- Jun 24, 2014
- 288
- 2
- 10,785
My wife wants to have 3 1920x1200 monitors on her home-business computer. The system is a i7-2600K with DH67GDB3 motherboard running Win7. It's currently running 2 1920x1200 monitors on Intel HD Graphics 3000. Intel's website says the HD 3000 supports only 2 monitors and I have confirmed that I can get only 2 out of the 3 video port connectors on the motherboard to work simultaneously.
I'm not opposed to installing a discrete GPU and disabling the HD 3000, but unfortunately, the monitors are digital-only (no VGA) and the case accepts only low-profile cards (single or double-slot). I've scoured the internet looking for a low-profile card that has 3 digital outputs (any combination of displayport, DVI, and HDMI) with little success. I found only two such cards (Sapphire Flex Radeon 6450 and Visontek SFF Radeon 7750), and both had mixed reviews.
What I'm wondering is if I can get away with enabling both HD 3000 and a relatively low-end discrete card to drive different displays in Win7. Graphics performance isn't a concern, but reliability and downtime are. I can't have this computer torn apart for more than a couple hours and I can't end up with a system that has BSODs or a monitor that won't wake up from sleep, etc. I've never tried mixing graphics vendors in the same machine and I've read a few mixed reports. If it's doable, I'd like to go with a GeForce GT 730 + HD 3000, but if mixing vendors is too risky, then I'd go for the Visiontek 7750, unless somebody knows of a better card that fits the bill.
Note that using different monitors isn't an option (yet) and moving the components to a case that supports full-height cards is a last resort due to the extra downtime.
Edit: forgot to mention there are no PCIe graphics power connectors in the box, either, but none of the low-profile cards seem to need them, anyway.
Advice appreciated.
I'm not opposed to installing a discrete GPU and disabling the HD 3000, but unfortunately, the monitors are digital-only (no VGA) and the case accepts only low-profile cards (single or double-slot). I've scoured the internet looking for a low-profile card that has 3 digital outputs (any combination of displayport, DVI, and HDMI) with little success. I found only two such cards (Sapphire Flex Radeon 6450 and Visontek SFF Radeon 7750), and both had mixed reviews.
What I'm wondering is if I can get away with enabling both HD 3000 and a relatively low-end discrete card to drive different displays in Win7. Graphics performance isn't a concern, but reliability and downtime are. I can't have this computer torn apart for more than a couple hours and I can't end up with a system that has BSODs or a monitor that won't wake up from sleep, etc. I've never tried mixing graphics vendors in the same machine and I've read a few mixed reports. If it's doable, I'd like to go with a GeForce GT 730 + HD 3000, but if mixing vendors is too risky, then I'd go for the Visiontek 7750, unless somebody knows of a better card that fits the bill.
Note that using different monitors isn't an option (yet) and moving the components to a case that supports full-height cards is a last resort due to the extra downtime.
Edit: forgot to mention there are no PCIe graphics power connectors in the box, either, but none of the low-profile cards seem to need them, anyway.
Advice appreciated.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram