Cheapest GPU for multi-monitor Office PCs

king3pj

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My office wants to go paperless and switch to multi-monitor setups. Since I'm the only one in the office with experience building or even upgrading PCs figuring out how to get this done became my job.

We have Dell Optiplex PCs with i5-4590 CPUs. There will be no gaming or graphics work done on these PCs. We just want to be able to do typical office work across dual 1080p monitors. I know that the Dell PSUs are not suitable for most GPUs so we need something that can draw all the power necessary from the motherboard.

With me being a PC gamer at home the first thing that came to mind was the GTX 750Ti or 1050 since they don't require PCIe power cables. Both of these probably provide quite a bit more performance than we need though.

Is there a cheaper option from Nvidia or AMD that is capable of driving two 1080p monitors for general office work without requiring a PCIe cable. We need to buy a lot of these to cover each PC so the cheaper the better.
 
Solution
Why get a GPU? I'm sure the CPU should be able to handle it. I work inside of a Dell buidling, and we use Optiplex 9020s and we have adapters and splitters to work with dual screens. Some desks (like the one I am typing on) is able to have 3 screens. No GPU needed as the VGA is directly into the motherboard.
Why get a GPU? I'm sure the CPU should be able to handle it. I work inside of a Dell buidling, and we use Optiplex 9020s and we have adapters and splitters to work with dual screens. Some desks (like the one I am typing on) is able to have 3 screens. No GPU needed as the VGA is directly into the motherboard.
 
Solution

MWP0004

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Oct 26, 2016
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I'm typing this on a Dell Optiplex 3020 with the i5-4590, and I currently just have one HDMI and one VGA straight out of the motherboard into my dual monitors. Works like a charm.
 

ikaz

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Yeah no need for GPU as long as you dell PC have additional output I can't comment on Dell but I know business HP PC have a VGA and at least one display port connect for the last 5 years so for so I would expect the same for your dells.
 

king3pj

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Thanks for all the quick answers guys. We looked into doing this a few years ago but our older Dells only had one VGA output each. I assumed our current machines did too but it looks like all of them have one VGA and either 1 Displayport or HDMI port depending on the machine.

I also have to admit that I wasn't aware that integrated graphics were enough to support two monitors.
 


No problem. The splitters we use is form BizLink. I guess your research can start there. If Dell trust them, then I am sure it is worth it. Hope this helps.
 

king3pj

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These are the exact machines we have. The only exception is two Optiplex 3010s. Both of these have 1 VGA and 1 Displayport while all our 3020s have 1 VGA and 1 HDMI.
 
If you can, you can try to grab splitters, since they are not that expensive. Not ALL monitors except HDMI. But if it is 1080p, you can should have it. But if the computer only has DP, you can get a DP-to-HDMI, like I have at home. And it works wonders