What card(s) for dual 30 inch monitors?

kalthak

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I jumped on the Dell 3007 30-inch monitor deal in the [H]otDeals, and decided to get 2 since it was cheaper than the single 30 I was looking at. But now I am wondering what video card/cards should I get to power these beasts? :confused:

Right now I have a radeon 4870 w/512MB card which should be fine for the day to day stuff I do in 2D, but I'm thinking it may struggle to push that many pixels in the gaming department. Would a 1gb or an X2 be better? What about nvidia's offerings? I don't really have a preference.

With the right cards could I use both monitors in games? I did some searching and it looks like both SLI and crossfire X support dual monitors, but didn't really see any good review on how well it works.

My system right now is a Q6600 w 8gb ram and vista 64, but I am considering upgrading to a core i7. Games am playing or plan to play soon, Fallout 3, Dawn of War 2, Neverwinter Nights 2. I am not really into hardcore FPSs anymore, but I did like HL2 and will play Doom 4 whenever it comes out.

-k
 
One thing I can tell you for sure is that 512MB is not enough for 2560x1600 gaming. Look at 1GB video cards, be it the 4870X2 or the GTX285. The GTX295 has 896MB which still makes me wince but it seems to perform well versus the 4870X2 anyway. Personally the way I would go is one GTX285 for each monitor.
 
I picked up one of the 30s myself, and SLI 260 is struggling. I would suggest either SLI 280s or a 4870x2.
 
After reading more reviews, I'm leaning toward an SLI 280/285 solution. But I'll have to check and see if I can find a good X2 vs SLI285 comparison on big screens.
 
I seem to recall SLI had problems with multiple monitors. Have those been resolved?

I am also curious if 2x dual-link DVI would be a problem. Be sure and let us know how it works out :cool:
 
you sound like a good candidate for the 4870X2.the GTX295 just is not worth a 100 dollars more given that you have pretty much the same playability. (at 4mp). if you have the money and want to go to an i7 setup then the SLI GTX280 is not bad, but there will be a point of diminishing returns on the money you spend there. right now your setup is pretty good (do you need to upgrade?). I would just drop a 4870X2 in and be done.
 
think I saw a review of TRI-sli 285's that pimp slapped that resolution, cost obviously isn't too much of a concern for you.
 
After reading more reviews, I'm leaning toward an SLI 280/285 solution. But I'll have to check and see if I can find a good X2 vs SLI285 comparison on big screens.

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTYxMiwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==
Well, we included the Radeon HD 4870 X2 in this evaluation. As you saw, since it is a dual-GPU video card it simply blows the pants off of even the new GTX 285 in some games, while coming close in others. In very shader intensive games it has an extreme advantage. In more memory bandwidth cases, it seems the GTX 285 is faster. That is really the problem for the GTX 285 though, it is now competing with the 4870 X2 at these prices, and the 4870 X2 has it outclassed in performance overall.
 
the [H] article mentioned gave a slight win to the 280 in sli over dual 4870x2s but pricing is definitely much closer between the 2 options now. makes it almost a toss-up. I've seen the amd drivers were having problems with the core i7 when it first came out, is this mostly resolved?
 
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