Is it possible to have three monitors with 460 GTX + 430GT PCI card??

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sequoia

Limp Gawd
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Sep 21, 2007
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So I have decided to hold off upgrading the entire PC until later in the year, but I still like to have three monitors now if possible.

The monitors are two Dell 2007 and Dell 3007 for PLP setup. Currently I have a 460 GTX card. If I were to buy a PCI card like this 430GT : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500221 can I finally have my three monitors setup? Is there any problem having two different cards? Driver conflict?

Main purpose is for work, so spreadsheets, coding, some web surfing. No gaming.

Thanks
Chris
 
I'm looking at doing almost the exact same thing - I don't game and have those same monitors except with a GTX260 - subbed for an answer!
 
It will work just fine. The only problem will be the bandwidth limitations from PCI. It should be ok for spreadsheets and websurfing.

But videos at full screen can also be an issue. It can make aero disable and give you a stupid popup. But thats about it.
 
Short answer - Yes. Well this is assuming your GTX 460 and 260 respectively can already output to 2 monitors (might be a custom variant with only 1 output for all I know :p).

Long answer -

WDDM 1.0 (Vista) has a limitation where you cannot use multiple drivers. WDDM 1.1 (Win 7) can use multiple drivers. Some examples of needing multiple drivers would be using an AMD card and a Nvidia card. Quadro with Geforce drivers. Etc. You also cannot mix pre-WDDM drivers with WDDM drivers.

So WDDM 1.1 drivers in Win 7 multiple ok. WDDM 1.0 or WDDM 1.1 drivers in Vista multiple not ok.

If you want to double check -
run->dxdiag->display->drivers->driver model

But in both cases here this isn't very applicable either since all the cards involved should be supported by the current detonators using WDDM 1.0.
 
Thanks limitedaccess! I almost bought an old PCI Quadro. I figure NVIDIA and AMD would not work, but Geforce and Quadro should work since they are produced from same company :) Yes, my 460 is already output to 2 monitors.
 
sequoia said:
Thanks limitedaccess! I almost bought an old PCI Quadro. I figure NVIDIA and AMD would not work, but Geforce and Quadro should work since they are produced from same company :) Yes, my 460 is already output to 2 monitors.
Click to expand...


It works just fine, FYI. I run a 6970 for gaming and 2x GTS450 for folding in the same machine, never had a problem with it under Windows 7. Currently using AMD 12.1 and Nvidia 285.something. I can hook up a second montior to one of my Nvidia cards and extend the desktop if I want to.
 
Yes with Win 7 and WDDM 1.1 drivers you can mix and match. The vast majority of current consumer cards you can purchase new will have WDDM 1.1 drivers from either side via the later detonators and catalysts.

In case there is a misunderstanding about my post. Multiple drivers have limitations if the drivers use WDDM 1.0 or you are using Vista only. A lot of people still use Vista so I wouldn't want to not consider that possibility.
 
vsboxerboy said:
I'm looking at doing almost the exact same thing - I don't game and have those same monitors except with a GTX260 - subbed for an answer!
Click to expand...

Just FYI. It seems that PCIe 1x is a better solution - if your board has one.
 
I believe I have a x4 slot so that should work.

I was also toying with the idea of waiting for a bit and picking up a higher end card with >= 4 outputs so I can run a small monitor below my main monitor for git and gchat :p
 
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