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Setup for many many monitors

M

Mohonri

Supreme [H]ardness
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Jul 29, 2005
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I've come across a deal where I can get a lot of monitors for really cheap, and I'm looking to build a computer to drive them all. I'd like to drive at least 12 displays, but possibly more (15? 20? who knows?). Gaming performance is not a concern (each monitor will likely be displaying a single web page that refreshes), but using a mass of USB display adapters is not an option.

What I'd like to do is have a setup with a bunch of PCIe cards, but don't know what would work best. The monitors will likely be either VGA or DVI. I'd like to minimize the use of active DisplayPort adapters, while maximizing the number of monitors I can drive.

I'm looking for suggestions for motherboards with lots of PCIe slots, as well as decent (preferably 1-slot) video cards. Can you guys help me out?
 
If you want 15+, I'd go with Matrox. Very decent support. The max they support though is around 1920x1200 for DVI so if you (or your company) plan(s) on upgrading your monitors later down the road to those 3840 monitors you're out of luck. But I'm sure they'll have those supported once those are out. I'm just talking based on my experience as I've never used any other brand when it comes to 8+ monitors. I only use 3 at home.
 
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Quagmire LXIX said:
Sure, look for quality p0rn, not quantity, you only have 2 eyes anyway :D
Click to expand...
Heh, the only porn these monitors will show will be of the Server variety--this will be for work, for monitoring all of our web/database/etc servers.

I could get this motherboard (or maybe this one!) and put a pile of these in all the PCIe slots. That would give me 12 monitors with that first motherboard, 21 with the second. Or, I could go with only two monitors per card and save a bunch of money by getting a few of these.

What do you think?
 
No love for Matrox M9188? I'm not sure why you're buying that motherboard.
 
P4rD0nM3 said:
No love for Matrox M9188? I'm not sure why you're buying that motherboard.
Click to expand...
While driving 8 displays from a single card is alluring, I can't justify shelling out $1700 for it. The motherboard choice is because of the large number of PCIe x16 slots. Is there another that you'd recommend?
 
I got the go-ahead from my boss. Here's what I'm putting in:GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD5 (5 PCIe x16 slots, 1 x1 slot)
AMD FX-4100 Zambezi 3.6GHz (getting with the mobo in a combo at microcenter)
1x HIS H545H1GD1 Radeon HD 5450 (PCIe x1)
5x PowerColor AX5450 1GBK3-SH Radeon HD 5450 (PCIe x16)
8GB of the cheapest DDR3 1600 RAM I can find at microcenter
1TB hard drive (again, cheapest I can find)
OCZ ZS series 750W PSU I won't need all that power right now, but if we upgrade to eyefinity-capable cards in the future, chances are they'll need extra power
An Antec SLK2650-BQE case I've had laying around for years.

Is there any problem with the hardware I've chosen? I plan to purchase the parts today and put it together over the next couple days.
 
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