Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video (
More info?)
DaveW wrote:
> The motherboard has to be pre-wired to do it. It's called SLI, and it
> requires, currently, two NVidia Sli-compatible PCI-E cards and a motherboard
> with TWO PCI-E 16x slots.
> No, you cannot home rig it.
>
It depends on what you want to do... If you want you SLI (that is two
graphics cards that will both drive the same monitor sharing the
workload in certain limited applications that suppot it), you have to go
with NVidia SLI approved cards, with a motherboard with SLI support.
You'll need the bridge connector (comes with the SLI-motherboard) to
connect them to each other. These cards will then each render a part of
the screen on the single monitor (or alternating frames in some
applications) so that they can distribute the workload that way. It's an
expensive option, and very few applications support it, but more will
follow if it catches on.
Now if you just want multiple monitors, that is a lot easier. Many cards
support dual display. If you have a PCI-E slot the selection is pretty
board of cards that over dual display supprt, that is one card drives
two monitors. If you have an AGP slot you have to search a little bit to
find ones with dual display support (Any decent Matrox card, many ATI
cards like the 9600XT for instance). You can also add a PCI card and
many of them will work in this setup (though some will insist on being
the primary display, if you get two that will only work that way - no go).
You can even have dual display with only onboard graphics, Epox makes a
motherboard which uses the Geforce4 engine onboard with two VGA outs on
it. Most onboards will work fine if you add a PCI or AGP card and want
to use the onboard as a secondary display. The usual rules apply, if
neither of them will work in secondary mode it doesn't work.
One of the budget systems I have has a Radeon 7200 PCI driving a second
display & the onboard driving the main display. It's just a courtesy
box I set up so guest could have net access, but I had the parts laying
around, and an abundance of 17" CRTs. It works flawlessly for everything
except games. For games you have to disable one of the cards with that
setup.
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