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Looking to run four monitors. Help please.

A

Anniemay

n00b
Joined
Sep 7, 2010
Messages
3
Hey guys. Looking to pick your brains a little. I am currently upgrading my rig (again....) and need some advice. I would like the ability to run three monitors across the bottom with a fourth monitor sitting above the center monitor. I am a CAD draftsman and would like the ability to have my drawing area being three monitors wide with my toolbars and other such stuff set up on my fourth monitor. I would also like the ability to game on the three lower monitors while having my ts or whatever open on the fourth.

I have had some people tell me that I can run four monitors off one 6970. Is this true.

I have had some people tell me that if I was to run two geforces in sli I would lose the ability to use both display ports on each card and would need a third card to run the third and fourth monitors.

Any suggestions on cards or setups would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
 
Does your CAD require graphics acceleration(etc a more powerful 3D Workstation GPU?)

1) for 6970: you can run 2 legacy ports(DVI/HDMI/VGA)... the rest of the ports/monitors, depending on what version you get, you have to run it via Displayport. If you don't have a Displayport monitor, you need to buy an active Displayport->DVI/HDMI/VGA adapter. Those cost between $30(Displayport->SingleLink DVI/VGA/HDMI) and $80(Displayport->DualLink DVI). Some GPUs might have this "active" adapter built in(i think one of the sapphire mid-range cards has that)

Not that sure abouth nvidia cards or SLI, but for base minimum, if you want more than 2 displays, you need 2 nvidia cards at minimum


what monitors(resolution) do you have? Current system(CPU?)
 
You can run a 3x1+1 on a 6970

Two via active mDP and two via DVI as paperwastage said. A single grouping of three and the fourth isolated

nVidia caps at 3 monitors in a grouping. So you can't run a 3 monitor grouping with a fourth on nVidia unless you run three cards, two in SLI.
 
paperwastage said:
Does your CAD require graphics acceleration(etc a more powerful 3D Workstation GPU?)

1) for 6970: you can run 2 legacy ports(DVI/HDMI/VGA)... the rest of the ports/monitors, depending on what version you get, you have to run it via Displayport. If you don't have a Displayport monitor, you need to buy an active Displayport->DVI/HDMI/VGA adapter. Those cost between $30(Displayport->SingleLink DVI/VGA/HDMI) and $80(Displayport->DualLink DVI). Some GPUs might have this "active" adapter built in(i think one of the sapphire mid-range cards has that)

Not that sure abouth nvidia cards or SLI, but for base minimum, if you want more than 2 displays, you need 2 nvidia cards at minimum


what monitors(resolution) do you have? Current system(CPU?)
Click to expand...

When the time comes I'll be running four 24" at 1920x1200. I am currently running a i7 965 extreme processor with a gtx 285 and 12gb of ram. All that runs on one 24" at 1920x1200 and one 22" (can't remember the resolution off the top of my head). I run CAD on it now and have zero issues. It actually runs better than what my rig at work does. The ultimate goal will be to transfer this rig over to my work rig in a couple three years, if I can get my company to go for it. LOL

Might be a little bit of time before I actually get all four monitors but it is coming to the time where I have to say enough is enough. I've been constantly tweaking my rig for the last two years so I want the ability to run the four monitors when I'm finished this last little mod. All I have left is to water cool everything and change out my video card. Once that is done I am taking a break from tweaking my rig.

So from what the two of you are saying it seems like I would be better off going with one 6970 than a couple of 560's or something. Is that right? I've never used ATI before, been a NVidia guy all my life. Might be time to take a leap of faith.
 
cost and performance scaling wise, it makes more sense to get one 6970... though current 6970 designs only allow 4 screens maximum (unless you do DP chaining which is still too young to be considered mainstream and requires you to buy new DP-chaining capable monitors which ???exists???)

if you want 5 screens, you can wait a bit for 6970 Eyefinity 5/6 designs to hit the market, you can go back a little to 5870 eyefinity 6 $250 or ultra expensive 5970 Eyefinity 6 $900, plus those $30 Active (mini)DP->DVI adapters that you need for every display above 2
 
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Just use Crossfire and get 2 cards problem solved and you get more performance and you will have 4 dVI ports or what ever the card has.

I am doing the same for 3d studio max and maya more GPU power is the only way to go anyway if you are splitting between 4 screens you need the extra GPU and video ram.

Ya if you got nvida sorry but ATi is better at multi monitor and don't have stupid restrictions. But you also lose Nvida stupid cuda rendering for stuff like iray Renderer since they bought out autodesk or something to make it Nvida only like they always do.
 
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Thanks for all the help guys. I really appreciate it. Probably going to end up going with a 6970 since all I'm really going to need is four monitors.
 
4 screens - 2 nvidia cards sli
2 Amd cards cfx

1 supports hardware mpe
Other don't
 
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