Office computer to power multiple monitors

[General Crespin]

We're setting up something in the packing area of our greenhouse, where we'll have two or three flat-screen monitors on one wall for order status, and then one more monitor for input.

Am I correct in my thinking that we can have two cheap dual DVI/VGA video cards for this? One in the PCI-E slot and one in a normal PCI slot, or the AGP slot if the motherboard has one?

Thanks for your help!

 

[scotlandrocks]

Yeah you can do it like that. Though if you already have a graphics card that has two outputs then you can just plug one monitor into each of them.

 

[nst6563]

There are also some cards (off hand I know Matrox has them) that have quad monitor support. Prolly a little pricey though for what you're wanting to do though since the cards with quad support are geared toward the graphics/cad workstation market. We have a dell in one of our offices that has such a matrox card in it. uses a special connector on the back that looks similar to a DVI connection, but breaks out into either two standard DVI ports, or two standard VGA ports. The card can support two such dongles for up to 4 monitors.

 

[General Crespin]

scotlandrocks, we need two dual output graphics cards.

nst6563, those cards were the first that came to mind, but when I did a little research into them, I quickly realized those, while nice, weren't what we need.

 

[nst6563]

well...on the other hand, you can pick up a Matrox G450 with dual monitor support for less than $50 these days. To accomodate the other two monitors, you could use a PCI Millenium or other dual monitor card.

Not sure of any other cards in PCI that support dual monitors though. I suppose you could always add 2 PCI cards with one monitor each...as long as the price was right and you didn't need the extra slots.