Best card for multi monitor setup

P-Germany

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Hey Friends,

what is the best GPU/Card to use for my work-only rig. I do mainly dev work, Webdesign, massive multitasking with sometimes over 50 browser tabs open on each monitor. I don't game on this PC at all.

My current Hardware:

CPU: i5 4690 @ 3.50GHz
Geforce GTX 750Ti
16 GB RAM
2 WQHD screens with a res of 2560 x 1440

Screens are connected with HDMI and one with DVI since the Card does not have DP.

My questions:

Is this a good way to drive the displays for the application described above?
When i am working with multiple browser tabs and applications I sometimes notice a lag when i am dragging chrome tabs from one screen to another. Also when i open a heavy page and scroll down while it is loading it laggs while scolling. When switiching to resolutions in the 1024 x 786 segment the lag doesn't occur so it seems like the GPU is having a hard time?


Does the GPU impact the performance at all or would an integrated GPU do the job with the same performance?

Would I benifit from upgrading the GPU or is it unrelated. Why do I get this slowdown with the system set up like this?

Thanks for your help
 
Upgrading your GPU would benefit, but for the activities you listed the best bet would be a CPU or RAM upgrade. CPU isn't bad, but everything can be upgraded. See if you can get an i7 6800k-i7 6950x chipset. Also what is your ram speed? 64 GB would be ideal for your situation, but faster ram is always better. Try to always aim for buying DDR4-3000 or higher.
 

P-Germany

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I just updated my RAM. 2 x 8GB are old and 2X 8GB new ones. They had the same description DDR3 but they have different timings. The newer ones are OC edition and have some additonal capabilities.

Is this a problem? Also is the placement of the New ones In DIM A1 and A2 and the old ones in A3 and A4 correct? Will there be a performance disadvantage because they are 2 different types? also is it bad that they are DD3? my Mainboard I think doesn't support DDR4..

Motherboard:
CPU Type QuadCore Intel Core i5-4690, 4016 MHz (39 x 103)
Motherboard Name Asus Z97-K (2 PCI, 2 PCI-E x1, 2 PCI-E x16, 1 M.2, 4 DDR3 DIMM, Audio, Video, Gigabit LAN)
Motherboard Chipset Intel Wildcat Point Z97, Intel Haswell
System Memory 32710 MB (DDR3-1600 DDR3 SDRAM)
DIMM1: Crucial BLS8G3D1609DS1S00. 8 GB DDR3-1600 DDR3 SDRAM (11-9-9-24 @ 800 MHz) (10-9-9-24 @ 800 MHz) (9-9-9-24 @ 800 MHz) (8-8-8-22 @ 711 MHz) (7-7-7-19 @ 622 MHz) (6-6-6-16 @ 533 MHz) (5-5-5-14 @ 444 MHz)
DIMM2: Crucial BLS8G3D1609DS1S00. 8 GB DDR3-1600 DDR3 SDRAM (11-9-9-24 @ 800 MHz) (10-9-9-24 @ 800 MHz) (9-9-9-24 @ 800 MHz) (8-8-8-22 @ 711 MHz) (7-7-7-19 @ 622 MHz) (6-6-6-16 @ 533 MHz) (5-5-5-14 @ 444 MHz)
DIMM3: Crucial CT102464BA160B.M16 8 GB DDR3-1600 DDR3 SDRAM (11-11-11-28 @ 800 MHz) (10-10-10-27 @ 761 MHz) (9-9-9-24 @ 685 MHz) (8-8-8-22 @ 609 MHz) (7-7-7-19 @ 533 MHz) (6-6-6-16 @ 457 MHz) (5-5-5-14 @ 380 MHz)
DIMM4: Crucial CT102464BA160B.M16 8 GB DDR3-1600 DDR3 SDRAM (11-11-11-28 @ 800 MHz) (10-10-10-27 @ 761 MHz) (9-9-9-24 @ 685 MHz) (8-8-8-22 @ 609 MHz) (7-7-7-19 @ 533 MHz) (6-6-6-16 @ 457 MHz) (5-5-5-14 @ 380 MHz)
BIOS Type AMI (03/31/2016)
Communication Port Communications Port (COM1)

03.17.2017-16.08.png
 

P-Germany

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I wonder even after all that tweaking the browser tabs, scrolling and zooming seems a bit laggy on my 2K monitoris (2) on the full hd monitor it seems faster... any ideas?
 



Well that seems normal. With almost half the pixels, your computer is using less processing power and using its ram more effectively. As for your questions, your GPU won't require an upgrade, unless you get into gaming. The lack of speed is all due to your CPU and RAM.
Whats your budget for a new motherboard?
I had a look at the one you listed and it looks like you could use a serious upgrade.
Any new motherboard will give you access to faster ram, better bios and easier overclocking and more.
 

P-Germany

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Thanks for your elaborate answer. The motherboard is only 2 years old and it has some overclocking options + I don't think DDR4 will make such a big difference in terms of browsing and multitasking performance right?

