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Decent PCI card recommendation?

R

reality99

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 22, 2008
Messages
171
I have 2 monitors and am looking to add another one or perhaps two. I have an 8800GT right now so only an open PCI or PCI-e slot and it looks like there are more PCI cards out there.

What is a good PCI card to run 2 monitors-a 22" monitor (1680x1050) and a 32" TV (1366x768)??
 
If you have an open PCIe 16x slot (or a 4x slot that has an open back so a full size card will fit) then a GF210 for $30ish after rebate would be the way to go. Otherwise the 8400 is your only reasonable option, because the 9400's are seriously overpriced and the only other nVidia PCI cards are almost a decade old and will give you major driver headaches since they're no longer in nVidia's unified driver packages. The ATI options aren't really any better unless you're still running XP because Vista won't let you mix drivers and it doesn't work well in Win7. I had to choose between compute on my 5870 and being able to game; I couldn't get both working at the same time.
 
I have the GA-P35-DS3L and the 8800GT takes up the PCI-express x16 slot. I have a free PCI-express x1 slot so unless theres a way to plug a PCI-express x4 or x16 card in that I don't know about, it has to be a PCI card. I am also running Windows 7 on that computer. I would have driver issues running and ATI card with the nVidia card, right? Also, could I run a geforce 9 series card with my 8800 without having to worry about driver issues?
thanks for the help guys!
 
As far as PCI cards goes, the 8400GS is your best bet.
 
In Windows 7 you can have both an nvidia and an and card installed.
 
criccio said:
In Windows 7 you can have both an nvidia and an and card installed.
Click to expand...
In theory yes, in practice it sucked as badly as trying to get multiple GPU cards working in a 9x system did years ago. I tried installing a 5870 and a 8500 a month ago. The result had more fail than the vista marketing campaign or a DP-DVI adapter. The default fail mode broke both CUDA and CAL support (boinc failed to detect either GPU), I didn't try gaming in this configuration so I don't know if it would have worked or not. The work around for getting CUDA/CAL enabled broke WDDM, disabling aero, gaming, and video playback in WMP (VLC still worked).
 
DanNeely said:
In theory yes, in practice it sucked as badly as trying to get multiple GPU cards working in a 9x system did years ago. I tried installing a 5870 and a 8500 a month ago. The result had more fail than the vista marketing campaign or a DP-DVI adapter. The default fail mode broke both CUDA and CAL support (boinc failed to detect either GPU), I didn't try gaming in this configuration so I don't know if it would have worked or not. The work around for getting CUDA/CAL enabled broke WDDM, disabling aero, gaming, and video playback in WMP (VLC still worked).
Click to expand...

Well, that blows. ;)

I have a 5850 and an 8400GS installed and working beautifully.
 
BTW there are a variety of geforce cards made in PCIe x1 from various vendors. While PCIe x1 is obviously bandwidth starved compared to PCIe x16 it is still a lot better than PCI.
 
If you just want extra monitor support and not too worried about performance then you could try picking up a cheap Quadro NV280/285 on PCI.

They come with a dual output cable straight out of the box. usually pick those up for next to nothing on Ebay.
 
I've got a 460 GTX PCIE + 8400 GS PCI for multiple monitors and it works fine.

Note that the monitor driven with the 8400GS may suffer from PCI's bandwidth limitation. 133MB/s means that screen updates are visibly sluggish compared to the display run with a PCIE card. If that's acceptable then go for it. Both cards are recognized by nvidia's driver, no problem.
 
I still haven't decided on a card to get. I will use the 8800GT to run my 2 main monitors, one of which I may play games on (nothing graphics intensive, just BF2). I can't decide which card to get to run my third 22" monitor at 1680x1050 and my 32" TV at 1366x768. I have been looking at this card here, EVGA 8400GS. It got good reviews at amazon and tigerdirect, but the reviews were mixed at newegg. I'd like to spend ~$50, but if getting a 9xxx series card would make a noticeable difference, I'd spend another $30. I will mainly use the third monitor/TV for word processing or internet browsing, although I do sometimes watch movies on the TV from my computer and do not want an obvious "flicker" or bad quality if the card can't keep up with the movie, etc. Keep in mind I only have a PCI or PCI-e x1 slot available. That said, what would you do? Would it be worth it perhaps to mess with an ATI card instead of the 8400GS or 9xxx series card? Or would the drivers give me too much headache? Thanks in advance!
 
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criccio said:
The 8400GS is the perfect second card for more monitors.
Click to expand...

Thanks! That is what I had been thinking, but a few people mentioned there may be visible lag using the PCI slot. I didn't know if getting a better card would help combat this, or if the bottleneck was just the PCI slot itself.
 
I've never heard of that before; nor did I notice it when running an ancient matrox PCI card (pentium mmx salvage) as a spare/troubleshooting device. The only issue I could see would be high CPU loads if watching video using a codec that the 8400 doesn't have hardware support for. Unless your CPU itself is badly dated I don't think you'd have any noticeable playback problems though.
 
DanNeely said:
I've never heard of that before; nor did I notice it when running an ancient matrox PCI card (pentium mmx salvage) as a spare/troubleshooting device. The only issue I could see would be high CPU loads if watching video using a codec that the 8400 doesn't have hardware support for. Unless your CPU itself is badly dated I don't think you'd have any noticeable playback problems though.
Click to expand...

I have an E8400 processor, so it should be able to handle most things without a problem. Thanks for the advice!
 
OK, the lag issue. That's correct. The EVGA 8400GS that I have (same as one discussed a couple posts ago) does exhibit visible lag as compared to the 460GTX or any other PCI-E device. This lag is undoubtedly a result of the slow PCI interface. 133MB/s. Consider 1600x1200@24 bit color. That's 1600 x 1200 x 3 bytes per pixel = 5,760,000 bytes to display the image. Now, "smooth" requires a framerate. But 133MB = 133,000,000 (actually 133MB is more than that, but we're talking about the actual realizable video throughput, not the interface's theoretical bandwidth). So do 133,000,000 / 5,760,000 = 23 FPS assuming you're updating the entire screen.

I do notice that scrolling or updating the screen is more sluggish on the 8400 GS than the 460 GTX. :) The result is indeed a bit of lag when running at high resolution or high framerates. The issue is clearly not the chip, since that amount of throughput is paltry compared to the on-card memory/GPU bandwidth available.
 
Would I be better off going with this PCI-e card then? The reviews scared me away though. A lost of people couldn't even get their computer to POST with it, but it seems they all had Dell computers-mine is not a Dell.
 
Last edited:
Link is broken. :p

I can't offer personal experience though in any case. But I can say that for what I use it for, the PCI-induced lag is not a big deal. You don't buy PCI cards for gaming :)
 
You can use any PCI-e video card in an x1 slot... with a hacksaw. All PCI-E devices are required to work at an x1 link width. I definitely wouldn't recommend PCI. PCI-E 1.0 x1 has almost twice the amount of bandwidth PER DIRECTION than PCI.
 
Whoops! Link fixed. I didn't know I could use any PCI-e card in a x1 slot. Even though the slots dont match up I can still use a PCI-e x16 card in the x1 slot (obviously at a slower speed than the x16 slot). What about a PCI-e 2.0x16 or 2.1x16 card?
 
reality99 said:
Whoops! Link fixed. I didn't know I could use any PCI-e card in a x1 slot. Even though the slots dont match up I can still use a PCI-e x16 card in the x1 slot (obviously at a slower speed than the x16 slot). What about a PCI-e 2.0x16 or 2.1x16 card?
Click to expand...

Yes that's fine but, again, you need to either cut the end of the slot on the motherboard (assuming there's nothing behind the slot to block the card from going in) or take a hacksaw to your card (irreversible). They won't just fit out of the box.
 
reality99 said:
Whoops! Link fixed. I didn't know I could use any PCI-e card in a x1 slot. Even though the slots dont match up I can still use a PCI-e x16 card in the x1 slot (obviously at a slower speed than the x16 slot). What about a PCI-e 2.0x16 or 2.1x16 card?
Click to expand...

No, you can't, unless you dremel/hack the card to fit, and that's iffy at best as this is obviously an "unsupported" configuration. :p In principle, you can take any x16 card and "remove" the extra pins so that it fits in an x1 slot, and it will work. Conversely, you can, in principle, "remove" the end of the PCI-E x1 connector on the motherboard so the card will slide in, and it will work. However, whether it works is contingent on a number of variables: will the card accept x1 operation, will the driver cooperate, will you screw up and short something, etc. :) It would probably work if you're careful, and take your time, but if it doesn't, caveat emptor.

I'd only recommend putting an x16 in an x1 slot if you are OK with losing one or the other part (card or motherboard).

dandragonrage said basically the same thing--I just wanted to drive the point home :)
 
Matt, the PCI-E spec requires ALL PCI-E cards to work at x1. You can mess up the modifications, though. I did mess up a motherboard once trying to mod the slot with the wrong tools, but I have hacksawed a card down to x1 successfully. (Do NOT use a Dremel even if you have a Dremel and no hacksaw. Go spend $5 and buy a hacksaw.)
 
Ummm... your 8800GT can handle two monitors by itself. I don't know why you need another video card.
NM, Looks like you want to go to 3-4 monitors.
You're also not limited to just a video card, you can try a usb video adapter if internal component space is an issue.
 
After looking at it a little more, anything bigger than a standard PCI-e x1 card wouldn't physically fit with my mobo-the southbridge is in the way :/ I went ahead and got the PCI-e x1 card from newegg, and hopefully it will work!

Thanks for the tips everybody!
 
vjcsmoke said:
Ummm... your 8800GT can handle two monitors by itself. I don't know why you need another video card.
NM, Looks like you want to go to 3-4 monitors.
You're also not limited to just a video card, you can try a usb video adapter if internal component space is an issue.
Click to expand...
A USB 2 adapter is bottlenecked about 3x as badly as a PCI card. Until the vendors do a USB3 refresh of their products they're only really useful at very low resolutions.
 
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