New cards for triple monitors?

N

ntba

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 28, 2005
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I just bought myself 3 new HP LP1965 19" monitors, and they are AMAZING :)

<endbrag>

My old ATI X800XL fan also decided to crap out and make a ton of noise right after I bought them, so it is time for a new video card, currently I'm running the noisy X800 and an old PCI vid card that can't handle 1280x1024.

My question to you fine people of [H] is that I'm looking for the perfect and most reasonable way to run these three monitors, with decent gaming performance (which I don't do much) and it must be QUIET :)

I have 3 PCI slots, 1 16x PCI-e and 2 1x PCI-e slots on my A8N-E, lay it on me :D

What would be the best combination? anyone have any awesome triple output cards that aren't crazy expensive, or which PCI + PCI-e combo would work good, mostly DVI ports would be good, the less fans the better.
 
Hows this?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500070

One fan, 5 output types, so if you want to plug in your tv. Just get an HDMI to DVI adapter and your 3 monitors are ready to go. I wouldn't do heavy gaming on it, but one card, imo is the most reasonable way to run.

Edit: While checking its specs, it apparently can only two at a time. But if you need various connectors this is your card.

If not, I would get a cheap 9400 GS PCI, and any cheap Nvidia dual DVI card.
 
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That 9600GT won't support more than 2 screens at a time. (check the reviews) AFAIK only Matrox supports >2 screens on one chip.
You've still got plenty of other options though.

The only single card option that I know of that would support decent gaming performance and three screens would be a 4850X2. Newegg carries a couple Sapphires priced at $260 and, with slightly higher clocks, $280 that have 4 DVI ports.
I wonder if there's any chance that 4850X2 would let you put all 3 screens into span mode (so Windows sees them as one big screen) and run games, preferably with crossfire enabled... I've been wanting surround gaming back ever since I ditched my Parhelia years ago.

Other than that, just do what I always do. Get 2 boards, with GPUs from the same manufacturer. Get one decent gaming board, just spend whatever you feel like spending on it. Then get one modern budget board, preferably from the same series as your main card and definitely get one with the same brand of GPU. For NV treat the GTX/GTS2xx, 9xxx, and 8xxx boards as one series. You can stuff a 16x PCI-e card in a 1x slot. It'll be slow for 3D since it'll only run at 1x, but it'll be fine on the windows desktop. PCI is pretty much the same story. HD video on a 1x or PCI slot might be a problem unless the card is handling the decompression. I'm assuming you'll probably get an ATI 4xxx, NV 9xxx or GTx2xx card as your main board. If you get an NVidia main card, I'd probably get an 8400, 8500, or 9400. If you go with an ATI main card, I'd suggest a 4300 series. Those low end cards are cheap and you can get them with a passive cooler in a 1 slot form factor. They also come in low profile, which is very handy if for some reason you have to put it right in front of your main card.

Don't forget to check your PSU & make sure it can deal with whatever you're considering (particularly the 4850X2 cards...) or post your PSU & system specs if you're not sure.
 
Triplehead2go and whatever card you want to run with it, since your monitors are 1280*1024 you would be able to run at 3840*1024.

One thing that I must mention is that alot of the multiplayer online games don't allow you to run it, other than most valve stuff. I am currently running this type of setup with 3 samsung 204b monitors and it is being powered by a 280gtx.
 
I'd deff prefer something like an X2 for sure!

I have a 500W Antec smart power PSU.

If I go do the 2 card setup, finding the secondary PCI card is not a problem, I just want to know what a good decent and SILENT PCI-e graphics card is today :)
 
For absolute silence, maybe a fanless HD4670 would be the best bet.
 
My setup just has 2 Nvidia cards on an SLI board (not running SLI, of course). Pricing is good, because you're just paying for whatever main video card you want (in my case, GTX 260), then a $30 secondary card (6600 GT in this case - anything weaker lags with HD video) for the third screen.
 
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