Mostly I have about 30 different browser tabs opened and when I open 5-6 heavy websites (with sliders and fullwith paralax effects) the whole browser starts becoming sluggish and laggy and I need to wait a few seconds for everything to be smooth again.

I can't figure out what makes it slow down so much or is that just normal. I mean, the Rig is not that old and i5 + 32 GB ram with a halfway decent GPU should do the job right?

Currently I have two 2K screens (DVI+HDMI) and another Full HD Screen (DVI) connected to the Card. GPU Utilization seems to be at 20% when i am opening all these tabs. I am an extreme Multitasker and I often click 10tabs with control to open them in sequence and this is where the slowdown happens. Also when there are many tabs opened the overall system performance seems to suffer. I keep wondering how I can get a machine that can take this kind of load. I've had the same problem with all rigs that I owned so far. As soon as the Res. of the monitors goes up and I start multitasking heavily the system slows down a bit. Where is the Bottleneck?

Could it be because of the 2D Clock Rate of the GPU?

nVIDIA ForceWare Clocks
2D GPU: 405 MHz, Memory: 405 MHz
3D GPU: 540 MHz, Memory: 2700 MHz


I don't game at all.
Thanks for your input!
 



Ahhh that would do it. You see, you have a pretty decent processor, but not the best graphics card. On most systems, it's the opposite. Hardware acceleration stops using the CPU when on chrome and lets the GPU handle it, which would explain your situation, as your GPU isn't the best. And that would also fix your resolution issue, as that is mostly GPU intensive also.
 

P-Germany

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GamingEnthusiast420, thanks so much for your support. that makes sense but only partially because if I track the GPU usage during these tasks it's in the lower 20's % so it can't be the GPU? I was under the impression that the GPU is actually quite powerful, expecially since I don't game at all? What about the integrated HD 5000 Graphiscard on the mainboard, will it do better if I disable the external GPU and use the Onboard Graphics? What GPU would you recommend for working/browsing under my conditions?
 



Definitely not the integrated graphics. Your GPU isn't bad at all, but its just not powerful enough to be able to handle 2k resolution, especially not multiple displays. Having %20 usage surprises me, but its probably normal as graphics units are optimized to go full throttle on games and such, and thus it thinks that chrome is something that isn't worth the power.
 

P-Germany

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I see, thanks for the insight. I didn't know all these things. I firgured that the GPU is causing the lag but you are saying that the motherboard and the CPU should be upgraded as they are the bottlenecks? Are multiple high res displays very CPU intensive? What CPU would you recommend. I heard often that i7 is not needed and that the i5 packs plenty of power for "office applications" and by that I understood multi monitore use with high res screens. it seems like that is wrong? and how is the motherboard responsible for that bottleneck?
 



Ok, so we need 2 things to see if there is a bottleneck or not.
First of all, Motherboard can't bottleneck, its just not how it works. I suggested a motherboard upgrade so that you can get faster ram, and a better CPU (not all CPUs fit all motherboards)
To see if there is a bottleneck, all we need is the usage percentage for both components involved (CPU and GPU in this case)
If they are both running roughly the same percentage, then there is no bottleneck to be found. But if they have a large percentage difference, then there is without a doubt a bottleneck present.
As for a CPU upgrade, I would suggest a core i5 6600k or a 7500. Of course, along with that you will need a new motherboard and depending on the motherboard you might need new ram (probably not)
 

P-Germany

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Interesting, so I should make some measurements. What is a good way to see if the ring as a whole is performing as it should. Passmark? I would like to be able to compare it with similar systems to see if there is a problem. Other than that, how can i see the CPU and GPU utilization? I suppose some lag is normal when opening 30 tabs at once? How does it behave on your PC?
 




Sorry for the late reply, I had to go out.
For usage percentage, the only trusted application and the most popular used in benchmarks universally is MSI afterburner. Of course, lag is no surprise when opening multiple tabs, but on my rig I don't have many problems, even when going across my 3 displays (at 2k res). But my system is meant for gaming therefore has more powerful components, so the comparison would be unfair.
 



Thanks for the benchmarks.
After taking a look it is quite obvious that there is a heavy bottleneck caused by your GPU. Although I should mention that since you have turned off hardware acceleration, changing your card would be off little help unless you get into gaming. If you do however get a new card, flipping hardware accel back on may help your problem.
 

P-Germany

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I am thinking of upgrading to the Ryzen processors of AMD but what i researched is that these processors only benifit if you are using multi core application for Video editing and such. I still don't understand the exact requriement for a workstation mainly in webbrowsing. it seems that the upgrades I've mad have changed nothing about the performance. I still don't get the snappiness that i get on one monitor.
 

Stiakas

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Well according to the benchmarks a ryzen proccesor is much faster than an intel one that are on the same price.Benchmarks say that an intel i7 6900k that is overclocked can go past the speed of a ryzen 1800x which is about half the price of the intel one.Bear in mind that you will have to change motherboard/cpu/ram all together and that is gonna cost you some money if you want to get something good.

PS:I didn't see you say anywhere what kind of psu you use but it will probably be enough for the system.

Good luck with the upgrade of your pc if you indeed do it