates you'd get in today's new games if you did that. Someday... :(

And yes, you need an SLI card. If you like, you could pick up a dual-display PCI card as well, running four monitors that way. Or, pick up a motherboard with two PCIe slots (either a dual x8 board, like an SLI, or MSI's open-ended x4 implementation). That way you could run two high-end cards side by side.
 
alex paik said:
so pretty much, i would have to get a pci vid card if i wanted to add another monitor?
Click to expand...

Yes. If you were not using SLI at all. But if you have two cards and your set up for dual cards. You will not be able to use the PCI vid card. SLI only supports one monitor.

If you have your SLI bridge connector set for two cards. You can attach up to four monitors to your GTX's (SLI not enabled). But you will not be able to use a PCI vid card. If you have your SLI bridge connector set to single card. And have another card in the 2nd PCIe slot and a PCI vid card. You will be able to use all three.
 
alex paik said:
so if i have sli 7800gtx's i could run 3 or 4 monitors?
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Yes, if SLI is not enabled. When you turn on SLI. You can only use ONE monitor. Regardless of what cards you have or where everything is plugged in. Only the Primary DVI connector on the Primary vid card will work.

It's all very confusing. I learned that hard way when I spent money on dual GTX's and a PCI FX5200 only to find out that the FX5200 would not work at all if I have SLI enabled or my MB set to run dual cards from PCIe.
 
WHAT????

you can only run ONE monitor with sli??? not even dual view??? OMG!!! that is SOOOO gay.. i got asus a8n-sli board for this reason alone!! dammit! im so pissed..

it kinda sucks..

even if i wanted to run sli to play games, i cant get the case mod lcd to read my temps?? ARGH!!!!
 
well, the purpose i wanted to do the lcd case mod thing was so i could monitor temps and stupid stuff like that WHILE i was playing games.. the only reason to go into sli would be for games.. then i cant monitor my temps if im in games in sli.. which is pretty stupid..
 
The point of SLI is to combine 2 video cards into one. If you turn SLI off you can run up to 4 monitors.
 
alex paik said:
well, the purpose i wanted to do the lcd case mod thing was so i could monitor temps and stupid stuff like that WHILE i was playing games.. the only reason to go into sli would be for games.. then i cant monitor my temps if im in games in sli.. which is pretty stupid..
Click to expand...

Then run a windowed RTHDRBL, it stresses the card more than a game anyway, sheesh.
 
If you really wanna go SLI and still monitor your temps just grab a PCI Video card like the above said (im assuming that would work fine)

Or you know, just buy a temperature monitor for one of your bays... :p
 
what does running RTHDRBL have anything to do with anything? i didnt mean i wanted to run a game so i could see how my computer is doing, i just wanted to look at my case occasionally to see what temps im running..


supposedly, running a pci vid card will not work with sli enabled as previously stated..
 
but i kinda want the cool factor.. and besides, i have a radiator mounted up top and it takes up the top two 5.25 drive bays.. i COULD put the lcd in those two drive bays to make it look not so empty..

i have a lianli v1000 so it's small and i have no more room for any bays.. two dvdrw's and a 3.5 card reader.. two open for the rad..
 
You have a 7800GTX, you don't need to SLI by any means and the performance increase is very unjustifiable, just grab a cheapo PCI card and call it a day. Heck, if you're ever in the NC area come by work and i'll give you one, we've got about 150 in the back.
 
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